Anti-Chocolate Thread 21.10-20.11

[SailusGebel]

View attachment 23262
They taste like breakfast rolls. Not quite salty, but also not quite sweet. And I didn't put any sugar in them. I can now bake salty muffins!

 

[doravg]

Day 4: 3:11 p.m.
The headache is back. Has been back since the last couple of hours. I managed to do 75 minutes on the bike for 10 km. I think I will lay down for a while and just listen to a podcast. Maybe take a nap.

 

[Sagacious_Punk]

Hello, fellow dark Balkan subject. :)

I found this topic by chance. As as person who has struggled with excessive weight in the past - and I have still have some ways to go - I wish you all the best in your quest!

And because moral support is cheap (though useful!), here are some things that have helped me in regulating weight and the habits that surrounds it:

#. Drink plenty of water. This might sound counterintuitive, but your body needs plenty of hydration, all the time. (Especially if you're actively working out.) Any time you feel hungry, drink a full or a half-full glass of water, then wait 20-30min. If you're still hungry, go ahead and eat. If the hunger pangs lessen or subside, you've actually been thirsty, not hungry. (Unless you train yourself to recognize it, you can mix those two signals - hunger and thirst - very easily.)

#. If you have strong desire to chew something, buy a cabbage head from the grocery store. Peel & eat it raw; it's kinda like ultra-green chips. The taste might not be great (at first), but cabbage is relatively rich in Vitamin C (always good to have) and consists primary of fibers, which help clean the intestines. Because (I assume) you won't able to down a whole cabbage head in a single go, store it in the fridge between munchings. A single head, depending on size, should last you for a few days.

#. Cut dramatically on the carbohydrates (breads, spaghetti, anything with a lot of starch and flour). Sweets aren't the only culprit in gaining weight; those other carbs still make your blood sugar spike dramatically, since all carbs turn into glucose + water when broken down biochemically in the body, same as sugars. Yes, sugar is worse, but glucose is still glucose, no matter how you get it, and that makes you hungry all the time from the high insulin levels that come with the spikes.

#. Fats, despite popular opinion, are not a problem when combating weight. Unless you eat a whole stick of pure butter each morning, they simply don't present as much as a problem that carbs do. So you don't have to be strict about them.

#. If the urge becomes IRRESISTIBLE, consider drinking a soft drink with stevia sweetener. Stevia is a natural, plant-based sweetener that has almost no absorption from the human metabolism. In Bulgaria, there's a popular stevia drink called "Stream Life" that's available in most stores: https://bencommerce.com/bg/билкови-напитки-life-stream/

However, consider this the nuclear option. It might make you want ever sweeter things to eat afterwards. Or you might not like the taste of stevia - it took me a long time before I got used to it.

#. Keep doing your exercises! As the Hacker from Paradise Cracked quips in-game in the Bulgarian dub: "Животът е движение!" :)


And finally, take all advice with a grain of salt. If I learned anything in my 15-something odyssey of getting fit & healthy, it's that each person's individual metabolism and endocrine system is unique (to a varying extent), and thus each diet/fitness program should be custom-tailored to its respective practitioner.

Once again, best of luck! You can do it. :)

 

[doravg]

Day 5: 11:06 a.m.
I feel good. We ran out of yogurt this morning, which for a Bulgarian household is equal to treason. So, I bought 3 jars, some pastries for mom, and her cigarettes. No, I don't smoke. How could I, when I constantly have to hear how mom and dad cough and have to take asthma medication when it gets too hard to breathe?

Yeah, no, thanks.

Anyway, I made myself apple tarator. So, unlike the normal tarator I put apples instead of cucumbers, some mint tea to kill the sourness of the yogurt, and two apples. Today is the first time I made something like that. It is actually good. Sweet, fresh, and can't be eaten at once, which will supply me with something sweet to eat during the entire day. Sweet from fruit, not from sugar. What else can one want?

Happy writing, everyone!

 

[doravg]

Day 5: 1:54 p.m.
Still no headache, which is great! 110 minutes on the bike for 15 km. And the apple tarator was a nice dessert.

Happy writing, everyone!

 

[doravg]

Day 6: 7:31 a.m.
I am done with the writing for today and my head doesn't hurt, which is a plus. Now I can exercise. I found this full grammar review on YouTube yesterday and I intend to cycle while watching it. I need to push through the barrier between B2 and C1. The TestDaF is in September, and I fully intend to pass it.
Happy writing, everyone!

 

[doravg]

Day 6: 12:20 a.m.
113 minutes for 15 km. Must have been cycling slower than yesterday. Still something, though.
I noticed that I no longer so much as look at the sweets on the table. Of which there are many. Just the thought of starting all over again with those horrible headaches makes me cringe at chocolate.

Let us see how it goes as time goes on.

Happy writing, everyone!

 

[doravg]

Day 7: 9:16 a.m.
Managed to sleep until 5 a.m. today. I did wake up a couple of times but got straight back to bed. I have to admit, I feel great. No headache, and I already did my writing for the day.

Happy writing, everyone!

 

[doravg]

Day 7: 6:11 p.m.
180 minutes cycling for 24 km! Tomorrow I will aim for more. =)
Edit: Forgot to add the 5 minutes of kettlebell swings.
Happy writing, everyone!

 

[doravg]

Day 8: 5:53 p.m.
8 days without sweets. Now that the headaches are gone, it is not so hard. It is not as if I am depriving my brain of what it needs. I just make it take it from fruit. It is actually not hard at all.

