Steve S
Full Member
I've been collecting my thoughts about how I managed to fall off the wagon so spectacularly last year. Bear in mind that I intend to SS as long as possible as I have a lot to lose...
I'm a member of a motorbike club and my peers are by nature party animals at every opportunity. Highlights of the biker calendar include many rallies - similar to a weekend-long outdoors rock festival but with the focus on bike-related stuff. These rallies and also any club members' birthdays that occur during the year involve much drinking and partying. There are no opportunities for healthy eating at the weekend rallies save for 'the chicken man' who supplies fresh roast chickens to the hungry hordes. The rest is pizzas, burgers, chips, kebabs etc. There is much peer pressure to join in with the drinking, and eating junk follows as sure as night follows day.
The extra complication is that even though I can cry off the alcohol after a struggle, it's difficult to drink just water, especially in my local pub where most of the birthday-related stuff happens. Diet coke is the obvious choice at a push, it comes out of 3-litre bottles and isn't the syrup stuff. I can take a hit on the citric acid and aspartame occasionally.
Rallies then, are the main problem I can see this year. The fact is though, that times are tough and I could really survive without doing any for a year, despite the howls of protest and pitiful head-shaking that I'll have to endure from my mates.
If I can successfully make a few changes to accomodate the problems above then I'll eliminate 90% of the obstacles in the way of my weight loss! It'll be a struggle but the tough economic climate will help my cause, I feel...
My other problem is that I'm an all or nothing kind of character. When I start to get a bit lighter I want to dive into heavy exercise. I really enjoy weight training and circuit training and last year I got really into running(!) with the C25K program. This invariably puts too much of a drain on my energy, especially on a VLCD and I get really hungry/tired.
So I'm not making any big plans for this year. After a couple of weeks when I'm well in to ketosis I'll be picking up the Power 90 program again with a mate. I'll just be doing the anaerobic weight cycles three times a week to recover a bit of muscle mass. And that's it. I've promised myself I'll start running again when I get to goal as a twisted kind of reward, but not before.
So that's where I am. If I can get my head in the right space I should be able to maintain a steady weight loss until goal when the real battle begins with maintenance.
I'm a member of a motorbike club and my peers are by nature party animals at every opportunity. Highlights of the biker calendar include many rallies - similar to a weekend-long outdoors rock festival but with the focus on bike-related stuff. These rallies and also any club members' birthdays that occur during the year involve much drinking and partying. There are no opportunities for healthy eating at the weekend rallies save for 'the chicken man' who supplies fresh roast chickens to the hungry hordes. The rest is pizzas, burgers, chips, kebabs etc. There is much peer pressure to join in with the drinking, and eating junk follows as sure as night follows day.
The extra complication is that even though I can cry off the alcohol after a struggle, it's difficult to drink just water, especially in my local pub where most of the birthday-related stuff happens. Diet coke is the obvious choice at a push, it comes out of 3-litre bottles and isn't the syrup stuff. I can take a hit on the citric acid and aspartame occasionally.
Rallies then, are the main problem I can see this year. The fact is though, that times are tough and I could really survive without doing any for a year, despite the howls of protest and pitiful head-shaking that I'll have to endure from my mates.
If I can successfully make a few changes to accomodate the problems above then I'll eliminate 90% of the obstacles in the way of my weight loss! It'll be a struggle but the tough economic climate will help my cause, I feel...
My other problem is that I'm an all or nothing kind of character. When I start to get a bit lighter I want to dive into heavy exercise. I really enjoy weight training and circuit training and last year I got really into running(!) with the C25K program. This invariably puts too much of a drain on my energy, especially on a VLCD and I get really hungry/tired.
So I'm not making any big plans for this year. After a couple of weeks when I'm well in to ketosis I'll be picking up the Power 90 program again with a mate. I'll just be doing the anaerobic weight cycles three times a week to recover a bit of muscle mass. And that's it. I've promised myself I'll start running again when I get to goal as a twisted kind of reward, but not before.
So that's where I am. If I can get my head in the right space I should be able to maintain a steady weight loss until goal when the real battle begins with maintenance.