Apologies for missing the Friday post comrades. How did you do this week?
I just started lifting again today after some time off. Meant to start last week but I’ve had car troubles and all my spare times been trying to fix that shit. Which is also why I missed making the post. If anyone ever notices it’s getting late on a Friday and I haven’t made the post feel free. lol
I’m back at my pre-december stats again after two and a half weeks of training. Feels good to be back again and now it’s time for progress.
I also did not drink yet this month and it made me think. There’s lots of alcohol free craft beers these days and they taste just as nice, and I still have a great time at the bar. I often have more periods in which I don’t drink and I always feel good. Might as well make it a standard.
Making progress in the mental department as well. I’ve decided to pause my education for now and focus on the opportunities the party gave me (starting youth department and working as a free consult for people in need) as well as my general work-life balance. It was a tough decision but I made the right one, now it’s time to move forward. The last months have put a lot of things in perspective for me.
So feeling good overall. Hope your car manages to stay good as well lol.
I recently started a booze hiatus and was extremely surprised that NA beers are as good as they are. Side benefit is the absence of alcohol makes me less likely to grab follow-up beers which avoids empty calories.
For real. NA craft beer these days is not even that unhealthy. Most of them don’t have sugar anymore and they are not dense in calories.
Lately Energibajer is my favorite, a Danish one. It even has lots of Vitamin B added lol. There’s also one with like 10 grams of protein in it. Gaining while drinking beer.
In the last year of trying to reduce my body fat, I gave it up too (at least I never buy and keep it at home anymore, I’ll still have it if I go out socially which isn’t that often). Its expensive, and its empty calories.
I’m weak so I still wanted some intoxicant as a replacement, so I switched to delta 8 gummies (basically weed gummies), they’re legal in my country (the US) now. Vegan, no calories, don’t do damage to your lungs, get you high but still functional for like 4 hours, and are wayyy cheaper than alcohol.
Weed gummies or edibles are cool if you still want to have a buzz going. I have cookies from time to time (not legal here but no one’s stopping me from crossing the Dutch border). Makes me feel much more peaceful as well.
Stopping drinking can only be good for you.
Started this year incredibly motivated, this will be my second year since i reduced my alcohol intake ( planning to stop drinking entirely ) and started going to the gym.
Haven’t been as consistent as i would like to but im no longer uncomfortable going to the gym as i used to, i will start tracking calories and protein intake this year to improve. Also started putting in the hours reading theory, trying to read at least 1 book per month, let’s see if i can keep it up.
Not to discount calorie counting / macro tracking, but at least for me personally, intermittent fasting was infinitely more effective. I calorie-counted for 6 months, its tedious, difficult, most people give it up after a month, and if you cut too much, it can leave you without much energy for the day. And I really didn’t get great results in actually lowering my body fat.
I saw results after like 2 weeks of intermittent fasting, and after two months I’ve reached my goal I thought it would take a year to reach.
The one good thing IMO that calorie-counting can do, is doing macro-tracking, and at least get you to learn what to eat.
Here’s a good talk on IF, and some comrades here could assist if you want to get started. There’s lots of apps that make it really easy.
Thanks for the info, i will take a look into it.
I started taking creatine to help build muscle strength when I run, and I’m going back to running every day since the gym is open again after the break
It also helps with muscle recovery. Even if one doesn’t work out, creatine still has benefits. There’s a little bit of research coming out recently that shows that creatine has anti-depression benefits.
I’ve been doing great after a bit of a post holiday slump. I went to a gym with a friend which wasn’t very pleasant due to how busy it was, so I’m sticking to my at home weight workouts and getting 10000 steps daily. Been also making fake eggs (mung bean with nutritional yeast) and i’m saving a lot of food costs.
Those eggs sound great. What’s the nutritional value and do you have a recipe?
I loosely follow this recipe… the yellow split mung bean and black salt are the most essential ingredients which aren’t always easy to find but south Asian grocery stores generally carry them. https://www.theedgyveg.com/2021/07/05/mung-bean-egg-recipe/. I don’t measure the nutritional content super close but there but i put approx 2 tbsp of nutritional yeast which equivalent to 7g of protein, which is like a chicken egg. it’s decent and out of this 6$ bag i estimate I can make almost equivalent to 100 eggs. but obviously the tradeoff is labour.
I’ve been sticking to my exercise lately but I’m also thinking of cutting out alcohol bc tbh i feel like shit some mornings when I could’ve easily gotten a good exercise in instead. I’ve been doing very well tho if I really wanna put things into perspective. I’ve been benching 185 for reps recently. It’s tough but I’m very proud of myself. I remember when I used to hit 25 on each side of the bar, now I do the same but I add a plate. I also recently got a Deadlift belt and gloves for xmas but I don’t use it much, does anyone else use equipment for lifting, specifically the belt and gloves??
