2 years!!!

Hello cyber friends

I noticed it has been 2 years since I started this little venture.

Well, I am still off the piss!!! And no I don't think about it, much anyway.

I wrote a (very) little ebook about my experiences (alias) on the link I posted earlier. I sell about one every day or so, mainly in the UK, if you are interested. No Amazon has not yet posted me a royalty cheque, but I expect they will any day now.......

I put on some weight after I started going to the gym, and ended up going to see a specialist who is helping me out. I'm now 25kg down on where I was 2 years ago.

So yes, going off the piss has made me healthier.

I have gone from a grog monster to someone that doesn't even think about it. Well, almost never.

I did go to Sydney last week and bizarrely I wanted a drink. I think it was because it was my old stomping grounds.

No chance I would have one, but it was bizarre evening wanting one.

Let me know how you are going.

(ex) Grogger

http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Giving-Alcohol-Non-Alcoholics-ebook/dp/B006YIZ1YM/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1326795139&sr=1-2

The Fit Guy

Hello I am still off the piss. I'm still trying to get fit. Follow me at http://fit-guy.blogspot.com/ if you would like.

ps - This is what my cat looks like.

Day 365: Year's up

This is my last day in my year off the grog.

I started this year thinking it was normal to drink pretty well every day, and to get pissed pretty well every week. I had been drinking to excess for about 20 years. Living like an Aussie bloke.

Well, sorry to say this, but Aussie blokes come last. They miss out. They miss out on time, on health, on chicks, on exercise, on nature, on looking good.

They miss out.

Cracking a tinny or swishing some fine wine around your mouth while you hold the glass up the light: if you have any tendency to go that bit far then it's all the same. Whether you justify it through mateship or sophistication, it is all the same. Getting pissed; that's what it is.

You are making a choice as to how you spend your time. Dancing with a drug so engrained in our culture you don't even know it is one, or spending your life doing the things you want to do, looking after yourself, keeping your health and weight in check, and waking up each day clear headed with a sense of purpose.

It's just a choice.

I've chosen to get my shit together. It's a slow process. This year I lost over 22kg, but have recently put some back on so I'm back under 20kg. But I'll be on track soon enough, and 15-20kg lost is still fabulous. And you know what it's just the start.

I'm changing into someone completely different to the person I was when I started. A beer expert? A fat drunken guy who came last more like it. Even though, like many, he thought he was coming first.

I am going to be that fit guy people look at when he walks past. Not in a fuckwit way. Just in an a 'that guy is fit' way. Getting off the piss has allowed me to work that out.

I'll get there. Sober. I'm off to my own personal training session now. It's dark. Raining. I hate gyms - or at least the old me did, but I'm going to one.

Wouldn't be doing this hung over.

Enough rambling. It's all there if you want to reminisce: my ramblings for a year.

Thanks to those who supported me through comments and otherwise. It does make a difference. You know who you are.

Good luck working it out on your side.

Day 364: One day left!!

Almost there ladies and gents!

Had the barbie yesterday. Funny watching my brother drink beer after beer after beer........ And no I didn't want to grab any. I'm far past that.

I woke up with a cracking headache at 3.00 again this morning - second day in a row. I really think it is due to drinking soft drink. Not to sound like a nutter or anything.

Bit nervous about the personal training tomorrow. I think this guy is a hard arse. Hopefully he has the maturity to deal with someone like me: if it's too hard or he is a cock then I won't last.

But I'm hoping.

Going to buy myself one of those Weber Qs I think and move towards simple protein and vegetable meals. Forget high end cooking most of the time.

Day 363: Not long now

Well 2 days left now. Appropriately enough, I am having another barbeque with my brother, as I did 12 months ago. Instead of getting pissed as a fart, behaving badly, and getting hung over (wiping out 2 days of my life), I'm actually walking around the mountain with him at 8, and will then have a (sober) barbie with him at 12.

I also met with a personal trainer yesterday. I'm going to start some hard core 1-1 training, 3 times a week. Just me and him in a gym, for 1 hour at a time. High end guy, will cost a fair packet for 3 hours a week - one on one. That should get my thinking back on track.

I've gone off the rails a little this last little while, in terms of my weight and food and exercise, but it is recoverable, and, in a way, I think I'm keen just to knock this year off so I can move onto the next phase.

Day 360: Weight gain

Well, the eye off the ball for a couple of weeks means I have put a few kilos on.

