A statement of goals:
I hope that not drinking for four and a half months will enable me to lose weight and perform better athletically, professionally and personally.
Weight - I weigh about 12% more now than I did in college, which was thirty years ago. My clothes tell me I've added a few pounds lately and I'd like to reverse this trend.
Athletic performance - I measure this chiefly by how far and how fast I can run, though I swim and bike too and have lifted weights in the past. Last year, at the peak of marathon training, I was able to cruise along at 9:00 to 9:15 per mile. If a five percent weight reduction resulted in a comparable increase in speed, I could expect to see times closer to 8:30 or 8:45.
Professional performance - I will be pursuing a full-time and a part-time job this fall, and I need to show better focus and time management than when I attempted the same last spring. Progress in meeting one set of responsibilities always came at the expense of meeting the other set of responsibilities. Maybe they can never both be met fully, but if not drinking leads to less self-indulgence and more realistic planning, I'll at least have given it my best shot.
Personal performance - I'll look for effects in terms of personal health and family life. The key to all this will be getting a good night's sleep. If I can sleep through the night or at least get back to sleep after the cats wake me up, I'll count more thorough rest as one of the benefits of this experiment and see which others flow from that.
Day 2 of my third time on the wagon. First time was in 1990--180 days--just to see if I could live without drinking after a decade of averaging more than two drinks a day. I wanted to show my then-girlfriend (now my wife of 17 years and the mother of two adorable children) that I could pull something like that off. It was hard for a week or so, then the time passed very quickly, and I lost 15 lbs. during the six months.
ReplyDeleteThe second time was just last year, when I quit drinking for six months to a) get ready for my black belt exam in Jeet Kune Do; and b) avoid interactions with some new meds that I was taking long term. Fortunately, those meds eliminated all cravings anyway, so it was incredibly easy. Six months later and 22 lbs. lighter, I was glad that I had done it and cruised through my black belt exam even with a torn meniscus. The day before I tore my meniscus, I waltzed through a 20 mile run like it was nothing; the result of half a year of working out 10 hours a week and not drinking.
Now I have gained 12 of these pounds back already (only ten months after the last wagon) and it is time to do it again. I cannot exercise as much as I used to. The meniscus is fixed but I now have a torn labrum in my hip, so I need to keep my weight down if I want to exercise at all and continue running. There is also likely surgery in my future, and that surgery will go better at 180 lbs than at 195 lbs.
I haven't missed beer yet but know that I will the first time I get together with my beer-drinking friends. So glad that my blog mate is joining me in this quest; it makes things easier and more fun.