Well, this is not proving to be as difficult as I thought it might be. However, I’m perhaps not being as strict as I feared I might have to be, either. Let’s use the same format for reporting as last month.
Method
- Continued eating at home entirely plant-based, again trying to tick off the ‘Daily Dozen’ in How Not To Die
- Continued to allow myself freedom to eat/drink anything when out (although tried to stay sensible)
- Aimed for daily exercise of 9000–10000 steps walking or 45 mins on static bike
- Weighed myself daily to get an indication of the impact of individual events
Results
- Mood: Definitely good. I’m enjoying the cooking, and although I’m still fine with eating meat when out, I’m glad I’m not cooking with it, which doesn’t seem attractive at all.
- Hunger: Fine, although I’ve been snacking a bit more than expected. It’s been relatively healthy snacking though!
- Energy: Big result here, in that sleeping has improved. I’m going to reserve judgement on whether this is a permanent thing. Did reasonably well on the exercise target, hitting it on at least 5 days a week.
- Weight: Loss of a further 1.5kg, so a total of 3.5kg in 2 months.
- Daily Dozen: Reasonable, although I found the chart too much of a chore, and have convinced myself I get the principles enough to not to need to fill it in any longer. I hope to not regret this, so I will return to it if things seem to be slipping!
Conclusion
Maintaining the ‘anything goes when I’m out of the house’ policy has highlighted a surprise: I go out eating and drinking a lot more than I’d thought!
I don’t want to feel guilty about this, but I do, at least a little. I need to get over that. But if I’m out enjoying myself and eating/drinking relatively unhealthily a lot, and still feeling better and losing weight, that’s quite a result, right?
However, it’s important to remember that the goal here is a better diet for better health. There may be no unhealthy food and drink in the house now, but there’s still too much being consumed! Maybe ‘doing better when I’m out’ needs to be prioritised.
The month included three or four evenings in the wine bar, plenty of time at the pub and gigs, a Formal Hall meal at Jesus College (thanks Dr J!), and even a four-day trip to Austin, Texas, which would have scored terribly on the chart above had I not stopped completing it by then. My aim for next month will be to be a little more sensible – and healthy – when out, without cutting down on that side of things.
I do also need to experiment more with the cookery at home; I’ve only developed two main course meals in two months that I feel are worthy of a place on this blog as ‘staples’, which isn’t as many as expected. Everything else I’ve tried cooking still needs work.
So overall, pretty pleased, but room for improvement. I’m still curious as to where this will take me.