Going off the piss does not make you a lean, fit guy. But it does allow you to get into a routine that can transform you into one.

5 days to go till my year is up (which makes it a Monday, rather than a Sunday).

Anyway, I just want to get to the end of the year. Appropriately enough, a mate wanted to go for a walk today, so he should be arriving any minute, for us to trudge off into the dark.

That is, if the piker doesn't pike. He is a weak prick, generally.

Day 354: Off rails a bit

Well, not piss, but exercise and food has been a bit out of whack. Had a holiday in Potsville, New South Wales, over easter, so that's why I haven't been blogging.

Anyway, I have JUST OVER 1 WEEK TO GO!!!!!!! in my year off the piss.

Who would have thought it was possible. The beer guy. The "good bloke". The first to shout a round.

For 20 fucking years.

Taking a year off the piss.

Well, it's possible all right. I've got 1 week to go to prove it! I won't finish on the exercise and weight loss high I had two weeks ago. Forget 25kg, I think I'll be lucky to have 20 now (haven't been on the scales.......).

Will ramp up the exercise between now and then, to finish as best I can.

But it won't be about my weight on that date. It's about my lifestyle change. And my long term health prospects as a result.

?????? up early again

Well, this lack of sleep is fucking me up.

I need to sleep in another bed. I'm going to for the next week I think so I can catch up.

Out of fucking control.

Sounds like a fucking freight train. I can hear her from here - in the lounge room.

Surely this has to go to a couple's compatibility.

Day ???: Insomnia

Been off the rails a bit this last week. Not so much walking. Eating more.

Woke up at 1 this morning and haven't been able to get back to sleep. I think it is stress related.

Mainly work.

Not easy to get the cash you need without a lot of bullshit, is it.

Not sleeping will fuck me up all day.

Day 340: Up .7kg

Well I guess that shows the variation you would expect. You can't really lose 2.4kg in a week.

It is quite frustrating, the process of trying to lose weight. Really you are attempting to undo the damage you've caused to your body in the past. If you go through a period doing this, trying to be really healthy, then over time it becomes a great mystery as to how the hell you allowed yourself to get, let's face it, so fat in the first place.

It is just not a sane thing for a person to allow, over time.

You wonder what was going through your head, week by week, month by month, year by year, as you allowed yourself to put that weight on - as you transformed from a 23 year old lean, fit guy into a middle aged slob, in say a relatively short period of 10 or 15 years.

Of course, it has to do with lifestyle. A routine of destructive behaviour. Regular binging and eating pub food can lead to it. But so can more subtle drinking, either under the guise of sophistication, or just a daily or weekly routine, that adds up the calories, attacks your fitness, and encourages drunk or hungover food choices that only lead to you going in the one direction.

That still doesn't explain why you let it happen. Ignorance is the usual answer. Your focus is elsewhere - perhaps on the lifestyle (mates, shiny new suit and city drinks), perhaps on other problems. But not on the scales. No charts are kept. No heads are shaken as you notice you have gone up 10kg in 12 months.

How could they, unless you were a nutjob. Nobody would sit back and watch that happen and not do anything about it.

In effect you have your head in the sand. Which is what has happened to me over much of my adult life I think.

Not that it is easy to go down if your head isn't in the sand. God knows there have been periods in which I have been trying but not progressing. But it is hard to go backwards if you are watching. You adjust your behavior enough to ensure that doesn't happen.

So where does this leave me. Frustrated I found myself in this position. That I let myself get into this position. I have some recent success it's true. But it is such a long slog, the old body reset after so much abuse really. Years, for me, as it turns out.

And the first year is almost over. 25 days left by the looks of it.

Will I make the 25kg? I thought so yesterday. Not so sure today. It's very hard keeping up a loss of over a kilo a week. I find it hard, anyway. I think if you average 1/2 a kilo over an extended period you are doing extremely well.

I'm up early again today. At about 4.30. I should trudge off around Mt Cootha again, back to where I began, almost 12 months ago. Except it is now by myself, and I'm 20kg lighter.

Day 339: 22.2kg!!!!

Well, I've either got cancer or this curry/no piss/no crap/exercise every day diet I'm on suits me.

Damn you Italian diet for fucking me up for 7 months!!!

This is a 2.4kg loss in one week?????? How is that even possible. It may be I've lost some fluid for some reason. Perhaps I'm eating less salt on the curry diet.

