We approach the end of the 6 weeks in which I set myself the challenge of publishing 250 words a day and I am looking forward to a short break from writing despite feeling like I still have plenty to share. 

So I now have a short priority list of things to write about and top of that list is a topic which we have all at some point or another, felt for ourselves or at least seen in others, the good and the bad: alcohol.

I’ve lost control in short spates, thankfully always limited to the morning after.

I’ve taken months off, followed by big blow-outs.

I’ve enjoyed and regretted drinks.

I’ve drank too little and too much.

I, like you, have had a journey and what I share here is a summary of my journey to now. It’s a journey which will continue but my sense is that from the age now of 36, it will be in a different direction than the average of the last 18 years.

Drinks were a big, consistent and generally healthy feature of my 20s. As healthy as social drinks can be.

Then something changed. I started to think about how alcohol was serving me. Funny how this was around about the time that the hangovers were getting heavier and longer. I spent longer and longer thinking in more granular detail about how the costs of consuming alcohol were weighing up against the benefits it gave me.

I like graphs and have thought about how I would graph this.

What Are/Were The Costs & Benefits and why are they moving like this?

Benefits

Taste – This benefit was reducing as the taste of alternatives was improving so much and still is.

Relaxation – It will always serve this purpose, although less so as the ‘costs’ weigh on my mind while I’m drinking it now.

The ‘craic’ – It is and always will be fun to get utterly sloshed with one’s mates. The fact that this hasn’t been anywhere near as possible over the last year or so has probably served to expedite the decline.

Costs

Time – It takes increasing amounts of time to recover from a few too many*.

Energy – It takes increasing levels of energy to recover from a few too many*.

Inconsistent – Misalignment with who I want to be as a Dad.

Confidence – Every occasional but notable loss of control impacted my confidence in other areas of my life. “If I can’t always control this why would I be able to achieve my heightiest goals?”

*It’s rarely ‘a few too many’. It was increasingly more likely to be 1 drink or far too many drinks. And too often, the decision about whether it was 1 or too many was outside of my conscious control.

On reflection, the switch from net benefit to net cost came with becoming a Dad. 

I want my Son’s experience of life to be a long string of positive, present, developmental, healthily challenging, dynamic, role-modelling and influential moments. 

How can I facilitate that if I’m feeling a bit under the weather from a drink too many the night before?

Non-Dads might read this as a reason not to have kids. It’s anything but, but I only know that because I’m a Dad. Read Paul Graham on Kids and/or Fatherhood vs Ambition.

So from July 2018, the writing was on the wall, I was just coming to terms with it.

Then 4th July 2020 happened.

My Wife and I excitedly booked a table at a nice restaurant-bar which did good food for kids and we enjoyed a late lunch and a few drinks there before heading round to the neighbours for a BBQ. By the end of the night I think about 8-9 bottles of good red wine had passed the table. And at 1am it looked like one of them was pebble-dashing our bath-tub. And then again the next morning. It was not pretty.

I had planned the next day to be working on an exciting project I had on the go while my Wife and Son were visiting their friends. This was cancelled as my Wife hadn’t slept as she was looking after her 36 year old child all night.

So I spent the day at home looking after my Son while my Wife caught up on the missed sleep, cleaned the bedsheets, carpet and bath and entertained our Son after a morning spent on the iPad because his Dad was incapable of any higher level of interaction.

My relationship with alcohol irrevocably shifted that day. 4th July 2020, my Independence Day.

So what do I do now?

I still like the taste of a really good glass of red wine and as the alcohol free options haven’t yet caught up, I will allow myself a glass, albeit very slowly indeed. I probably burn it off before I’ve finished it. And that’s enough for me.

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For the past couple of years, my diet has taken a tilt significantly in the direction of vegetarianism. Here are the 2 big reasons why.

1. Health. My interest was triggered by the flurry of Netflix documentaries* a few years ago which really pushed veganism. This gave me the prompt to look into it a little more with me eventually reading a book called The Blue Zones – Lessons for Living Longer From The People Who’ve Lived The Longest. It really interested me that there were these areas around the world where people lived longer and healthier lives. Even more interesting was the fact that there were patterns which were consistent across all the areas.

