Lifestyle change, how to go about it?

I am off sick today. I did go in, but I went home. The problem? Suspected cold - third time in four months!

I suspect its down to my lifestyle. I'll cut a long story short:-

1. I'm overweight by about 2.5 stone

2. My diet in all probability is very poor - I dont eat fruit / vegetables - the only thing I do is drink those smoothies (ie innocent smoothies - this claims to be 5 bits of fruit a day). Apart from that, its all fast food and microwave food.

3. I'm very unfit - I dont do any exercise

4. My living conditions are not great - dirty, cramped etc - but that'll change next week because I'm moving out.

5. I drink too much - but I am making efforts to cut down - i.e. instead of a bottle of wine a night, i've cut down to half a bottle - and in any case, my tolerance to drink seems to be going down anyway - it seems to take less to get drunk than ever!

6. I am a relatively light, but daily cannabis user. However, I do NOT smoke cigarettes or tobacco at all, unless its the very rare / occaisional joint.

So, if you were me, what would you be doing to improve your health / wellbeing ? I am serious about this now, because I am sick of being ill so often, and I know my increasingly poor sick record at work is doing me no favours either.

 

Don't you think you've answered your own question?
You've listed all the bad things you are doing so just stop doing them! And start dong some others like - eating fruit and veg, exercise etc.

 

Come on mate! Don't take the pish! We sorted you out in this thread https://www.audio-forums.com/as-rediect/showthread.php?t=9010 the answers are the same mate.....just got to get it done. What you still doing eating microwave meals, toking and drinking too much?! If you're 'serious about this' you need to start implementing some of the good advice you got from your last question!
Sorry to sound harsh mate but make the changes and things will improve.
The 3 biggies are Exercise (do some) Diet (improve it) Poisons (cut em out)!
Love,
Mum

 

yeah, but we all know that one of the main problems of dope is memory loss...

 

indeed, I dont even remember writing that thread until he pointed it out!!

 

stop smokin' de 'erb, man!

 

take one thing at a time. don;t try to do it all at once. also don;t expect iracles or set yourself impossible goals. it's taken me 4 years so far to clean up my act and i'm not there yet.
i'd suggest stopping the drug use first canabis first and then going tea total for 6 months and seeing how you feel. stopping the drink may also have a knock on effect of losing you a few pounds too. once you're at the stage where you can take or leave the booze try to get some excersise in and loose some weight. best thing is to do some walking - i used to do 2 miles a day and the difference it made to my health was amazing (i now cycle).
for healthy eating:
1) get yourself a steamer - they are p1ss easy to use and keep clean and you can buy bags of veg from tescos which take 10 minutes in the steamer and taste nice.
2) get one of those george forman grills (or a knockoff of one) they drain off the fat and you can cook burgers (i just get some mince -beef, pork, lamb add some spices and whack it on for 5 minutes a side while the veg is steaming) chicken breasts etc. and they taste really nice too. just make sure you get one with removable grill plates otherwise cleaning is a right ar5e.

the most important thing is wanting to change your lifestyle and having the willpower to say 'i'll have a diet coke' when your down the pub or 'no i'll have something when i get in' afterwards and to keep passing the doob when it comes round....
cheers


julian

 

I think thats the biggest thing for me - willpower - as I say i didnt even remember the last thread, but clearly i started taking the advice and then drifted back into my old ways - perhaps as well though I have a sort of "is it too late to reverse the damage" mentality, but I guess i wont know until i try.

 

Relying on willpower (and thinking of it that way) is difficult. Not eveybody has a Rocky mentality....although it helps. Especially if you're trying to do things you don't enjoy i.e running or swimming. To make changes without feeling like you've just conquered Everest do little things and take them as any other little job in life, like taking the bins out.
Heres one....make a nice vege lasagne. Picture the scene....you're in the shops anyway so scoot down the veg aisle instead of the ready meal aisle and get a sweet potato...pack of spinach..frozen or fresh...tinned tomatoes...courgette...onion... cheese, milk, flour. Make a nice tomatoey sauce by frying an onion adding tomatoes, sliced courgette and some pepper or whatever else you fancy. Put it in the bottom of a lasagne dish. Thinly slice the sweet potato and boil the slices for 5 mins (use the dirty pan you just used saves washing up!) Put some Lasagne sheets on top of the tomatoe sauce...stick spinach on top stick sweet potato on top of that...chuck some garlic and pepper on, stick some lasagne sheets on top of that. make a white sauce...(easy)...and pour that all over, stick a load of grated cheese on top and stick it in the oven at about 175 degrees until it looks good. Serve with a salad and some nice bread to mop up the juices. Yumyum thats a good meal and full of good sht for you. It'll also last you for 2-3 nights. Then you hardly need to cook until Friday!
Anyway theres loads of other tips in the other thread about exercise and stuff...copy and paste the stuff that sounds good to you and print it out and stick it somewhere you will see it.

It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
Muhammad Ali

 

Vege lasagne

Good choice! I have one of these at home defrosting as I type for tonight! Get it on.