Either way, I'll have it. Look out 25kg!!!

Day 337: Week 48; 21.5kg loss

Well, very fucking pleased with this morning's reading.

21.5kg loss!!!!!!

And the last few days I've been feasting and only walked once.

Shows the Italian diet really really sucked. You can't exchange diet coke for olive oil and think that real food is going to save you............

Also I think the 4 Coothas I did the last week worked a treat.

How exciting. Well, still gunning for the 25kg this year. Going to try and do Cootha every single morning I can, and if I can't I want to walk in the afternoon.

And keep up the curries.

Day 333: 20kg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, 20.2 kg down this morning since I was at my fattest, about 11 months ago.

I'm pleased with that. 20kg is a big milestone. How can you not feel and look better 20kg down.

Clearly changing the diet was the right thing to do. To think that "real food" alone will make you lean is not correct, at least to western types.

You can't swap diet coke for olive oil and butter (as I did) and not expand.

It does not stop there, of course. I want to lose 25kg now for the 12 months. I still have a month to go, and so there is just time, if I do everything right.

Day 332: 19.8kg!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I might be a bit dehydrated, again, but I don't care and I'm only 200 grams off my goal weight for the year.

I think my new diet suits me.

Obviously dead keen to crack the 20, and not just dehydrated.

I have a few challenges coming up. I have lunch out today, and a work dinner Thursday night, and a work dinner Friday night.

So what am I going to do?

Well I think I need to exercise my arse off really, and be really good with the food otherwise. In particular, I think I need to do Cootha again, every day, and see how that goes.

If I'm fair dinkum by say trying to break the 20 by Sunday or Monday, then I have to put in some serious exercise time between now and then.

So today: want to do 1 hour 45 minute Cootha this morning, and my 1 hour 15 walk walk after work. 3 hours should have a go at fighting off the lunch if nothing else. I might try cutting down on the other food I eat today as well.

What this means of course is that there is no reason why I can't knock off 25kg for the year. If I get back into a ball breaking routine, keep up the curries, and avoid crap, I can do it.

Wouldn't that be something.

Day 331: That's better

Better sleep. Will walk after work today. Home preferably.

Had left over curry last night. Delicious!

Going to have again tonight.

Day 330: Poor sleep

Been awake since about 3. At 4.40 I've given up and made myself a coffee.

I wonder if I drank less coffee I would sleep better? Who knows. I think part of the problem is my girlfriend being in the bed. I sleep much better by myself.

Just like those old codgers with their two beds eh?

Thing when you're knackered is that you're not so likely to go for your walk, are you.

Went and interviewed my grandmother yesterday with my new bloggie. Thought I would get some footage while I still can, as she is 90. Unfortunately I've left it almost too late. She thought I was someone else for most it, and her memory is pretty well shot, even for events from her past.

I guess what you do capture is her voice, and her mannerisms. She looks pretty good, for 90!

Having said that, it isn't an age you want to be really. I think looking at her existence you would prefer a quiet exit at say 86 with your marbles intact, and a little more physical dignity.

Made my curries last night. Lamb and coriander, lamb vindaloo and mushroom and pea.

Frozen 6 meals out of it. It is quite a bit of effort, but I guess if you split that effort over 4 meals for the two of you then it isn't so bad. And I quite like cooking.

My whole day is going to be shithouse because of the lack of sleep.

Day 329: 47 weeks; 18.6kg

Well 5 weeks to go.

How am I going to smash the 20kg for my 12 months off the demon drink?

Well I'm going to do 2 things:

1) cook up my curries for portion controlled meals during the week; and

2) I think I'm going to re-introduce Cootha to up the ante a bit with the exercise.

So to act on this then today I'm going to go for a walk around Cootha as soon as I type this (the hard bit). Then I'll go out and buy some curry stuff and get cooking.

Also going to interview my gran using my newly purchased "bloggie" to get some recordings while I still can. She's 90.

UPDATE: Did the walk. Man it's great. You can feel how it will strip weight. I want to try and get back into doing it daily perhaps.

Day 328: Weights

Did some some weights this morning (my little dumbells). No walk though.

Shithouse day at work yesterday. Made some good food choices though. Did feel like a drink after work, due to the day being shithouse, which is unusual. No chance that was going to happen though.

Keen for the year to be over now. What's left, 5 or so weeks.

Going to cook up a big batch of curries tomorrow.