Winter Time; Study with Me

Life style change - delayed?

Lifestyle change delayed?

I’ve been making a lot of lifestyle changes – mostly to try and combat my autoimmune disorder holistically. I was tired of feeling sick, fatigued and controlled by an illness I didn’t want. You’ve seen a lot of growth already in my ability to organize my day and build my skills in the gym and at uni. However, despite these changes some days I am delayed in my progress.

While working on my next lifestyle change ‘ attending lectures ‘ I experienced cold. Which to the new reader will sound strange for me to mention. I currently have cold induced urticaria, or a cold allergy. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of this before, I hadn’t until I was diagnosed and even now it seems a little wacky.

Autoimmune disorders are really easy to ignore. A lot like mental health if you learn to have a higher pain tolerance you can barely notice them. Unfortunately though, they can cause damage even if you pretend they don’t.

Before class I’d gone to the gym and showered afterwards. I always have a jacket on me but being a sunny day I only brought a light one and a cap to keep my warm – why draw attention to yourself if it’s not necessary right?

Straight after the gym I shot out the doors and started wandering around campus trying to find my first class of the day. In hindsight I should’ve remembered the Australian way, warm on the outside means freezing on the inside. Whenever there’s warm weather we all crank up the airconditioning. Which makes for a great safe haven for the average person – and I am by no means trying to change anyone’s AC habit – but for a cold allergy…it can spell disaster.

By the time I reached my room the few flecks of shower water still left on me from my fast towelling off had made themselves known as the light breeze came past. I was so keen to make this class I just ignored it thinking that once I was inside I’d be protected and fine.

Being that it was a warm day inside the AC was on high. Long story short, because I really don’t want to tell you how long I sat there – I ended up hurrying home early from the class, with red rashes on my hands, legs and stomach because I didn’t want anyone to think I was weak. The whole class slowly became more painful, definitely not because of the subject, but because I’d screwed up in remembering to take care of myself.

Lifestyle changes are meant to be a marathon. There will be days when change is so easy, you have so much stamina, that you don’t need to pause for breath. But in that same marathon, there will be times when even drawing air into your lungs is painful.

If you’re following a 2018 lifestyle change with me – I am super excited for you! Join me on Instagram and twitter in this 2018 change, but don’t try to keep pace. Some days I’ll be lagging behind, struggling because of something as stupid as airconditioning – and somedays I’ll be sprinting ahead. Everyone has their own unique challenges that will take time to overcome. Relax and trust that little by little we’ll make a permanent change.

If you’d like to join me on my lifestyle journey then you can connect with me on Instagram, tumblr, twitter or facebook!

Instagram: the_underage_lawyer

Tumblr: theunderagelawyer.tumblr.com

Twitter: @underagelawyer

Facebook: @theunderagelawyer

5 Year Plan; What do I want to change this year [PART 2]

Coffee Study; Study with Me

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I quit coffee for a week! Oh my gosh!

I was so tired the first day without coffee  - I couldn't even smile!

I went without coffee for a week – which as a seasoned law student seemed like something of a nightmare. An impossible hellish journey brought on only by the desperate attempt to follow the multiple instagram fitness girls who claim that coffee is their ‘pre-work out’.

Completely unbelieving of the idea that a mere coffee could be sufficient boost to my energy to encourage me to drag myself into the gym I hesitantly – very hesitantly – began to cut down on my coffee consumption.

I’m a little ashamed to admit the process of cutting down my caffeine intake actually took 2-3 months – which is probably why I didn’t boast about it on Instagram. The process of cutting back on my caffeine intake was actually harder than I thought – resulting not only in sleep deprivation but a lot of headaches and higher sugar intake.

Slowly through I cut down from eight coffees a day to one to two a day. Once I was only consuming one coffee a day I cut it cold turkey for seven days.

-          I strongly advise against cutting it completely if you’re already drinking eight coffees, do it slowly like I did.  Trust me it’s already a significant challenge.

