Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Booze, Diet Mind and Exorcising

Booze

Twice last week I imbibed. Thursday of last week, Shari and I went to a local brewery where I had a 24 oz. Irish Red. It was oh so tasty. But I did notice that my body temperature dropped from 97.2 to 97.0 the next morning. Of course it was back up the following day so no worries.

This past Sunday we had a friend over to help us eat a lasagna and drink a bottle of wine. That pretty much boiled down to two glasses each, roughly the same alcohol content as the 24 oz. glass of beer. The next morning, my body temperature was all the way down to 96.5! It took two days to come back up!

So I did a little bit of research and talked with a chemist friend of mine and know what? Alcohol lowers your body temperature. It's actually well known. People have died from hypothermia by consuming alcohol. Now there are a few things going on that makes this happen that I won't go into but suffice it to say, it causes you to lose body heat. And of course, when your body temperature goes down, the ambient temperature appears to be warmer so you get hot, throw off the covers, turn on the fan and make it worse.

So it looks like I'm off the booze until my body temperature is up close to normal. I'm shooting for 97.8 and am currently at 97.3. Considering I started at 96.1 (!), I'd so I'm doing okay. Although that's hard for me to admit.

Diet Mind

I just can't help it. My mind is still stuck on "diet" mode. I keep honestly believing that I can't have stuff like lasagna, pizza or ice cream. I have my list of prohibited items: white flour, sugar and vegetable oil. But I can't avoid them! So I worry and get a bit hang-dog about it. But the fact of the matter is, I've had pasta and chocolate and my body temperature continues to climb (ignoring the alcohol affect). The take home lesson? Don't avoid these items. Don't be a pain-in-the ass about what you are eating. If your wife makes you a lasagna with garlic bread, eat it! Want a turtle sundae at 9:00 pm? Go for it. Don't avoid it! But don't chase it down, either. You'll be fine as long as you mostly eat well and track your body temperature.

Exorcise the Exercise

I have been powerlifting for the past six months and have made some incredible gains. But I am going to take the advice of Matt Stone and Jon Gabriel and give it a rest. Oddly enough, this is kind of tough for me to do! I really don't want to lose any gains I've made! But honestly, I doubt that's going to happen. My body temperature is up and once it's to 97.7, I'll start back with the weight training. You never know! This could happen next week!

2 comments:

Shandra said...

Interesting, I'd never thought to track my body temperature in relation to metabolism and alcohol intake. I sympathize with your weight issues, I managed to take off and keep off 70 pounds by doing all the boring stuff consistently and regularly over the course of six years. I find most of my setbacks involve alcohol, I get sugar and junk food cravings the day after just one glass of wine and it takes a while to get back on track. Persistence seems to be the key.

Christine Millan said...

It's good for me to read about males also dealing with food and body issues ("good" and "bad"). The moment I put myself on an extreme "regimen" I get off balance, bloat, distend, feel dysmorphic, and on and on.

When I don't worry, I'm more likely to eat balanced, because I'm letting my body (which knows) take over the eating regimen, not my mind, influenced by what it perceives out in the [un]reality.

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