Diet & Fitness Written by Harry Fenton - Local personal trainer adviing us on how to keep fit & healthy THE JOY OF GIVING UP ALCOHOL I
have been a regular beer drinker for forty years. I started, like most of us, at the age of about fifteen and found it to be a very enjoyable pastime. As a
young man I could drink a gallon of weak beer on a Friday or Saturday night quite effortlessly and often did. In the late seventies, boys drank beer and girls drank port and lemon or gin and tonic. As I grew up and became more and more into fitness my consumption fell to a few beers a week, except for the very occasional heavy night out. The only time I have gone without having a drink for more than a few days was in 1980 when I was serving in Northern Ireland with
H.M.Forces. I can`t quite believe it now but I was once pushed home from a fire brigade end of course party in a wheelbarrow! Not very clever. For the last ten or so years, I have consumed
no more than three or four cans of lager per week, the odd nip of vodka in my cocoa and sometimes a glass of port on a cold winter’s evening. Not very much then, by most people’s standards but enough to make me feel “not quite right” the morning after even a small amount of alcohol. Late winter I was evaluating my training for the year and
As the weeks passed I felt more and more pleased with my abstinence. Smug even!
my goals for 2015. I remembered something that the great athlete Seb Coe had said about the reasons he was retiring from competitive running. He decided that, no matter how hard he trained for the next season, or whatever he did health-wise, he could not be as fit as he had been the previous year. Time had caught up with him. I felt the same with my health and fitness. I cycled 80 odd miles most weeks last year and lifted weights on the days I didn`t cycle. If I exercised any harder I knew that I would cross the line and hurt myself or become ill. So what could I do to be fitter and healthier? My diet, thanks to Elaine, has been really good for years. I`m not stressed, I sleep pretty well. Cutting out booze was the only thing left. My dad, aged 84, a lifelong tee-totaller, is still running
around like a kid and getting up at 5am to do two paper rounds. I wondered, is being a non-drinker his secret? (He just doesn`t like the taste of alcohol). I had also read that people who have given up drinking sometimes feel their brains “de-fog” after a while. That sounded interesting. But, I wondered, how could I possibly not be a drinker? Just before Christmas, like many others around Dart-
mouth, I went down with a dose of the `flu. I felt rough for six weeks. Towards the end of that time I decided that, as I
hadn`t had a beer for ages, I may as well keep it going a bit longer. As the weeks passed I felt more and more pleased with my abstinence. Smug even! Once or twice I really felt like a nice, cold lager on a Friday night but always the thought of giving up my experiment stopped me from cracking open that can. After several months I didn`t miss it one bit. If I wanted a cold drink I poured a large fizzy water with grape juice. Now, nine months in, I see myself as a non-drinker. I may have the odd beer sometime in the future but I doubt it. So what are the benefits? No hangovers, obviously a good thing and yes, I do
feel more alert and alive, especially in the mornings. I recently went out for a three hour cycle at 6am, I wouldn`t have managed that if I had drunk a couple of cans the night before. The most surprising thing for me is the
weight loss. I keep a training diary and therefore know that I weighed 71.6kg in December when I went down with the flu. Despite eating the same as last year and lifting weights regularly to keep my size up, I now
weigh 67.2kg. That is a loss of 4.4kg, or about 9lb in English. There wasn`t much spare fat on me before, so to lose 9lb of it is remarkable. However, 4 cans of lager per week for 9 months equals: 1000 calories x 36 weeks= 36,000 calories. 3,500 calories =1 lb of fat. So, I should have expected to lose about 9lbs by not drinking the 4 cans a week that I used to drink. Simple maths really. The other health issues hardly need repeating. We all
know them. Heavy drinkers are more likely to suffer a myriad of health issues including mouth and throat cancers, cirrhosis of the liver, premature ageing and plenty of other horrors. Most regular wine drinkers, especially ladies, get what I call “doughy” skin, it is most evident on the arms, face and neck. The only way to get rid of it is to stop drinking, sorry. A tip for some of you: Going for a hard training session the morning after a heavy night out will not help alleviate the damage done to your liver one little bit. The only way to do that is to stop drinking. Perhaps giving up entirely is a step too far for you. That`s
fine, but maybe consider only drinking at weekends or not more than three nights a week. Please don`t feel pressurised to drink by your friends or dinner party guests. If you want to drink water, stick to your guns and drink water and enjoy that clear head the next morning. Good luck.•
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