Giving in to temptation

No, I've not been eating refined carbs.  Or even appreciable amounts of carbs, or processed food.  What I -have- been doing is over-indulging on wine.

You see, wine seemed to be something I'm relatively tolerant to on the scale of Things That Contain Carbs.  It's not all that carby anyway either.  And with one thing and another and the time of year (yes even I have noticed it's almost Christmas) and the fact that I'm a bit mopey about not feeling confident about getting out on my bike on the roads, I've wanted a bit of a pressure release valve that's not going to totally undermine my low carb work so far.

Last week was very bad in the "just how much have I had to drink?" stakes.  I'm too embarrassed to confess to the number of units, but let's just say it's a bit more than the recommended maximum for women.  This week has been better, but my liver/kidneys etc. haven't really recovered from last week.  So, I'm retaining water like nobody's business (hello extra 1.5kg in water weight in 24 hours!), I'm slower in the mornings than I have been for weeks, I'm getting to bed later, getting up later, getting lower quality sleep (still sleeping right through the night though, which is a novelty still despite having 6 weeks of it so far) and eating food when I don't really need it - which is vanishingly rare on my new nutrition regime; it simply doesn't happen when I've not had a drink.  I just may well be not as tolerant to wine as I'd thought.

So, in an attempt to work out whether it's causing one problem or another, I decided to see about looking at the effects of wine on my insulin responses in the cheapest way possible.  Using a blood glucose monitor (£15 from Boots), assuming that all things being equal, and assuming that if I hadn't had an appreciable intake of carbohydrate from food and my blood glucose level drops measurably after drinking wine then it means I've had an appreciable increase in insulin swimming about because of the wine.  It's going to need a lot of trial and error and data points to get a picture of what's happening.

So far I have some morning, fasted glucose levels and a few data points from after fasted exercise, a lowish carb meal, 1 glass of wine and 2 glasses of wine.  I've also just found better information on the insulin response and glucose levels due to food intake (for non-diabetic and non-pre-diabetic people) and it looks like the peak in blood glucose happens 30 minutes after a meal starts and things should be dropping down appreciably 60-90 minutes after you're done eating and back to fasted levels 2 hours after the meal(1).  Definitely more data required for a proper analysis of any kind, but so far it seems that:-

•  my blood glucose does drop after 1 glass of wine and stays there after the 2nd
•  my morning fasted glucose level is variable by ±0.5 mmol/L around 4.4 mmol/L
•  I need to test glucose before, 30 minutes after meal start and then 120 minutes afterwards

It'd be good to do this for different meal contents to see if there are differences, do the same for wine in isolation, then when I have a baseline look at adding in experimental things in isolation to see what foods I may be able to easily tolerate in terms of keeping away from spiking insulin levels.  Also of interest is insulin response to things that have fake sugar in, e.g. Diet Coke.

[1 - Blood Sugar 101]

One thing at a time

I decided that now is the wrong time to mess about with my tea drinking too much.  I do like it a lot and it doesn't impact my training anywhere near as much as alcohol.  OK, so I am drinking some herbal infusions (BTW the Super Fruit TeaPigs tea is horrible, so I'm sticking to the gorgeous liquorice and mint) which knocks one or two cups of real tea off the count during the day, but otherwise I'm staying on tea.

I knew it'd be difficult

This "not drinking" thing.  I knew it'd be difficult (but at the same time, easy, when I'm doing it), but I didn't realise how hard it would be before it started.  13 days to go before the cessation of alcohol and I'm finding myself sabotaging normal days because of it now.  Because I'm not going to be doing it fairly soon, I make excuses do to it way more than normal now.  Normally I'd have a drink 1-2 days a week.  This week, so far, it's been 3 days and I find myself thinking about it quite a lot.

Partly, I'm thinking to go down the route of least stress, i.e. stop worrying about it, go with the flow.  Stress is worse (to me) than "bad" nutrition - mostly because we eat a hugely abnormal proportion of unprocessed food compared with most of the population (almost none, in practical terms) - I'm less worried about nutrition than I might be.  Partly, I'm getting wound up by what the scales say - which I need to get a grip on mentally as I've been ill and not exercising and eating odd amounts of food and being in varying states of hydration so it's not a useful measure at the moment.

13 days isn't all that long, so maybe the easiest thing is to take each day one at a time and accept what the scales say.  Then when the new year comes, be happy in the fact that life is easier, schedules are easier to follow, nutrition is easier to deal with...