So today I did 200 minutes for 26 km. Tomorrow is my rest day, so I will probably just do a couple of stretching sessions. There are weeks when I skip the rest day because I have found a new workout YouTube channel or because I just forgot, but tomorrow I will definitely do a rest day.

Happy writing, everyone!

 

[doravg]

Day 9: 10 a.m.
Today we changed the time to winter time. So, I woke up early in the morning, at around 3 a.m. and I thought to myself:
Well, today we changed the time, so it should be 4!
Yeah, it was 3, and then the time changed which I noticed when I got done with my morning routine, so I have been awake since 2 a.m.

Did my stretching, wrote, edited and posted, read for 1 hour, cleaned my room, did a review of the accusative prepositions, watched 55 minutes of a documentary in German.

The only thing left to do now is to cook the dinner and clean downstairs. Which I will do while the moussaka is cooking. I will probably be done at around 1 p.m.

The question is:
The heck am I supposed to do after that?

The problems of a morning person have no ending.

Happy writing, everyone!

 

[Sagacious_Punk]

The question is:
The heck am I supposed to do after that?

The problems of a morning person have no ending.

You can enjoy life and the fruits of your labor. Consider it the blessing of a morning person.

 

[doravg]

Day 10: 12:01 p.m.
157 minutes for 21 km. I feel pretty good. Finished a novella today. The ending just came at me. And I found the prompt for the next story right here, in a thread from 2021.

Happy writing, everyone!

 

[doravg]

Day 11:
Did my cycling, but I have another bone to pick with myself. Waking up at 2 or 4 a.m. is not normal. I wasn't like this before. It took me 6 days to swear off sugar, and my new goal is to be able to sleep until 6 a.m. from now on.

Who is up for double or nothing?

 

[doravg]

Day 12: 6:03 a.m.
Waking up at 6 a.m. is harder than swearing off sugar. I woke up first at 2 a.m., then remembered I said double or nothing and went back to bed.
Then my mom came to my room to take some medicine for stomachache at around 2:40 a.m.
Anyway, she was gone as fast as she came, and I snoozed a little bit more.
Until 3 a.m.
Double or nothing proved to be a magic phrase because I went back to sleep.
Up to 3:30
Then again up to 4:00
Then again to 4:30
At that point, I simply thought: Well, I am rested. How early can it possibly be? Checked my newsfeed and then saw the clock on the laptop.
Yeah, it wasn't 6.
So, I put on a song and went back to bed. Waiting for the alarm to free me from my thoughts.
And I waited.
And waited.
And then waited some more.
I have never been happier to hear the alarm. It sounded like a choir of cherubs. Like the chirping of paradise birds.
Just 6 more days of this...

 

[doravg]

I have been learning German since 2018 and this is the second test I got with C1. Second test in a row.

There is hope for a certificate yet!

 

[doravg]

Day 13: 12:06 p.m.
Did my cycling, staid in bed until 6, even though I woke up at 4:40 a.m. and then checked my newsfeed before putting on some music. But... someone bought two of my books on Smashwords. The two books which got a 1-star rating. And it is simply so...

Strange.

I still intend to migrate all of my books because I want them to be read. It is nice, I guess.

Isn't it funny how when something good happens, we just shrug and go about our day, but the bad things remain in our memory?

 

[doravg]

Day 30:
I am officially clean of chocolate and its sugary evilness. I started remembering things easier, started staying up later and waking up at more normal times. Not to 6 a.m., but after I have updated my story, I usually stay in bed to listen to music. As for weight loss, well, no change there. Before the last Thursday I exercised every day, but then firewood fell on my foot, and I ended up bedridden. Today is the first day since then, when I was able to even sit in a chair for long enough to do all my writing.

The scales show no progress, but I did measure myself during the challenge, and I have lost 1 centimeter from my arms, 6 from around the belly, and 4 from the hip area. Last Friday I had better measurements, but being bedridden leads to weight gain. Still, I just need to wait for my foot to recover, and then I can hop on the fitness bike again.

The funny thing? Popcorn is my new comfort food. Salty and buttery. Today I ate a whole bowl. That is probably as bad as eating sweets, but it helps alleviate the cravings.

PS: I bought myself the new jacket and boots.

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

So, I have really let myself go. After I have been doing workouts with little to no progress for the last five months, I weighed myself.
111kg750grams.
The chocolate after the writing of the morning chapters will just have to go.
The juices at meal times will have to go.
My brain better learn to use the sugars in fruits because it is not getting anything else.

If I eat something sugary during the next 30 days, I swear to everything that is holy and unholy, I will buy someone from SH a 50 Dollar Ko-fi. Then link my defeat here in this thread.

To not be able to pull out of this, I will write about how long I have been working out and if I ate chocolate or not during each day of this challenge.

I am starting it tomorrow, but will cycle as I watch maiLab today. I have it on good authority it is low-impact and won't lead to damages.

Please, no unsupportive commends.

And yes, the ko-fi winner will be chosen from this thread. But you must know one thing, potential beneficiary from my weakness.

There is no one as stingy as a Bulgarian woman, who wants to spend her money on boots. Boots which are fancy, and which might be size 41, but are tighter and meant for a slim person.

Let the 30-day Anti-chocolate challenge begin... tomorrow.

why are you just refusing chocolate when you can reject other artifical alternatives which could replace it as an addiction

 

[doravg]

why are you just refusing chocolate when you can reject other artifical alternatives which could replace it as an addiction

I stopped eating sweets in general, and replaced them with fruit.