My Holiday Health Challenge

For the first time ever, I returned to work after Christmas at the same weight, fitness and strength as I left. This is why and how I did it...

Jan 12, 2023

Why do This to Myself?

Every Christmas break for me, for a long time, has been about one thing. Drinking. Well, that’s not entirely true, but alcohol, for a long time, has played a massive role in any time taken off work.

When I was younger, it was an opportunity to party. The weather was good, didn’t have to worry about work or the random drug tests that came with it. I’ve been through stages throughout my adult life where I wouldn’t go nearly as hard as other times, but on reflection, I can now see that the ferocity at which I would attack the holidays correlated directly with how stressful a year I had endured.

Every year I would go back to work feeling worse than when I had left. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. But I treated most holidays like an 18-day party weekend. I’d fuck up my whole routine. Within days I was in a habit of going to bed at 3 am and sleeping half the day away the next day.

I’d tell myself that I had earned it. It was a tough year. I deserved to blow off some steam. Somehow I would justify drinking every day for 18 or so days, only having maybe 12 nights of sleep, was a good and healthy way of blowing off steam, steam that I deserved to blow off!

I remember one year I drank at least half a carton of beer every day for the two weeks of the holidays. I put on 7kgs. Naively, I thought I would strip it right off when I went back to work and got back into my training. I thought it would only take me a fortnight. I trained my ass off after those holidays but it still took me until fucking Easter time to lose the weight that only took two weeks to put on. That was probably ten years ago. You’d think I’d have learned from it. I didn’t.

Oh, and fuck anyone who disagreed with me too! This was MY holiday! I had earned the right to be a piece of shit for 2.5 weeks, apparently. Anyone who disagreed was an asshole! God, I was a dick head…

Last Christmas break wasn’t much different to the usual. I drank most days, did plenty of coke, missed plenty of sleep, and returned to work feeling worse than when I left. Ready to attack the year! Refreshed! Motivated! I was more worn out than ever which probably had a bit to do with why the start of my year was one of the darkest periods of my life.

I was on leave in August for the birth of my son. I was four months sober. I knew I’d be ok through this period because everyone else was on leave and I had people to look after. It’s strange, but usually, I was able to distinguish between what was and wasn’t a suitable time to get messy.

Towards the end of my drinking earlier in the year, the lines had become a bit blurred and there was the odd text message to someone at work saying I wouldn’t be able to come in for some made-up reason. That’s when I knew I was getting close to, maybe, possibly, having a slight, small, problem. It was always the times when I knew I had some run-off time to recover that I would go the hardest.

That’s why I was fucking terrified of these holidays. 2.5 weeks of spare time. No work to take up a third of my time and probably half of my mental energy each day. Free time can be scary or dangerous for people in sobriety. Too much time alone with their own thoughts can be dangerous. We like to fill our schedule and stay busy. Can’t get distracted by negative thoughts if we literally don’t have time to consider them.

That’s what I did initially to stay sober. Then slowly opened up more and more space in my schedule in a bid to control the flow of my thoughts, hence making them easier to navigate. I still had some kind of control. So the void created by an empty schedule provided by holidays can open you up to a lot of risks. And if there’s one thing working in construction in the modern age has taught me, it’s that where there are risks, we need control measures.

Even though I was feeling good about my sobriety at eight months sober going into the break, I had worked too fucking hard this year to risk throwing it all the way. So I needed a control measure. I’ve been using exercise as an outlet all my life, but even more so over the last eight or so months. So I figured for this time I would stick to what I know works. I needed to set myself a little exercise goal for the break. I enjoy exercise. It’s good for me and it can be placed neatly into a quaint little routine.

When I’m working, I burn about 500 active calories at the gym or running each morning. So I figured with the extra time holidays provide, I should double that number and that can be my daily goal. To burn 1000 active calories each morning and get home for when my son wakes up.

How I Made Sure I Achieved It

I ended up averaging around 1350 active cals over the 18 days of the break. There were two days where I was just under 1000 for the day, but I’ll explain later why that’s ok.

