Let’s address the elephant in the room of every diet.
Alcohol
Well at least for me it is. I like to drink. I like a beer on a hot day after gardening. I like old fashioneds on a Friday with my hubby. I love a good bottle (or 2 or 3) of wine with dinner. I enjoy imbibing with my friends when we hangout whether in our backyard, in our movie room or out on the town.
I like to drink.
But alcohol can be an asshole.
If you like to drink too, you know what I mean. It is ladened with calories, it has no nutritional value (unless you only drink garden-filled Bloody Mary’s) and it encourages you to eat insidious foods like french fries, pizza, cheese curds (remember I live in the land of flipping fantastic cheese) and other such delights.
So I knew if I was going to have any success at all, I needed to breakup with alcohol. So we had a talk. A serious one. I insisted it was me and that I just needed some time apart. Truly apart.
- No weekend visits,
- No I-had-a-shitty-day-and-need-a drink nights,
- No – <insert the name of a cool person in your life>- is-coming-to-town excuses, AND
- No but-the-game-is-on-and-I-brought-a-six-pack Sundays.
So we cleaned out the bar, emptied the wine/beer frig and put all the good stuff down in our locked wine cellar. It was strange. We had always been known as the house that had everything. Our once prominently displayed & fully stocked liquor cabinet looked sad in its newly emptied state.
But we had prepared ourselves for this all summer. We believed we were ready. Yes, we were nervous but we knew that putting a hold on our relationship with alcohol was a must if we were going to succeed.
Was it weird? YES.
Was it hard? ONLY AT FIRST… really!
We drank a lot of iced coffee & tea as well as seltzer & regular water. No soda… not even diet. But that is for a different post.
I quickly discovered seltzer water with lemon served over ice like a mixed drink was my favorite. I found I liked the seltzer water that I made myself with a soda siphon more than the canned or bottled stuff. I also discovered Italian Volcano lemon juice (no sugar added) which you can buy at Sam’s.
At first, we sequestered ourselves at home reducing the risk of temptation. But after a few weeks, it was no big deal to hang with friends who were drinking.
We ended our relationship with drinking until December 16, the day before my birthday, at which time we took a break from the diet until January 2, 2016. After the holidays, (and yes, I consider my birthday to be a holiday… don’t you?) we jumped back on the plan until the Spring including putting alcohol back in the corner.
Currently we are in a maintenance phase and allow ourselves to drink but try to be careful and regularly take breaks when our weight begins to creep back up.
I still want to lose more weight and when I get ready to go again, I will again say goodbye to alcohol ‘cuz its still a non-diet friendly asshole.