Tomorrow marks my 200th day since giving up the booze. 200 days. It is hard to believe, I can still remember 10 days and thinking that was amazing. Now 20x times later, here I am.

There is no doubt in my mind that the last 200 days investment in my health is paying off big time. I had 2 health checks this year, one in February and again at the start of December. I have moved the needle on some important biomarkers this year and giving up the booze has played a major role in this.

• BMI is now in the normal range, down from overweight
• 6 cms reduction in waistline
• Body fat % reduced from 33.5% to 28.5% – huge!
• Overall weight reduction of 16 lbs
• Physical capacity / VO2 result is off the charts, literally there was no range on the results sheet for what I achieved here

Getting weight down to a better leaner healthier range is critical to my improving health – I feel so much better without that big belly overhanging my jeans – if you look good, you feel good. Asides from the feelgood aspect of getting your body weight down, excess weight plays a role in nearly all chronic disease so reducing this is crucial to reducing your risk of developing disease.

Weight loss has to be done in a sustainable way. Fad diets, crash courses in gyms, overusing food supplements instead of real food and other artifical ways of creating caloric deficits are just a waste of your time, energy and money. Short term activities that may yield some result in the short term but you will be back to square 1 (or even square -1) in no time as you drop the habits that got you the results in the first place.

If you focus on adapting your lifestyle, making fitness a mandatory component of your daily (or near daily) life, reducing your intake of processed foods, sugary snacks and alcohol this will get you a long way down the road to a healthy weight.

Going alcohol free gave me back so much energy that I was able to up my fitness game from 2 – 3 sessions per week to 5 -7.

Removing booze = Extra energy = Increased ability and desire to work out

Fitness is now firmly planted in my brain as a strong routine with positive neural associations (I have linked pleasure to the experience of excercing so now excercise = fun as far as my brain is concerned). It feels good, it feels doable and it feels very sustainable.

Now that I have removed the biggest behaviour / habit that used to derail me everytime from achieving any goals that I had, I see no reason why this big long consistent streak of physical and mental improvement has to end. Going alcohol free has been a major catalyst in upgrading my life in 2019 and I am so excited as we head into 2020 to see what else I can achieve.

Happy christmas everyone.

Yours in health and happiness,

JP