Diet, Dating and the Single Gal
I have been single for a little while now, so I recently took a little foray into online dating and started dating a guy for a couple of weeks (it didn't work out but that's a different story) anyway it provided me with a few insights into where some of my weight creeped on over the years when I wasn't single and gave me some things to think about should I take it up again. So here are some of the things I noticed:
Food
I have consistently found myself eating at maintenance, I put this down to a couple of things:
Eating out more often
Drinking more regularly
Having less time to exercise, but not adjusting my eating to correspond with a lower calorie burn
Not sleeping as well as normal (see below) this tends to make me crave carby food, which I eat only a moderate amount of usually, in turn I have found myself retaining more water than usual.
Lesson learnt: Try and stay on plan, eat healthier options when out and about and if not exercising as much make a conscious effort to reduce calorie intake to maintain a deficit.
Exercise
I have found it soooo hard to keep to some sort of exercise routine whilst dating, aside from walking and running a couple of lunchtimes at work I have done next to no training for weeks. Before I started dating I had just got back into a strength training routine and it went out of the window straight away. The knock on effect of not sleeping the couple of nights that I had company was not just carb cravings but trying to play catch up with earlier nights the rest of the week.
Lesson learnt: Put aside some time for myself, keep up some strength training.
Sleep
I find it hard to sleep at the best of times, I have suffered with insomnia on and off for years, it's only really since I started supplementing with Magnesium that I am getting more than an hour or two of deep sleep, so I found it very difficult to sleep with another person in my bed/ in another bed, this is not good news for me, when I don't sleep properly not only am I a total grump and have terrible concentration, but I also get so hangry it's unreal.
Lesson learnt: Try and keep to some sort of routine, make plenty of time for your own sleep
Active Date Choices
So some ideas to try and stay active when dating, if like me you end up sacrificing some workout
time, here are a few ways to burn calories whilst still making time to be sociable:
Ice Skating
Dog Walking
Surfing Lessons
Ziplining
Paddleboarding
Kayaking
Miniature Golf
Hiking
Indoor Rock Climbing
Dance lessons
Bowling
Trip to the zoo/wildlife park
To summarise, whilst it's nice to have a bit of spontaneity in my life now and again, I really do need structure and routine to continue to lose weight and improve my fitness. I am lucky that I now have the tools I need to see my intake/output, without these, I have no doubt that I would have gained rather than maintained the last few weeks. This does give me hope for the future and for long-term maintenance and for now I think I am going to stick with being the single gal who has plenty of time to work on herself.