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The One With No Alcohol

Pomegranate Fizz

One of my February goals is no alcohol for the month except for one cheat day. This is kind of a big deal because for those that have been around for a while, they know how much I love my beer and booze.

That may sound worse than I intend, but I’m just a very appreciative fan of good craft libations.

Two main reasons I’m giving up alcohol for a bit:

  •  Still having digestive issues.
  •  Jumpstart my weight-loss journey.

DIGESTION

Here’s the thing, after giving up milk I’m still seeing some digestive issues. Eliminating milk has helped a ton but it isn’t enough.  I still need to take action to help heal my gut.  The only other thing that could be a problem is alcohol. I feel like my increased beer consumption over the last few years has damaged my digestive tract.  It’s time to correct that and get on the path of better health.  By eliminating alcohol for a bit (not forever, I’m only human.) that will give my gut time to heal and repair itself.

WEIGHT GAIN

Hands down, alcohol is the main reason I have gained so much weight over the past two years.  Yes, lack of exercise is the other is the other half of the equation but it didn’t have quite the impact as beer.

When Scott and I first moved to Fort Collins, we were like kids in a candy store because we suddenly had access to all this amazing beer.  So our life revolved around trying new beers, going to releases, and enjoying the hell out of the abundance of craft beer available. And most of that beer that we were enjoying had an ABV of 7% and higher.

Sometimes 10% and up.  And occasionally some serious bombs of 15% and up.

I know that beer has empty calories but I never really paid attention to that.  Whatever, it’s a beer, it’s a treat, right?

I used to feel that way, then last year I found out that the higher the ABV = more calories in that beer.

Well there’s your problem, Andrea.

Maybe this isn’t news to you but it was news to me.  After researching a bit more, I was kind of shocked at how much calories are in beer.

Roughly, a bomber size (24oz) of a 9% beer is around 500 calories (different styles have different totals, this is just a super basic example). Have two bombers in an evening and there is 1000 extra calories tacked on to your day.

Yeah.

Here’s an article I found on beer and calories (For example 6oz of Black Tuesday is 500.  6 freaking oz. Damn)

While I’m not one to actively count calories, it’s time to wise up and realize that these extra calories aren’t helping.  If I want to get serious about getting back in shape and getting back to the real me (I’m tired of everyone here only knowing the chunky me because that isn’t ME.) then it’s time to cut my losses and take charge.

So I’m giving up alcohol for a bit save for one cheat day (maybe 2, I have an event next week that might be hard to resist).  Scott’s birthday is this month AND Avery will be opening their new brewery next week so at some point we’ll be heading over.  I’m saving my cheat day for that.  Sorry, I’m not missing out on beer at my favorite brewery in Colorado.

Then it’s back to no alcohol.  It probably won’t be until mid-March when I have the sweet nectar again because March 2nd is when I start my new fitness challenge which I’ll share more about next week.

It’s back to mocktails for me in the evenings.  Just because I’m not actually having wine doesn’t mean I can’t use the glasses, right?  So I enjoy a little bit of juice plus seltzer in wine glasses.  It makes things more fun and a lot easier when it’s not the real thing.

Have you ever given up alcohol completely or for a challenge?  How did it go? And if you want to join me in this challenge, let me know and we can keep each other accountable!

4 thoughts on “The One With No Alcohol

  1. Mehgan says:

    I was surprised and pleased when I saw this post. For a variety of reasons I gave up alcohol on Jan 1. I have lost 10 lbs and really enjoy waking up feeling good in the morning! I look forward to hearing more about your experiences in the coming month.

    • Hi Mehgan, thanks so much for commenting! Congrats to you on being alcohol free! One thing that I’ve realized is how dehydrating alcohol can be. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night needing to pound some water.

  2. A big ditto on this one! Beer is the main reason I didn’t lose much weight when training for my marathon a while back. All that acetate that my body was preferring to burn for fuel over other calories! Kid in candy store scenario, too, with lots of bars within easy walking distance from our first apartment here. We did the one day a week thing most of last year, now we are mostly on-the-weekend drinkers and can control the weight influences pretty well, along with limiting other grains. Excited to hear how things go!

    • Thanks Lori! I’m still kind of in shock of how much calories beer has. So now I’m in the process of coming up with a strategy so that I can still have beer but not blow my progress over the weekend.

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