A Weekend of Excess – Recovery

Last weekend I went on a three day stag party. I ate, drank, and partied to excess. The end result was I put on 3kg in weight and my blood pressure raised up from ‘normal’ or ‘optimal’ to ‘high normal’. My diastolic blood pressure went up to 82, which sounds normal, yet is normally in the low to mid 70’s.

So this week I got straight back on my healthy eating plan – eating nearly in accordance with the Eatwell Guide, the UK’s current food guidance as of March this year. This is mainly plant based; fish a couple of times a week, and meat a rarity, and very low dairy and animal produce too. I say I eat a plant based diet. You can follow me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/garysmilerturner) where almost every day I post what I am eating.

My weight actually went UP the second day by another KG – that was a shock! It then has gently sauntered back down towards where it should be today. Yet, my body fat has crept up this week, and strangely my lean mass has gone down. Only by around 1%, yet, that is really interesting!

I have found that in the last four weeks, since I’ve introduced some high intensity interval training (though not much, just a Tabata protocol twice a week) to complement my resistance training (2x TRX workouts each of around 20-25minutes), my muscle mass has increased though my muscle tissue doesn’t seem to have moved. I appear to be holding more water and inflammation in my muscles, and it is likely that my increase in fat reading is intramusclular fat too.

I’ve attached my pics from today so you can see what I mean. Notice the slight looseness around my mid-section too. I’m going to be making some adjustments to remove that, though, at the moment, not sure which way I’ll go to do so. I’m thinking on that. Please also note that this body is built on no ‘formal’ weight training, just running with my huskies and nominal resistance training, all on a plant based diet as above.

 

I want my weight to drop to 83.6kg, so I’m just lower than a BMI of 25. BMI is pretty useless as a health marker, though is used by insurance companies, and I think I’ll keep it within what they deem ‘acceptable’ to keep premiums low if I decide to take out health insurance! So my weight is still a little high – so a bit more fat to be stripped.

In respect to my blood pressure, I’m still annoyed. I’m annoyed because it is taking its time to return to pre-excess levels. My diastolic has come back down, though my systolic remains a little high. I’ll be attending to that. I’ll probably be looking at exercise to lower that – and investigating what changes I can make to keep it ‘optimal’.

All in all, a very interesting little ‘experiment’! It appears a weekend of excess has adversely affected my body for at least this following week. It just goes to show what such behaviour can do to our bodies, and is a good reminder to maintain such behaviour as “rare and appropriate” as my friend Ray Conise suggests.

Onwards on my health journey…