The first day of cutting coffee I didn’t really mind it I just exchanged it for tea. I was aware that tea had caffeine, but I wasn’t really looking to cut caffeine completely. I wasn’t anymore energised than normal – nothing magical really happened to me. I went to the gym as normal – not taking any coffee before hand. I just had a high carb snack which is good for the body as it can convert simple carbohydrates quickly into energy.

The second day was similar but I only had one cup of tea – I didn’t feel like I needed any extra energy. I’d reached a pretty good medium. Although it is worth saying that by this stage it was past exam time and I was on holidays so there was no real demand on my sleep. I chose instead to try out some herbal teas and started to focus more on taking in straight drinking water. I started to set a goal of 1200 ml a day, or two drink bottles worth (I have a 600 ml bottle).  Personally I never saw much value in increasing your water intake – despite its recent popularity in the health circles. However, this opinion would change over the next six days.

The third day I was over coffee – it still wasn’t appealing. I chose instead to drink hot water. It was around day three that I started to notice that I was actually feeling energy from things like fruit, cereal bars and chocolate. Previously I had never noticed anything like that when consuming these foods. I think that it was possibly because I was so used to such high doses of caffeine throughout the day that I didn’t really notice these lower doses of sugar energy. They just didn’t rank at all.

Fourth and fifth were pretty much the same. Nothing really happened but I did definitely start looking at coffee alternative. The ones that interested me the most were dandelion coffee  - mostly because it was gluten and dairy free allowing me to enjoy it without having to worry about too many additives. It’s surprisingly low in calories and just as easy to make as an instant cup of coffee.

The sixth day I started to take up more intense training – as I’ve spoken about in another blog. I found at this time that I was more keen to retry it. Thinking that maybe now I could feel the energy from the sugar in fruit I thought there may actually be something in the idea of coffee as a prework out. I stayed off coffee until day seven keen to get the full effects of the caffeine re-introduction.

At the end of the week I was ready to try coffee as my preworkout. For those who aren’t entirely sure what I mean – I’m not talking about a protein shaking, high fat low-carb magic shake – it’s generally some kind of food or drink used to peak your energy to give you that final push in the gym. As an energy type food coffee makes for an easy to make quick workout.

After one week of no coffee I was finally rewarded with a preworkout coffee. 6:30 am on a Monday morning I chugged one large mug of coffee in my gym gear. It was a quickly, barely enjoyed drink – as I was exhausted and desperate to start the next start of my day – as once gym is over I can crawl back into bed and sleep until my first class starts.

I didn’t feel any kind of magical kickstart to my usual gym routine. But I didn’t have any kind of carb snack or other energy bar before my workout. Surprisingly, I was actually okay without any of the stuff that I usually eat beforehand. The workout went as normal and I continued on afterwards, I didn’t even have to crawl into bed too quickly afterwards. It was a little exciting to me to be able to wait a little bit before diving back into bed. I noticed too my resting heart rate raised from it’s usualy 62 bpm at rest to 66 bpm at rest. An increase of 4 bpm – which is significant considering the only change was a return to caffeine (I did continue to have coffee periodically throughout the day – but I don’t think I’ll be increasing it back up to seven coffees a day!)

I didn’t learn anything amazing from this experiment – except I did begin to see that the impact of foods like sugar, simple carbs and caffeine had on my body. Previously I’d discounted these effects not realizing I was almost on a constant energy high. For anyone who maybe doesn’t ever seem to feel the impacts or benefits of these energy increasing foods it could be nice to try this experiment to understand how food can influence your mood and energy.

If you’d like to join me on my lifestyle journey then you can connect with me on Instagram, tumblr, twitter or facebook!

Instagram: the_underage_lawyer

Tumblr: theunderagelawyer.tumblr.com

Twitter: @underagelawyer

Facebook: @theunderagelawyer