How many days are you free from booze?

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122488806#Comment_122488806

7 euros for a lucozade?? Yikes 😬

Jay Pentatonic

My 1st week of sober October officially in the books and I'm down 4 pounds already 😮

Gotten mad into cooking lately and tracking calories which is helping hugely. I immediately noticed how much my sleep has improved over the last week as well; I seem to have more strength in the gym too.

I've been thinking of continuing this sober October into a "No bender November" but we'll see how I get on.

jj880

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696571#Comment_122696571

Everything will improve. Keep it up 👍

Ive started breakfast smoothies with frozen raspberries, an orange, peanut butter + some oats. Blending it up for a good minute. Still have food I like but the smoothie in the morning is definitely making a difference. Down over a stone.

TherapyBoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122697196#Comment_122697196

That sounds tasty JJ! Is there a recipe you could post up with the amounts of ingredients included? I’d like to give it a try!

Dtp1979

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122458782#Comment_122458782

Alcohol has zero benefits. Have a look at Andrew Hubermans podcast on the effects of alcohol on the body. There’s a segment on what it does to the stomach. It really opened my eyes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122458782#Comment_122458782

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122698929#Comment_122698929

Bit of a fan of smoothies myself. Especially when I am on a near 100% carnivore diet for training. Mostly eating meat and eggs but maybe every 4 or 5 days I will hit a smoothie. Usually throw random things in. Once you have a banana and some milk (or a mix of different milks if you like to give your body variety) then it does not really matter what the rest of the recipie is.

If trying to fight off appetite for diets or weight loss or whatever, throwing in a raw egg or a spoon of chia seeds can leave you feeling full for hours. Or it's a good medium to throw in protein powders and creatine. Frozen fruit cubes and/or spinach cubes add some nutrients and make it extra cold. But you need a good food processor or stab mixer for that of course.

At the beginning, I used to meticulously measure things out to follow a recipe. But now I tend to just feck in whatever is around and feels healthy. With a banana in there and some "creamy vanilla" protein powder they mostly all taste the same anyway :)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122696571#Comment_122696571

If you are looking for inspiration to keep it going and you are also into Gym stuff and eating well, then this episode of a podcast might interest you. It's basically Echo Charles giving his full history of how he first got into alcohol, how it very slowly started getting to the point it was out of hand and he started missing things like Jujitsu training and Gym time, until he finally made the decision to quit.

Quite a good story and it's not your usual "Totally out of control and hit rock bottom" story. It's a more common experience of drink being problematic while ultimately feeling like it's actually your friend and benefactor. And even if you really believe you are on top of it and in control of it - that belief can really be just another way it's controlling you. So it's a lot more relatable than a lot of stories you'd here on something like the Two Norries Podcast (which are also great!).

As a pretty much 100% non drinker myself these days (I have a monthly house party during which I nurse a single large whisky over the entire night and thats about it) I occasionally listen back to this episode during a run maybe once every 2 or 3 months.

youtube.com/watch?v=XEwdFsKiRKM

or

open.spotify.com/episode/0i1kxxnvknsASvrrP04GE4

jj880

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122698929#Comment_122698929

Here's todays.

I just go by eye. About 1/2 tblsp of peanut butter usually.

Use chilled water. Makes it taste nicer.

The orange is a must. Adds zing. I find raspberries have much more flavour than say strawberries.

If Im hungrier I'll add more oats / peanut butter. Ive had many people say it looks like a lot of calories. My answer is: Sure but having a large dose of "good" calories in the morning keeps me from eating crap until the afternoon so it's beneficial. Also being off the drink you have a lot more scope for these calories. Better than a kebab or fry up.

I like having a smoothie first thing with no animal ingredients at all so I dont add dairy, egg etc. Nothing wrong with adding those just personal preference. Then I get my poached eggs later or have a fish supper, steak once a week etc…

Ive had concerns raised about frozen fruit carrying bacteria. A valid point for sure. I use the frozen raspberries from Aldi. Havent had any issues for over 10 years now…

Etc

145 days for me as of today.

