Saturday, February 23, 2008

 

Not even a Lent thing.


You'd have thought with all my manic bouts of exercise that I'd be slim, taut and terrific. Unfortunately only the terrific part is true.

Hah! Not even that!

But, no. I am still carrying 8-10 kilos more than I'd like (and given that I did successfully get to an ideal weight just before I fell pregnant with #3, I know that a better weight is achievable post-babies. I also remember how much better I felt about myself back then.

My current weight comes in just above my supposed healthy weight range, so I really do have a health inducement to do something proactive.

But I've been deluding myself. Somehow I think that I SHOULD be able to eat and drink what I want IF I do all this mad exercise. But it's not working (probaby because it's not every day) and I'm really getting quite annoyed with myself, and my lack of willpower, when it comes to what I eat and drink.

It doesn't help that after I've done what amounts to a good exercise session - whether it be cycling a reasonable distance, or doing swimming training for one hour, then all I want to do is shovel ENERGY back into my body. Tasty, reward-type energy, if you know what I mean.

I also find it hard to go a night without a beer, or a glass of wine. I'd got to the point where I'd convinced myself that I really, really needed it to relax and wind down, and I'd never make it through dinner if I didn't have 'just one'. Even though I know all about Empty Calories when it comes to alcohol.

I'd whittled myself down to generally lite beer, and only one a night. (With the occasional wine - or two... the occasional following-day-headache had really been pretty rare.) But I couldn't even manage to get it down to every second night! How pathetic is that?

And the recalcitrant part of my mind kept saying surely I deserved it. "Come on! You've never exercised this consistently in your life! There must be some kickbacks to all this bike riding and stuff you've been doing?"

Sadly not. The scales have refused to budge, and despite the fact that I look "OK", my weight and figure is not befitting the cycling and swimming junkie within. And I don't look "OK" in clothes shop fitting rooms! And I don't have the range of choice of cycling clothes because the biggest standard women's sizes are touch and go for me. I have a jelly belly that is likely not-unrelated to the terms 'beer' and 'gut'.

Time to really do something about it. I have quite a few bad habits to change, but the easiest thing to do first is to cut the empty calories.

So, goodbye beer for starters. I thought I'd have to wean myself off it slowly - really try for the 'every other night' bit for starters, maybe?

But I have quite surprised myself this past week.

I'm up to 6 days straight without! As long as you don't count a few sips of Marc's wine on Thursday night. But I did decline a glass of my own, and I just drank water with the Thai meal we had out with a few others. So I reckon it counts.

Probably the two cans of coke that I drank because it was too damned hot at the school swimming carnival yesterday rather blot the copybook, but still.. I could have come home and had a couple of beers as well!

Except that I am SO not Catholic or religious, it did strike me as rather amusing that I decided to do this in the middle of Lent. (Like, isn't that where you give up things? For forty days or something? And if Easter is in a month, then it must be that Lent thing around now?)

The thing is, it's got to be a long term lifestyle thing, and secondly, I am hopeful that down the track I might still enjoy the odd beer or wine here and there. Particularly once I rein in some of my other bad eating habits.

I think I can do it this time.

Labels:


Comments:
OK, I can't afford the flavor-added bottled water right now, but would they qualify as "tasty reward-type energy"? I mean, do they actually taste good and have fewer calories than colas?

Good luck!
 
I wish I liked that water with flavour. But it doesn't really hit the spot. Like coke. Or chocolate. Or chips/crisps. Or... or.... or....
 
Good on you Tracey. I find that alcohol packs on the kilos for me also, but I do love a drop of the old vino. Sadly or thankfully, I can't afford to buy it very often, so it is a bit of a luxury when I have it - that being said, if there is a bottle in the house, between Ashley and myself, it is gone in a single sitting - oops.
Shishy and yourself are inspiring me to think long and hard about some goal setting of my own...I'll keep you posted.
 
Good on you Trace. Sometimes it could be more than the innocuous empty calories of the beer. Slight yeast or wheat intolerances can cause a worse effect from it also, I believe.
 
I can't give those rewardy type things up either - everything in moderation though.

It seems like it all coming together for you if you went 6 days - I am lucky I don't drink beer well very occasionally a sip of my DH'S

One day at a time...
 
Rofpmsl @ what you are giving up for Lent!!! Am I a bad Catholic for not giving up anything! And can I say that at my son's Catholic school, at a Friday night parent dinner, they served chicken or pork!!!! Ummmm-ahhhh!

Good on you for your commitment! I have just about given up the idea that I'll ever lose weight again! Too old and too lazy are my excuses! Don't know how you can drink coke though! ;)
 
Yeah, my "everything in moderation" M.O. just wasn't working!!

It's all my husband's fault that I drink beer... I never drank it before I met him! Then he took me on a 3 day bushwalk, and at the end of the second night, the cold beer shoved into my hand was the best drink I'd ever had!

I used to have a low tolerance for wine, but got better at drinking it. LOL. We can easily polish off a bottle between us now.

LOL, Brissiemum... Amazing how things have changed over the years with Catholics! Anyway, I didn't say I was giving up beer for Lent! But that I was giving up beer (more or less) and it just so happened to be Lent. Or whatever it is called!! Maybe I should wait for Ramadan or something to give up the next thing!

The only thing Catholic about me is that I married a (very) lapsed one!

I wish I didn't like coke, but unfortunately I do. I'm sure the caffeine in it has something to do with it.
 
i know you will get there Tracey!
 
yay for you!
 

Post a Comment





<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?