22 days to 9 months of teetotalism

From 1st January 2012 to when Ironman Wales 2012 is over, I will not be drinking any alcohol.  (There may be 2 nominated exception days - the day after Ironman UK 70.3 and perhaps 13th January - I've not yet decided whether I will do that or not.)

It's just going to be easier that way.  Easier to keep to my planned nutrition - alcohol tends to lead to eating more than required/planned.  Easier to keep to my planned training schedule - alcohol leads to poor quality sleep, lack of enthusiasm the next day and is pretty poor nutritionally.  It'll just be easier all 'round if I don't drink at all.  Drinking a bit, setting a weekly/monthly limit isn't going to work.  It's all or nothing 'cause that's how I am.  I'll miss the wine, for sure, but some things are worth quite a bit of sacrifice.

Stopping right now isn't something I need to do, nor is it all that practical when there's wine in the house ready for Christmas, so the date is set for 1st January.

Slight diversion

Wednesday was good.  I had another go at my current weights routine as my trainer needed to reschedule but I wasn't properly recovered from the bad-ass negatives I've been doing.  Another prawn dinner, only this time I put in 1.5 chillies as the 1/2 chilli I had last time wasn't enough.  Heh.  *sweat* *pant*  ohyes it was good :o)

Exercise - 54 minutes gymming

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1666 2251]
Protein (g)	133.7 (32.7%)
Carbohydrate (g)	176.8 (40.6%)
Fat (g)	48.5 (26.7%)
Fibre (g)	33.8
Fruit & Veg	16.8

Thursday was a rest day and dinner out.  I had sparkling water in the pub before dinner, then a nice Bellini and some wine during dinner.  2 bottle between 4 of us and I didn't keep up with the boys, so I definitely had less than 1/2 a bottle through the meal.  However, this morning... hangover.  Not headachey, just really tired, a bit sick-feeling and constantly hungry.  *sigh*  Dinner was really nice though.  I had beef tartare with toasted bits of bread to start (see! looks gorgeous, doesn't it?) and Sea Bream with chicory and fennel for my main course.  No dessert and still not too badly over maintenance kcals for the day.  And a quite impressive protein grammage for a non-exercise day too!

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2048 1791]
Protein (g)	155.2 (31.2%)
Carbohydrate (g)	144.2 (27.1%)
Fat (g)	66.7 (30.1%)
Fibre (g)	22.1
Fruit & Veg	12.1

Long weekend

Not honestly feeling up to a long post, but we'll see how it goes.

We started off on Friday afternoon going for lunch at a surprisingly great restaurant in Victoria called Bumbles where I ordered steak with mushrooms and cauliflower for lunch, after a smoked salmon starter which was so cute and sweet but I forgot to take a photo.  Given that we'd be having sarnies for dinner on the plane, I thought it was best to get something solid down me for lunch.  And ohboy was it lovely!  It wasn't huge.  It wasn't cooked in lots of fat.  It was cooked exactly as I'd asked; blue :o)  And it tasted absolutely lovely!   We shared a bottle of wine (of which I had about 2/5ths) and that's where I think the weekend started to go wrong...

One of the things we'd been wondering about, since I booked this weekend away, was how rich people get to Valencia.  Only EasyJet seem to fly there from anywhere sensible in the UK and they have just one class on their flights.  We'll our question was answered on the flight out as in the "speedy boarding" queue was one Eddie Jordan.  So.  They fly EasyJet too.

Fast forward... taxi from Valencia airport to the hotel along the scrubby marshland strip that seems to define the boundary between the older part of the city and the new, re-developed part and the port and marina.  Swift glass or two of beer in the bar, shared a toasted sandwich and off to bed.

Saturday we walked to the Marina to the VIP terrace, which was -amazing-.  Right on the chicane, on a rooftop with awnings, 6 bars, lots of different seating areas etc.  Bar and food open from 11am to 6pm Friday to Sunday.  Saturday, we hid under the awnings from the sun, watched some cars go around (with ear-plugs in 'cause it's f'ing loud!) for free practice, GP2, GP3 and Porsche Cup, drank lots of wine and water and ate lots of nibbles.  Went back to the hotel for a nap at around 4pm and woke up at 7pm!  The guide book had some recommendations for dinner so we walked down to the amazing new developments of the Oceanographic (aquarium) and Science and Arts Park...

There was apparently the nicest bar in Valencia under one of the walkways, but we couldn't find it.  Then we hunted down the restaurant in the aquarium after a lot more walking than I'd bargained for (and as such was wearing utterly inappropriate shoes), but... despite both the guide book and the city guide published for the Grand Prix this year saying the restaurant in there was open for dinner we were shooed away by a security guard who said the place was all closed.

