My Journey With Health And Fitness – Day 21

Yesterday I decided it really wasn’t raining that badly so I would be good to do my run/walk outdoors. Bad decision! Off I went and after about the first km I realized that it was colder than I had anticipated (there was some wind happening) and while it wasn’t raining hard it was definitely damp out. Still I soldiered on to complete 6.75km before doing my 5km walk which included Oxford Hill. I got home and was rushing to get changed to go to coffee with my retirees group and I ran into all sorts of issue. The main one was that my hands were so cold I could barely move them and it took forever to get them to work enough so that I could button and zip up my jeans. New rule, no more running outside if it is so cold your hands go numb.

Today marks day 21 of the alcohol cleanse meaning I am 3/4 of the way there. Yes, not a drop of alcohol for the last 3 weeks. I must say it has been relatively easy aided by the fact that both my husband and sister are doing this with me. What we have found is a number of awesome non-alcoholic products that have been pretty decent. I admit that the wine we have tried (we have found some that has a reasonable level of sugar) taste closer to grape juice than wine but still gave us the opportunity to enjoy ‘wine’ while hot tubbing. I still really enjoy my Partake stout which with no sugar and only 30 calories is an excellent substitute for proper stout. I think having these options makes taking this break from alcohol a lot easier.

There are definitely benefits in doing this cleanse. I have to acknowledge that I feel like I have a lot more energy. My muscles in the morning don’t feel anywhere near as bogged down and it takes far less time to get them warmed up and moving. I have also noticed a drop in my blood pressure and resting heart rate both of which are good signs. And, according to my Fitbit, my cardio fitness has now moved from the high end of good into the excellent category (though I hate they add the note that it is for a woman of my age like I need to be reminded that I am getting old). The one thing that hasn’t improved much is my sleep which they say gets better when you stop consuming alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, I have had 3 days in the last 21 where my sleep score has been ‘good’. Unfortunately I have had more days where it has been ‘poor’. Seriously, the one thing I truly need as an impact of this cleanse is some good sleep and yet I just can’t do it.

The thing that has impressed me the most is the improvement in my physical endurance. I decided since I wasn’t wasting calories each day on wine that it might be a good time to really up my training (my husband asked me the other day exactly what I was training for and I had no answer for him). I had started to push myself with running more and doing the Oxford climb on a regular basis. This past week I was working hard like I was on steroids and yet at the end of the day did not feel tired. Yesterday, however, was the big push and I truly impressed myself. The stats that came in showed I walked over 47k steps, logged 32.61 km (a little over 20 miles) and burned almost 3,500 calories. Even I admit that this is a lot and it is the hardest I have ever physically worked in a single day. Still, went to bed feeling pretty good and got up this morning without any muscle soreness. I will acknowledge that I toned things down today but have still put in 4 hours of workouts including a 10km run. Note, I planned to do an 8km this morning but while running realized that if I could put in 47k steps in a day then I definitely had the endurance to run 10km and I was right.

I have a challenging week coming up do to many meetings, volunteer work and work for my paying clients. Still my goal is going to be 5 hours of exercise each day many comprised of walking. I plan to push this last week of my alcohol cleanse as far as I can and reap the benefits of having an alcohol free body.