{"id":17047,"date":"2015-02-06T10:52:41","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T17:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/?p=17047"},"modified":"2015-02-06T10:52:42","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T17:52:42","slug":"the-one-with-no-alcohol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/2015\/02\/the-one-with-no-alcohol\/","title":{"rendered":"The One With No Alcohol"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/2015\/02\/the-one-with-no-alcohol\/pom_wineglass\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17048\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-17048\" src=\"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/pom_wineglass-e1423242260871.jpg\" alt=\"Pomegranate Fizz\" width=\"600\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/pom_wineglass-e1423242260871.jpg 600w, https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/pom_wineglass-e1423242260871-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>That may sound worse than I intend, but I&#8217;m just a very appreciative fan of good craft libations.<\/p>\n<p>Two main reasons I&#8217;m giving up alcohol for a bit:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Still having digestive issues.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Jumpstart my weight-loss journey.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">DIGESTION<\/span><\/h4>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the thing, after <a title=\"Putting Milk Aside\" href=\"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/2015\/01\/putting-milk-aside\/\" target=\"_blank\">giving up milk<\/a> I&#8217;m still seeing some digestive issues. Eliminating milk has helped a ton but it isn&#8217;t enough. \u00a0I still need to take action to help heal my gut. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0It&#8217;s time to correct that and get on the path of better health. \u00a0By eliminating alcohol for a bit (not forever, I&#8217;m only human.) that will give my gut time to heal and repair itself.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">WEIGHT GAIN<\/span><\/h4>\n<p>Hands down, alcohol\u00a0is the main reason I have gained so much weight over the past two years. \u00a0Yes, lack of exercise is the other is the other half of the equation but it didn&#8217;t have quite the impact as beer.<\/p>\n<p>When Scott and I first moved to Fort Collins, we were like kids in a candy store because we suddenly\u00a0had access to all this amazing beer. \u00a0So 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.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes 10% and up. \u00a0And occasionally some serious bombs of 15% and up.<\/p>\n<p>I know that beer has empty calories but I never really paid attention to that. \u00a0Whatever, it&#8217;s a beer, it&#8217;s a treat, right?<\/p>\n<p>I used to feel that way, then last year I found out that the higher the ABV = more calories in that beer.<\/p>\n<p>Well there&#8217;s your problem, Andrea.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe this isn&#8217;t news to you but it was news to me. \u00a0After researching a bit more, I was kind of shocked at how much calories are in beer.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beeroftomorrow.com\/calories-in-craft-beer\/\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s an article I found on beer and calories<\/a> (For example 6oz of Black Tuesday is 500. \u00a06 freaking oz. Damn)<\/p>\n<p>While I&#8217;m not one to actively count calories, it&#8217;s time to wise up and realize\u00a0that these extra calories aren&#8217;t helping. \u00a0If I want to get serious about getting back in shape and getting back to the real me (I&#8217;m tired of everyone here only knowing the chunky me because that isn&#8217;t ME.) then it&#8217;s time to cut my losses and take charge.<\/p>\n<p>So I&#8217;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). \u00a0Scott&#8217;s birthday is this month AND <a href=\"http:\/\/www.averybrewing.com\" target=\"_blank\">Avery<\/a> will be opening their new brewery next week so at some point we&#8217;ll be heading over. \u00a0I&#8217;m saving my cheat day for that. \u00a0Sorry, I&#8217;m not missing out on beer at my favorite brewery in Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>Then it&#8217;s back to no alcohol. \u00a0It probably won&#8217;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&#8217;ll share more about next week.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s back to mocktails for me in the evenings. \u00a0Just because I&#8217;m not actually having wine doesn&#8217;t mean I can&#8217;t use the glasses, right? \u00a0So I enjoy a little bit of juice plus seltzer in wine glasses. \u00a0It makes things more fun and a lot easier when it&#8217;s not the real thing.<\/p>\n<p>Have you ever given up alcohol completely or for a challenge? \u00a0How did it go? And if you want to join me in this challenge, let me know and we can keep each other accountable!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;m just a very [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"status","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[58,51],"tags":[32],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4KYWa-4qX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}