Not so sure about the sweet potato though...

 

I chuck anything I've got lying around into it....its so easy and never seems to taste bad however quickly or slack I make it. You can't fail to make a good meal with it!
Sweet Potato is good....give it a try. You don't have to boil it if you slice it thin enough but boiling it ensures its not tough. Its good stuff.

 

When I am lazy I just use a tin of mince bolognaise stuff and a few slices of tomato. Layer it between the lasagne and put some cheese on top. Tastes good and takes only 5min.

Its not quite as nice as making the stuff all from scratch though but compared to a microwave meal its still good.

If you forgot about the other thread you really do need to cut down!

 

Julian's advice is solid IMO. As he points out - the hard bit is establishing a set of steps you can realistically follow, which arent going to cause you to fall at the first fence.

Dieting, finding time to exercise, cutting out alcohol and Mary Jane are all likely to place emotional stresses upon you at least at first, so consider the sequence carefully. Also consider creating some kind of rewards based system to help you with the day to day "steps".

Eg. if you were to try the old fashioned "just eat less" type diet you could end up hitting points in the day when your blood sugar is low, which affects your work and your mood and makes everything else seem more difficult. You can equally just slow your metabolism down so you feel rough and you dont really lose fat - just water and glucose stores.

Whereas eating "differently", if it's a more balanced diet, can actually give you more energy and a better state of mind. Obviously there are an enormous array of "diets", my advice - eat as little sugary food as possible to avoid triggering your insulin, eat small and often, eat a variety - whilst Innocent smooties provide a good fruit component, you need more veg than fruit each day so the steamer and GF grill idea is a very good and ultra convenient (<- this being the key word) one.

Eat: avocado, berries, brocolli, nuts, beans, natural yoghurt, WATER, oily fish, red wine, green leafy veg, polyunsaturated oils, eggs, wholegrain foods (bread, pitta, cereal, rice), sweet potato, porridge, chicken, more green leafy veg, olive oil, cottage cheese (can be salty but great for protein). Snack on nuts and seeds (cheep cheep) and oat cakes.

Avoid fatty meats, white bread/pasta/rice/potatoes, processed/ready meals, salt, deep fried stuff, hydrogenated vegetable oil, boigers, pepperami!


Exercise is a funny one, on one hand a) it takes committment, b) it takes time, c) results are slow at first so you need to persist, d) results wane if you dont do it often enough.

On the other hand a) find the right form of exercise and its actually enjoyable b) exercise lifts your mood and confidence c) exercise can make you look better d) often you crave poor food less and feel less inclined to drink or toke. e) exercise can give you more energy and help you sleep better which in turn improves your mood and sense of well being.

Eating right in order to feed and fuel exercise can accelerate the results too.

TBH red wine IMO should be a treat you keep and blowing out one day per week food wise is a good idea.

Mary Jane - got me down and can make things seem bleak - I avoid it and have done for 8 years, but if you can get decent Jamaican weed - Indica, Red Beard or just plain sensi then I reckon that's a reasonable option. Utterly avoid Skunk and any of the hydroponically grown gear - awful stuff - and solids are bad news.

 

that's the most worrying bit.

 

Sweetpotato is a super food - low GI - good slow buring energy food and tastes great(ish)

 

Yeah - grind it up and have in a tea instead

Seriously, veg and fruit are good, as is exercise. Swimming is one of the least "exercisey" exercises, and cycling is good too Give up your car (ha ha - as if, right?) and you'll get fit very quickly indeed.

As for the healthy cooking thing - good food IS good for you, but how many of us actually LIKE wasting 2 hours in a kitchen just to produce a meal? I'll do a batch job of spag bol once every two weeks (it does 3 meals, 2 of which I keep in the freezer) but cooking from scratch every night with real ingredients? Forget that! A George Foreman grill does the bizz though, even with shit burgers - the amount of crud that runs out of the food we stick in ours is scary - some burgers lose about a third of their size as all the fat runs out!

 

ooouugh that's grose Dom, makes me glad I don't eat meat !

As someone has already said, you must want to change or it will not happen, its your state of mind as well. Then change your "fatty" foods to low fat or similar, diet drinks (coke etc), cut down on the alchol intake, and other substances.

For small trips like to the shops, walk rather than take the car, get a bike and cycle around (not suggesting cycling to work, I think your quite far away right ? ).

Lots of little changes will add up to a big difference over time, it'll not be over night, give it a few months and you'll see a change, difficult time of year though with x-mas parties and NY just around the corner.

Good luck.

 

It doesn't work in water. Add it to hot chocolate made with milk on the other hand and it will get you absolutely battered.

If you start eating fruit for breakfast, 2 pieces, then a piece at about 11 ish then a couple of vegs for dinner your sorted, should make you feel better, give you the energy to start exercising, perhaps walk to work or something if poss? You should find you drink less etc. then too cuz you feel better anyway

 

apparently is good in a yoghurt as well. space cakes need no explanation presumably

 

unless of course your girlfriend insists on cooking. :MILD: I'd be mad to turn it down