Looking for ways to keep me occupied and don't involve eating and drinking

Lukeskyrunner

I am looking to lose some weight so I have decided to stop drinking start eating healthy , would appreciate some ideas for fun activities that I can occupy my mind with that don't involve the later

Edups2.0

If you're trying to lose weight my first thought would be a sport.

dwayneshintzy

Start running, join a club?

tomwaterford

Fap



Surly the best way is cycling/running realistically though

Peregrinus

Sex, if you can find a co-operative partner.

Failing that, what others have said: exercise. It will turbocharge the weight-loss resulting from your changed diet. Plus, it makes you feel good about yourself (not as much as sex does but, still, some) which makes it easier to stick to the diet. Plus, for some lucky people it acts as an appetite suppressant, which again makes it easier to stick to the diet.

Also, go to bed a bit earlier. Most adults are constantly mildly sleep-deprived, and correcting this is associated with successful weight loss.

Pawwed Rig

What do you like doing? Can you do something with friends?

I would spend the next 3 months trying different activities and seeing what I enjoy.
Running probably has the lowest barrier to entry so do that first.

smacl

Trying to shift a few pounds myself, and for me the advice of going to bed a bit earlier makes a big difference, as the late night beer and snacks can be a killer. The other thing I find is that it is easier to substitute a healthy drink for an unhealthy one than cut the unhealthy drink out. At the moment, this is replacing a beer after work with a slimline tonic with lime juice and a splash of tabasco. Important to treat yourself somehow.

Cycling is great but requires much more motivation in the Winter, which is why I tend to get heavier then. Love the idea of loads more sex to burn off those calories, though I imagine you'd be pretty shagged and worn out to stack up a few thousand calories each week.

Lukeskyrunner

Lukeskyrunner wrote: »

I am looking to lose some weight so I have decided to stop drinking start eating healthy , would appreciate some ideas for fun activities that I can occupy my mind with that don't involve the later

Well as others users have said - engaging in some kind of sport - gym - martial art - hill or nature walking and so forth would be the obvious go to thing that involves both the consumption of time - and weight loss.

Another option if you have a smart phone with a decent data package is to download and install "Ingress". This is the game that came before Pokemon and I would call it pokemon for adults. It is a social game _or_ an individual game - depending on how you play it.

And there was a great story in the Examiner a couple years back of a German called Sven living in Ireland who lost a _massive_ quantity of weight. And he puts his walking while playing Ingress down as the top reason for it. If you want to read that article let me know and I can track it down for you again.

So if you install that and select the green team - not doing anything stupid like selecting the blue team - I can put you in touch with people who will train you up and donate you in game equipment to level up faster and so on

All that said - I would also suggest that losing weight does not have to involve avoiding food related activities. What you could do is invest _more_ time in eating related activities - but just improve how you do it.

Learning to cook wonderfully flavoursome and healthy foods for example is both time consuming and rewarding. And doing so with healthier foods than you were eating before will improve your relationship with food - and your body mass too.

So rather than run and hide from food or reduce your exposure to it - you could go the other way and indulge the subject of food much _more_ but in a healthier and more involved way.

I can certainly be an anecdote of 1 for the benefits of this as I eat _much_ more these days than I did 10 years ago. But in a way that has seen my body weight go down and my over all health go up. As the old Mark E Smith song says - Eat Y'Self Fitter

Of course that approach takes some level of consistency and discipline.

CalamariFritti

Its mindset thing too. When bored why of all things would you turn to eating? It's not like its an actual activity as such, there are a thousand things you could be doing including doing nothing. Why eating?

Wanderer78

CalamariFritti wrote:

Its mindset thing too. When bored why of all things would you turn to eating? It's not like its an actual activity as such, there are a thousand things you could be doing including doing nothing. Why eating?

Pleasurable, very very pleasurable

Peregrinus

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Pleasurable, very very pleasurable

This. Eating is, basically, gratifying. This is instinctive and makes sound evolutionary sense, and you're not going to change it. So successfully dealing with an eating problem involves finding gratification elsewhere. Hence all the not-entirely-serious-but-not-entirely-not suggestions of having more sex.

Edups2.0

CalamariFritti wrote: »

Its mindset thing too. When bored why of all things would you turn to eating? It's not like its an actual activity as such, there are a thousand things you could be doing including doing nothing. Why eating?

Eating is more gratifying than doing nothing. One gets pleasure out of a good meal.

smacl

Deleted User wrote: »

As the old Mark E Smith song says - Eat Y'Self Fitter

Wonder was that before or after the Steak place?

snubbleste

Knitting

skallywag

Taking up an activity such as a sport is a great motivator or even distraction if you like, and you will most likely find yourself enjoying the activity more and more as you begin to lose weight.

If you have been pretty sedentary in recent times then I would be careful with jumping two feet first into a sport such as running, I would think it better to start walking first, then over longer distances at a brisker pace, etc, and then working up to a jog, etc. A lot of people find themselves jumping into a sport full of enthusiasm but quickly find themselves losing interest either due to frustration/boredom or injury.

How about walking / hiking through some scenic areas etc is that an option for you?

ford2600

CalamariFritti wrote: »

Its mindset thing too. When bored why of all things would you turn to eating? It's not like its an actual activity as such, there are a thousand things you could be doing including doing nothing. Why eating?

For someone struggling with losing weight, the drive to eat especially when dieting is pretty compelling.

http://boingboing.net/2012/03/09/seduced-by-food-obesity-and-t.html

Part 1 of 5 here

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.ie/2012/10/why-do-we-eat-neurobiological.html