* For example “What The Health”. In truth, I didn’t enjoy the way these documentaries were produced as I found them to be highly sensationalist. The propaganda-esque nature of them was quite a turn-off. However, I am grateful that they triggered me to consider a little more consciously what I was eating.

2. Environment. The carbon emissions from the production of meat compared with alternatives are incredible. 

The stats around the use of water during vegetable production are surprising enough. Around meat production they are truly startling.

So both the impact of the greenhouse emissions and water use in the production of meat are supplementary reasons why I choose to minimise my meat intake.

What do I do now?

1. I track my vegetarian days in my habit tracker, See 300, Like Spartan.
2. I eat meat a maximum of 1 day per week, on average. This is more than the Blue Zones recommended quantity but if I am to be successful with this (and other habits) I need to be able to adapt them a little to suit the needs of the family. In addition, I feel that the iron from additional meat consumption supports my training for running events, which are good for me so there is an offsetting balance.
3. We buy the best meat available, typically organic beef, cold-water line-caught fish and organically fed and free-range poultry in order to minimise the potential impact of harmful additives and other nasty unknowns.

So the evidence around the health related impacts of regularly consuming meat and the environmental stats around its production all have me comfortable with my current situation of eating meat and similar products only occasionally.

I’m very interested to hear alternative arguments which I welcome below.
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I’ve achieved all of the big (to me) athletic goals that I’ve set myself so far apart from two.

The first of these is to qualify for the Ironman World Championships, held annually in Kona Hawaii. My best attempt at that was at Ironman UK in 2016 when I was 30 minutes off qualification time. I simply wasn’t fast enough on the day and would have needed a year or two more of hard consistent training at a point in life when it just didn’t suit. I guess I didn’t want it badly enough at the time.

The other goal is to run a half-marathon in 1 hour 18 minutes. This will require me to shave 3 mins and 45 seconds off my previous personal best of 1:21:45.

have audacious goals

jump onboard

a group all hurtling towards similar goals is almost unstoppable

The reason for this being the goal is a post for another day, but it’s personal.  I’ve long been looking for the right time to go for it, when I felt in decent enough condition to enter a race for which I felt like I could hit it having done a decent period of training. With the lack of social events throughout the lockdown periods, I’d been able to run with greater consistency than any other point in the previous few years.

It was always a consideration that if anyone else was up for it and planning on running a similar pace then that could be enough to make me commit.

So you can imagine my delight when I got an email from my favourite sports nutrition brand, Tribe, back in February. They had prepared a package which included race entry into Dorney Lake Half-Marathon on 22 May 2021.

Not only that but the incredible deal included the following:

• 2 boxes of their delicious energy bars
• Training Plan to get me to the start line whatever my target time
• Tribe branded jumper or cap
• Facebook and Whatsapp groups for community support

Stunning!

Tribe’s target for the project, which they call Tribe 10%, is for everyone taking part to knock 10% off their previous PB. It feels great to be part of a community all working towards the same specific goals.

Click here to read Tribe’s Page: Tribe 10% Project

If you’ve read anything else I’ve written (SWAN – The Best 6 Weeks), you’ll know that I am a firm believer that accountability around my goals will improve my chances of achieving them, hence I jumped at the chance to get involved in this amazing journey.

I am literally so excited for the event on 22 May, the thought of setting off from the start line as a pack of runners all targetting times similar to mine will be exhilarating.

But also across the 12 weeks since the training programmes started, until the event, the camaraderie has been and will continue to be incredible.

Conversations in the Whatsapp group have ranged across topics from trainer selection to pacing of training runs to injury prevention and treatment of niggles.

The written programme is supplemented with high quality live video sessions for strength and conditioning, flexibility and stretching.

So my message is one of gratitude to the guys at Tribe. As I think you already know, you are onto a great thing, an amazing community.  But also to everyone else reading this, have audacious goals and when opportunities like this come along, jump onboard because the momentum that comes from the social structure of a group all hurtling towards similar goals is almost unstoppable.

Or so I hope… I’ll keep you updated but it’s going well so far.

Want to keep up with me, either at Dorney on 22 May (I think there are still a few entries available!) or otherwise for updates on my progress, drop me your details and I’ll make sure you don’t miss a thing…

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If I’m running or driving I will be listening to either a podcast or an Audible book. I find it to be a great way to get better and often return from a run with renewed inspiration or ideas to boost my progress.