Worztron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122713232#Comment_122713232

Well done, keep it up. 👍🏻

kevohmsford

4032 days for me now. Never going back. My life has changed so much for the better.

blackbullet

15 years sober here we lost faimly member over heavy drinking a few years back i even tried to have non alchaholic stuff but the urge has long gone i have a nice 3d design hobby using blender to keep occupied in my spare time.

Worztron

On day 2410. :-)

Jay Pentatonic

2 weeks of sober October done. I didn't lose nearly as much weight as I did during the first week, but I imagine it's mainly down to losing a lot of water retention at the start. Being booze-free has allowed me to push myself at the gym a lot more as well, so maybe I'm gaining a bit of muscle too. I'm honestly a bit baffled by how much alcohol must have been affecting my lifting all this time.

I have to say getting into cooking as a new hobby has been great whenever I have a free evening and for just keeping the mind occupied. Plus it's great to experiment with healthy meals that are genuinely tasty and aren't just chicken, broccoli & rice.

Sparkling water seems to hit the spot whenever I'm craving a pint during the evening; alcohol-free beers don't do the trick for me for whatever reason. Been doing the breakfast smoothies as well

That Jocko/Echo Charles podcast is a good listen too, thanks for recommending.

taxAHcruel

@Jay Pentatonic

I'm honestly a bit baffled by how much alcohol must have been affecting my lifting all this time.

I think it helps to remember that for all the side pleasures it may offer - alcohol is a poison. That might make the more negative effects of it less baffling.

I wear a Garmin Watch almost 24/7. I only take it off to fight. Everything else from sleep to sex to training I wear it. Lets see where alcohol fits into this.

1 - This is a recent day from me where I did nothing but eat a carnivore diet. No training of any kind which is rare. So its a "baseline" for my level of stress and health. You can see that my morning meditation after I woke up made the watch think I had gone back to sleep :)

2 - Here you can see I went for a 3 hour fast run followed by taking the watch off for Jujitsu fighting. You can see the higher stress afterwards as my body recovers from that intensity. But as I sleep it starts to go back towards normal.

3 - On days where I over eat carbs you can see my body has to recover. Not that carbs are bad. But over eating them like going carnal on a big bowl of pasta can leave the body working hard.

4 - So as you see I can do some pretty intense workouts and push my body and recover very fast. Especially if I am watching my diet. Now lets look at alcohol. First you will see the relax of my body doing archery that morning made the watch think I was asleep. A high carb meal stressed me for awhile and I went quickly back to normal. But then as soon as I start drinking - almost instantly there is an intense stress response much worse that a 3 hour run and a 2 hour session of fighting a string of big muscley sweaty men.

5 - But look at the second picture which is the next day after a sleep and a relax. The stress and recovery from alcohol continues for at least 36 hours past the first drink. And it's a stress level that nearly reaches 100 on the scale. And this is not an extremely heavy falling down drunk level of drinking. It was something like 6 pints of Guinness or similar if I remember right. At that level of stress my sleep score which is usually up around 90% was 35% on that day too. So even when you're sleeping its not proper sleep.

That's what alcohol does. You can see I did some fighting in that last picture where my watch was off. I did not do so well that day. Just like you not lifting as much in the gym - I felt it that day. But I felt it more intensely because I am long term knowing what it feels like to be firing on all cyliders so I feel it when I am having a bad day. You're possibly the opposite. You have spent time letting alcohol make you feel bad - so now you are experiencing what it feels like to feel NORMAL. And you're enjoying it from what it sounds like.

If after all this it is still a surprise just how negatively alcohol might have been affecting you - here is a good summary podcast going over all we currently know about alcohol and what it - even in small amounts - does to the body.

youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY

or

spotify.com/episode/2ebY3WNejLNbK47emgjd1E

jj880

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122724388#Comment_122724388

Wow thats great data.

When I think back to the sweats and horrors I used to get from vodka + redbull.

Piling pressure on my body more than I ever imagined. Never again.

ILikeBoats

I also wear a garmin and see the same stress levels after drinking. No wonder everyone is always wrecked the next day, you didn't sleep restfully, your body battled through the night to process and get rid of the alcohol. Sleep score in the 30s, massive drop in HRV. It's ridiculous why we do it!