Here’s my Strava training log for the break. The first day of my break was Thursday, December 22nd, last day was Sunday, January 8th.

Habituate it

I worked really hard over the last eight months to build a really solid routine. I didn’t want to undo that hard work. I was terrified of it. I know that breaks are meant to be about catching up on rest and refreshing yourself etc, but I know what I am like and I know what I am capable of when I throw all routine out the window.

It was also my first Christmas as a dad. I don’t get to see my son in the mornings because I’m always at work. So it was important for me to spend time with him in the mornings especially because that is when he’s in the best mood.

So I wanted to get up before 5 am every day. I like getting up early already. I didn’t want to ruin my sleep routine only to have to rebuild it when I went back to work. I managed to get up before 5 am every day except for one. New years day. No, I didn’t party, I was at the hospital with my son who had a bug of some sort that turned his face into a milk sprinkler.

Getting up early and getting it done straight away does a few things. It sets you up for the day in terms of mood. It prevents you from experiencing the “you’re a lazy fat prick” negative talk in the afternoon and you eliminate the risk of talking yourself out of it throughout the day. You know, when “Oh I’ll do it later” becomes, “I might just have today off and go again tomorrow”.

For me, behaviours, good and bad, are contagious. I’m more likely to do tomorrow whatever I did today. I’m a slippery slope kind of operator. So I still got up early every day, did what I needed to and was home in time to watch cartoons and hang out with my family.

I think a key thing to this is accountability. I told people I would be doing this, once you say it you kind of have to do it. If you want to ensure you do it, particularly early in the morning, you don’t wanna be hungover.

Go Easy on Yourself

While I set this goal for myself, I wasn’t going to be a psycho about it. Life throws shit at you sometimes and the more malleable you can be the easier it is to navigate said flung shit. As I said, I had two days where I didn’t reach my target. But I still had tomorrow. I could still average my calorie target for the period.

I still burned 900+ calories on those days. I still got up early, got out and did something positive and healthy. Who was going to be significantly impacted by this “failure” to exactly meet this target that didn’t exist three weeks ago and that no one other than yourself gives a shit about?

You have two options in this situation. You can be all pissed off at yourself for missing your target, tell yourself a bunch of negative shit that is only going to harm yourself, or you can find the positives in it. You just burned 900 active calories on a day when most other people are probably laying on the lounge, watching cricket, eating zooper doopers (I did plenty of that too).

I think it’s important that we remember these are targets, not rules. We set them because it’s what we would like to achieve. In all aspects of life, sometimes we don’t get what we would like. But you put yourself in a strong position to try to achieve it, you tried, and fell just short, but you’re still ahead. You’re still better for having done it. Do you think Novak Djokovic is still pissed off about the set he dropped in the round one match of a grand slam tournament two weeks later when he’s standing there holding the trophy? Of course, he fucking isn’t.

Play the long game, and try again tomorrow.

Prioritise Sleep

You ain’t missing out on anything good after 9 pm. Trust me. I’ve stayed up after 9 pm lost. A few times I’ve stayed up past 9 pm… the next night, and the next night. I can tell you, that’s not where the good shit is.

Sleep is so important to how we feel every single day. I don’t think people realise just how much it impacts the way we feel. It’s not just about being tired or not. It impacts our mood, our energy levels, and our ability to problem-solve and deal with complex tasks, and every fucking thing.

I made a conscious effort throughout the holidays to make sure I still went to bed at a relatively early time to make sure I got enough sleep and even though I still got up early every morning, I averaged more sleep through the break than I did in the weeks previous.

I sleep better now than I ever have and have found that the best thing I can do is wake up at the same time every day. Your brain will reverse-engineer itself into going to sleep around the same time each day. From my experience, consistency is the most important thing in terms of improving sleep.

Improve your sleep, everything else improves with it.