I use Google Podcasts as it hands-off the episodes to the Google Home Hubs we have around the house so I can pick up where I left off on my phone and vice-versa. I always listen on 1.5x speed which drives everyone else in the car or kitchen nuts but I’m used to it.

My phone has been playing up recently so I had to do a factory reset. This meant that I had to reinstall everything so I took the opportunity to clear out the podcasts which I’ve collected along the way.

Here’s the seven I kept and why.

1. The Tim Ferris Show, obviously. 600 million downloads and 3 ‘Best of Apple’ Annual Awards speak for themselves. Otherwise for me, the quality of questions he asks are better than any I have ever heard.  He gets right inside the thought loops of his guests, exposing their top performance for us all.
2. The Daily Dad. Bestselling author (see below for covers) Ryan Holiday serves up these 3-4 minute episodes which deliver one key actionable per day based on the application of stoic philosophy to Fatherhood. Great to drop into the playlist to give something to think about, hopefully improving in the Dad department at least a little bit every day. Also available as a daily email. The Daily Dad blog is top notch too.
3. Radio Headspace. This is the same Headspace as my mindfulness app which I profiled here in Mind Full of Presence. Much like The Daily Dad, it’s very short episodes giving one thing to think about each day which improves your practice. Andy Pudicombe, creator of Headspace, shares anecdotes from his time in the monasteries which support the teachings in the app. Although it doesn’t need us to be practitioners of mindfulness, these episodes are meant to support and encourage us in our practice and for me, they work.

5. The Knowledge Project, with Shane Parrish. I haven’t even listened to this one yet but it’s staying subscribed due to the quality of the guests in the list. Josh Kaufman of The Personal MBA, Seth Godin who is possibly the best digital marketer alive and Nir Eyal, author of Mastering Distraction are the three most recent guests. This is going to be seriously high-value.
6. Mr. Barton Maths Podcast, with Craig Barton. One for the Educators and mainly maths teachers obviously. For me, the best podcast there is on the topic.
7. Side-Hustle School, with Chris Guillebeau. Chris shares one inspirational story a day of someone who has converted an idea into income. Episodes are 8-10 minutes long and Chris’ puns are worth the listen alone but they are also genuinely top quality.

So that’s the lot for now. Again, for me this is about using that time when I’m running or driving or otherwise by myself to improve the quality of my thinking and my mental state. If I get out of the way of listening to them for a while for whatever reason, I feel like my optimism for my projects is affected.

It’d be great to hear if Podcasts serve another purpose for you or if I’m missing any gems so why not share a word or two below…

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About a year ago when the first national lockdown was announced a  month after I had turned 35, and I was coming round to the idea of sitting at a desk for the next few weeks (what little I knew…), I read a couple of articles about how one’s metabolism can start slowing down around about the middle of the thirties. I knew I wanted to nip in the bud any potential mid-life spread.

I started looking around for strategies that would work for me, a typically hungry, regularly exercising, big-eater.

I needed something that wouldn’t require too much will-power to maintain, would be convenient for myself stick to and wouldn’t impose any extra strain on family catering arrangements, i.e. I didn’t want to be having separate meals cooked to suit my requirements.

TRF vs IF: A short note on terminology. Peter Attia is fairly advanced with his fasting, including doing a 3 day water-only fast every month. This is well beyond what I think I will ever attempt as it requires the faster to very carefully control their activities and diary for that period. As someone who fasts for such long periods, Attia doesn’t describe describe anything less than 24 hours off food as Intermittent Fasting. He describes what I do, fasting for periods shorter than 24 hours, as Time Restricted Feeding. It’s just differing terminology but best to clarify in case you dig into his site and note the apparent inconsistency.

What Are The Main Benefits?

• In limiting the duration within which I eat, I am naturally going to consume fewer calories. Less calories in, less body fat carried*.
• Ketosis. When the body doesn’t have food to burn it turns to other energy sources, mainly fat, for energy. By dipping into this routinely I light up this fat burning process and get my body used to burning fat for energy, which is very efficient and further supports the maintenance of healthy weight.
• Autophagy. This is a major benefit which comes from not consuming calories for extended periods. When the body isn’t supplied with calories, it eventually goes into a deep cleaning process, burning dead cells and fixing broken ones. This is called autophagy. Benefits of autophagy are reported to include reducing risks of a number of illnesses including cancer and type II diabetes.