Thankfully there was a backup plan of an Italian place back across the bridge, near the hotel and that was open and nice and had people who were lovely working there.  I had a lovely, tiny but rich, portion of ravioli with mushrooms and truffles in a cream sauce which filled me right up.  Then, as the guide book said the place we renowned for its desserts, we had to have one and I had the lightest, darkest, tangiest chocolate mousse ever.

(Parade lap of all of the drivers on the F1 bus)

Sunday we walked back to the terrace and started again.  Watched and listened to the cars go 'round, drank and ate the nibbles and stayed until 6pm when the lounge party closed.  Then back to the hotel for a little nap before we'd planned to go back to the terrace for the night party.  However, we woke up at around 9.30pm and I felt -awful-.  Absolutely dreadful.  Both instantly drunk and hung-over at the same time.  So we hauled our dressed-up asses down in the hotel lift and across the road to the restaurant there, where the menu was incredibly badly translated and despite some lovely bread nibbles the food was horrible and vastly over-priced, and the staff were almost horrified that we only wanted water to drink.  45 minutes after heading out, we were back in the hotel, crashing into bed.

Mr TOTKat had intended to buy me lunch at a lovely restaurant in one of the new hotels on the Monday, but despite being told it opened at 2pm when we went back to the hotel at 2pm we were then told it was closed on Mondays.  *sigh*  So we headed into the old part of the city to find another place in the guide book which was -also closed-!  At this point we'd had enough, so headed into the nearest cafe and had a really nice lunch.  To be honest, it was probably a good thing that the nice restaurant in the hotel was closed as I was feeling pretty horrible still/again and needed a couple of hours of sitting quietly in the shade, sipping water and moaning a bit to get anywhere near the point I felt able to do anything.

On the flight back we were as lucky as on the way out and got exit row seats, then co-incided with lots of handy transport options culminating in getting the last tram from East Croydon back home.

Eating crow now alright

Having been so pleased with my lack of weight/fat gain over Christmas, I've just managed to weigh in 2.5kg heavier than 3 weeks ago. Way to go! AND I've done 3 really hard weights sessions this week where I've increased the weights quite significantly (for me - e.g. bicep curls which are new in this routine, I've upped from 5kg dumbbells to 7kg dumbbells in 3 sessions - 40% increase!) on some exercises and increased a bit on most. I ache like a bugger and my belly is wobbling; nice contrast there! I don't fit into shirts I fitted into nicely 3 weeks ago. It's all down to bad eating and too much drinking. I know that. I had a huge pile of bread yesterday for the first time in a very very long time and my stomach was phenomenally uncomfortable afterwards - I'm just not used to eating bread much any more.

So. Never has it been a better time to get a grip on food and drink and get back to doing things properly, and in fact take things up a notch:-

• I will complete 3 weights sessions per week (not a feeble 2; but work commitments may torpedo this sometimes) of 40+ minutes.
• I will complete 1-3 cardio sessions a week of 30+ minutes hard effort.
• I will take part in at least 2 of the 4 Thames Turbo sprint triathlon series.
• I will increase my protein intake overall as a proportion of my daily nutrition - by using protein supplements where/if necessary.
  
• I will significantly decrease my intake of simple carbohydrates; bread (eat that maybe once a week anyway), potatoes, pasta (almost never eat that anyway)
• I will not cut out couscous (I like it a lot and it's a great complex carbohydrate)
• I will have no more than 1/2 bottle of wine per week (or 2x cans of lower alcohol beer) and it will count as a cheat/free meal in itself.
• I will post my food and exercise plan/results every day (90% of the time averaged over a month)
  

And the lesser ones:-

• I will try yogurt with fruit in/on and maybe some nuts for breakfast at least 4 times before giving up if I don't like it.
• I will make lunches up in bulk a couple of days in advance to make things easier.
• I will try to fear nuts less as a snack - yes they're very calorific for their weight/bulk but they -are- good for me in small amounts.
• I will eat bananas as a snack before exercise only (or within 2 hours either side of it, but at no other times)

Wish me luck; it's going to take a bit more discipline than I've been maintaining the last few months.

I've got a skiing holiday in March which may mess things up a bit due to "Sno Camp" being on a Thursday for six weeks which means no weights on Wednesday or Friday as it looks like there will be at least some strength training in those sessions. Not quite worked out how to work around that and keep up the cardio and have 2 rest days in the week, so we're thinking maybe that it'd be better not to do "Sno Camp" at all; it's bound to be targetted at people who have done bugger all exercise all year anyway - and... have you -seen- my thighs?