See below how much my sleep improved each week with consistent wake-up times and daily exercise. Something I hope to keep prioritising this year! They correlate perfectly with the minutes of intensity for the week. Wear yourself out, and sleep better. Simple.

Nutrition

But, but, it’s Christmas, you’re supposed to eat ham and prawns and eat yourself into a coma. I agree. I ate way fucking more than I normally do over the break. A lot more shit too. That’s what Christmas is about.

I didn’t have a weight goal for the holidays, I just happened to not put any on. I just stuck to the process of doing my thing each morning. I was tracking my food still but not nearly as closely as I normally would have. On a lot of days, I was in a calorie surplus rather than my usual deficit.

The only thing I cared about was that I got my healthy staples in each day because I wanted to feel good the next day when I was exercising. So I still had my smoothie every morning. Still had some mixed nuts and a couple of pieces of fruit and outside of that, I ate whatever the fuck I wanted.

I knew if I did put on a little bit of weight I would have enjoyed doing it. I also knew that holidays aren’t forever and returning to normal life when I went back to work would see me slip back into my normal routine anyway. I just wanted to make sure I had enough good stuff in me to perform how I wanted to in the morning, and the rest of the time was free reign.

It’s pretty simple if you wanna feel amazing, eat nothing but organic, whole foods. Just know you probably won’t have any mates. If you wanna feel like shit, do your groceries at the servo, and live off monster energy drink twisties for all I care.

If you want to feel good and also enjoy yourself, find a balance somewhere in between. Only you can find the exact balance that works for you.

Spend Quality Time With People That Matter

My fear was that I would have too much free time. Too much time in my own head with my thoughts racing around. I was scared I’d get overwhelmed and search for something to push those unwanted thoughts away.

I wanted to actively do nothing for a fair chunk of this break. I had a big year, did a few things, and wanted a rest. But with that comes the risk of my mind wandering into dark places.

I have created a new rule where if I’m at home, my phone is on do not disturb. I don’t want to receive a notification that ultimately doesn’t fucking mean anything and let it distract me into doom scrolling for half an hour while my son lays on his play mat bored out his brain. I want to be present.

Due to work, I don’t get to spend a lot of time with my family during the day. Any parent out there knows that a four-month-old is a different beast at 5 pm than the one he was at 7 am. Spending quality, sober and present time with him, my partner and other family members made me realise that all that stuff is way better than drinking away another day anyway.

Summary

-18 Days
-24,339 active calories burned
-1352 average calories burned per day
-1,003 minutes in the gym
-725 minutes running for 135.75 kilometres
-Starting weight 88.3kg
-Finishing weight 89.6kg

Ok, so for the dickheads out there saying I put on weight, I have been steadily fluctuating between 88-90 kg for over a month now. It’s very normal for people to fluctuate between a range of a couple of kgs.

It was pleasing for me that all my other key health markers stayed fairly consistent through a period where traditionally I would undo months of hard work over a two-week binge.

Anyway, this challenge wasn’t about exercise, fitness or weight.

This is about proving to myself that I can navigate a tricky period by finding and implementing positive and healthy habits to replace the negative, unhealthy habits of the past.

Of course, you don’t have to burn 1000 or more active calories a day to stay sober, drink less, lose weight, or enjoy your holidays more.

Me, I have proven furthermore that I can enjoy things without alcohol. In fact, I am genuinely starting to enjoy things more than I did when I was drinking. Because they are real and organic. It was shaky at the start but life without alcohol is so much better. I get so much more joy out of the little things, and there are so many more little things than big things. Big things are a load of shit. They are always underwhelming. Sobriety has helped me find joy in the thousands of little things that happen all the time.

If this has taught me anything, it’s that you just have to find something you love to do, make a habit of doing it daily, and let the rest fall into place around it. Don’t worry about all the other shit. Just find some time in your day to do something that makes you genuinely happy and do it every, single, fucking, day. The rest will take care of itself. Let go. Trust that you’re doing the right thing. It’s so much more enjoyable when you do.

Cheers Wankers.