* There are exceptions to this, especially if one isn’t taking regular exercise but broadly speaking it’s true and good enough for me.

What do I do?

Having read what I could and tried out some routines, I have settled now on the following:

• The most concise way to put it is that from ~1830 Sunday until 13:00 Friday, I only consume calories between 13:00 and 18:30.
• I eat whenever I want from Friday lunchtime until Sunday dinner, so that I can eat evening tele snacks on Friday & Saturday nights and have family breakfasts on Saturday & Sunday.

Other reasons why I Fast Intermittently

• It feels good. The sense of lightness gives me a feeling of energy.
• It’s not as difficult as it sounds as I am busy in lessons where food is not conveniently available. I am really fortunate in this regard as my environment almost perfectly supports the habit.
• My weight is perfectly in check, if anything I only just about keep it up.
• When I eat, I can eat as much as I like, albeit that I naturally tend to choose healthier options apart from on Cheat Day. By ‘healthier options’ I mean vegetarian options, nuts, seeds and fruit.
• Another benefit which is a positive outcome, although not a reason to do it in itself, is that by not eating for longer, I save myself the time associated with eating.

How do I do it?

So we’re all getting older and the metabolisms are slowing. We might need to be prepared to try new things and if you’re looking for a scientifically evidenced  method by which to make and keep yourself healthier, I think you can do worse than to give Intermittent Fasting a try. Just start slow….

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Note: There are a number of groups of people who really shouldn’t try IF, for example, breastfeeding Mothers and children amongst other. The FAQs section of the Fastic site is worth a read in this regard.

One of my favourite blog-posts of all time is this one, written by a guy I know nothing about, apart from that he’s called Paul Graham, a number of his thoughts on having kids are similar to mine and I sense that he’s a good man.

http://paulgraham.com/kids.html

There’s something satisfying about reading something where someone else puts your thoughts into words better than you can. So much of Paul’s essay is exactly like this for me.

Now when people have babies I congratulate them enthusiastically and I mean it. Especially the first one. I feel like they just got the best gift in the world.

Paul Graham @PaulG

I admire Paul for having put that feeling into those words.

She [Paul’s Mum] said that one reason she liked having us was that we’d been interesting to talk to. That took me by surprise when I had kids. You don’t just love them. They become your friends too. They’re really interesting.

Paul Graham @PaulG

As anyone that is a Father of a 2-and-a-half-ish year old will know, this is so true, in a way I just wouldn’t have thought possible until I was Dad to a 2-and-a-half-ish year old.

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However, I do have a problem with his essay and it is this. He wavers on the matter of ambition and how it interacts with Fatherhood. I have to disagree.

I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of my identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious.

Paul Graham @PaulG

In fairness, it’s not that he doesn’t offer some balance…

On the other hand, what kind of wimpy ambition do you have if it won’t survive having kids? Do you have so little to spare?

Paul Graham @PaulG

However, if you read his post, he’s not too sure on the matter.

For me it is is clear cut. For me, as my Son’s Dad, I have an obligation. 

I owe it to him to be ambitious. I owe it to him to make it work. 

In my mind I simply must do this because, I feel it is my duty to model for him what ambition looks like. To show my Son and the rest of the Family the day-to-day ambition that works in the World. That it’s not some cleanly polished model of progress we might be led to believe in what we see on Youtube or Instagram. It’s getting up before them, getting on top of the day and life. It’s setting and achieving audacious goals. It’s serving our communities. And it’s keeping on top of the boring stuff that keeps the World turning.

So for me, Fatherhood doesn’t impact one’s ambition, so much as to turbo-charge it. To prioritise it alongside spending quality time with the family, and working hard on the today so that tomorrow they will remember Dad putting it on the line day in day out, striving to serve those around him, make the most of life and eeking value out of every single minute.

It’s a decision to aim for and achieve stuff that is above the normal level of society.

Who’s up for 2021SWAN#3? Starting 5th April. Reply below and I’ll make sure you’re in.

What’s ‘2021SWAN#3’? Have a read about 2021SWAN#1. 2021SWAN#3 will be the upgrade.

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