Thanks to all of you who have been so receptive over the past few days, and understanding about my sudden leave, but return, to the boards and towards recovery.
I'll keep this quick - along with feeling completely unhealthy emotionally, about my drinking, I also feel extremely unhealthy PHYSICALLY! Though I'm fairly healthy, overall, as I'm only in my late 20s, the past few years have certainly thrown me a drastically hard curve ball. I feel gross, I feel unfit, and I feel like I'd LOVE to know of any tips that any of you have or have used or have HEARD OF, that might help me whip myself into shape. Not only was I drinking very heavily over the past few years, but drinking brought on smoking (something that I'd ALWAYS despised, in the past, and still despise....) which I also now want to rid myself of. Long story short - I need to just get back to my old healthy normal self :)
Clearly, I'm aware that long term exercise goals, and eating healthy meals are the only right answer - I plan on doing that too. But are there good drinks/shakes? Fruits? Veggies? Water? Etc? I just want to try to get my body back to normal as quickly as possible....and any suggestion would help :)
You know what to do......Like recovery there are no quick fixes ..sorry. I have become a runner. I run half marathons. I try to eat right. We are looking for progress not perfection. You will be amazed on how fast your body will respond to your recovery. You might not see it at first but I will bet that the people who see you will notice a huge difference in you both inside and outside. Give yourself a break. I bet you look alot better then you are giving yourself credit for. Focus on any small wonderful changes that you might notice and run with it!!
I am currently 5'7" 135lbs. When I first quit drinking , a little over 5 yrs ago, I blew up like a balloon . I gained liked 20 lbs cuz I was putting everything I could find in my mouth.
Ultimately Id like to be 125 lbs. and I dont see any problem acheiving that . I just have to discipline myself to get some more exercise. ( Im seasonally employed and its now winter time, so Im not getting as much exercise as I usually do ).
What I did to lose that 20 xtra pounds is I changed my eating habits. I prayed and asked God for some help, cuz like I said, I was out of control , or at least thought I was. I started to eat small amounts of food, more often thruought the day, and I made that food good stuff ... yogurt, cheese / crackers, celery, popcorn, cheesesticks, trail mix, apples with peanut butter, banannas, and the like . I turned into a 'grazer' so to speak Over a period of about 3 months I dropped the excess weight and started to feel alot better . I also force myself to drink 2 bottles of water a day. I never leave the house in the morning without breakfast that includes juice and vitamins.
I am not a doctor and dont claim to be one either, but I know there are many detox diets available via the internet to use, and they are safe. I believe they are short term , and can be used to just get any bad toxins out of your system.
Pray about it, change your thinking, and your habits will change, and then you will change too. Keep up the good work. btw ... are you going to meetings, and have a sponsor yet ???
LJC - very helpful, thanks. FYI - definitely not looking for some "Fad diet" - i probably shouldn't have even used the word "diet" at all. I was moreso looking for some advice on changing the eating habits, along with the drinking habits, etc.
I have not yet found a sponsor, and haven't had a chance to attend a meeting. I was going to go today at noon, but unfortunately, I have to attend a work event :(
I am going to keep looking into it (keep in mind, i also do not have a car, so all of the meetings here in my city, must be subway accessible) though.
Thanks for the encouragement.
LJC - - - ps - - - sounds like you're being so healthy! That's awesome. I, myself, am trying to snack that way :) I'm a vegetarian, so all of your snacks sounded delightful :)
A good book I use is Eating Right to Live Sober by Katherine Ketchem & Anne Mueller, MD. It's all about proper health-restoring & heath-maintaining nutrition for alcoholics.
i would suggest meetings and more meetings . how long have u been sober for? u new about? for me i found going to lots of meetings helped (without them i would have not stayed sober at all), and then about a year in i stopped the smokes. i reckon for me when i put meetings first, along with the steps then other stuff is alot easier and falls into place a lot better.
i was going to say when i stopped eating animal products i felt a million times better in my health- but i see now u are a vegetarian anyways lol. I did feel way better when i stopped the eggs and dairy. it was really noticable for me. i have seen a liver tonic in the health shops, all vege stuff in it. i did give a human liver tonic to our old dog when he had liver disease and the vet could not beleive how fast he recovered. iver not tried them myself.
i would like to go raw - have tried briefly in the past and it was fantastic but right now i like my cooked foods too much, maybe im getting old and the change is too much for me hehe. though its something i really want to do.
-- Edited by slugcat on Wednesday 24th of February 2010 09:37:41 AM
i would take it easy and focus on meetings and getting a sponsor, thinking about that stuff bc the other stuff will fall into place. plus sometimes many people eat chocolate or lollies, candy etc to help sugar cravings and thats way better than drinking.
