Health & Family Quitting alcohol and social life

I have abstained coming up to 3 weeks this weekend. I would say I was a heavy drinker on Friday/Saturday nights - then not touch a drink until the following Friday and the routine would start again.
Being single it was so easy to drink and game all night on the PC during the weekends. Which lead to bad habits and bad hangover.

It has been really nice to have more spare cash in the back pocket plus more productive with my weekends

 

Anyone pay attention to calories, I do? Dry white wine probably best option in terms of calorie in take

Gin and tonic, diet tonic, another option

 

@MTR it's not just the calories that count with alcohol and weight management though. The body can't store alcohol so it has to be burned off immediately. The effect of this is that if you have a drink before or with your meal, the calories in the meal get stored as fat whilst your body works on burning off the alcohol. An added side effect being alcohol is an appetite stimulant so often leads to eating more when accompanied with drink.

 

Whilst I used to be a heavy drinker, I significantly reduced my usage and became a moderate drinker (sharing 2-3 bottles of wine a week).

On the wrong side of 55, I was also conscious that I was obese, even if my partner said i carried it well . I was probably 25-30kgs overweight and had been for about 30 years.

I decided to get into shape. Whilst it is still a work in progress, my new year’s resolution is to lose 27kgs to get me just inside the healthy weight range for my height - target of 79kgs. I haven’t had any alcohol since 1 Jan to help the weight loss. So far I have lost 11kgs and the weight loss continues, albeit more slowly now..

 

Double edged sword

 

I find replacing alcohol with another drink you like can help, for example tea.... you start to enjoy this option. Its helped me alot

 

Note that if you’re like me and actually really enjoy the “taste” of beer as opposed to the effect of alcohol there are some excellent non alcoholic beers available. Trouble is they’re not much cheaper than normal beer. This is because a decent non alcoholic beer has to still go through the entire brewing process producing alcohol but then there is the extra step of then removing it. This is of course if calories aren’t an issue. However remove alcohol then you do remove quite a few calories.

My favourite time for a beer is after some hard yard work / mowing etc. Completing this can often be earlier in the day or around lunch time. Even if non alcoholic beer is not your preference, when sweaty / thirsty it still really hits the spot with the bitterness and carbonation.

This is my favourite non alcoholic beer available from Wollies. Note although they are a bit expensive they’re 500 ml cans:

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I've been meaning to try sodas stream water @geoffw I find a pint of ice cold diet tonic water hits the spot, I like the bitterness, but it gives me gut ache.

 

Must dig our soda stream out of the cupboard. Something cold and very importantly “gassy” comes a long way close to hitting the spot. I often reach for Diet Coke which I want to wean myself off.

 

Another option half wine, half soda water, I do this sometimes, sacrifice taste but can work

 

Diet ginger beer is brilliant, addicted to this

Soda stream great, I rather drink this than water

Love diet tonic water too

 

I rarely add anything to my sodastream as I just like soda water but I saw some syrups at BigW recently and decided to give them a try as they were low sugar and they were on a 2 for 1 special and about $10 a bottle.

Soda Press | Organic low sugar Soda Kombucha Cocktail flavours | Tonic

Don't make to directions as they seem quite insanely strong but just for taste. I use a ratio of about 25ml (a splosh) into the sodastream bottle. I've tried the Ginger Beer and the Kombucha. And them combined together - very nice

 

I tried thos sugar free syrups quite disgusting

You can just squeeze some lime juice quite refreshing

 

I don't like artificial sugar either - very chemical taste. These ones are low sugar so don't have artificial sugar in them and taste fine. I have a lemon and a lime tree for putting some in my soda water too.

 

Spent a few days in Sydney and Blackheath. Caught up with a couple I hadn't seen for ages. Awkward. The gent has a habit of voicing at a specific time every day of declaring the bar open. You could set your watch by him. Spirits followed by a beer followed by wine over dinner and maybe beyond. I stuck to a glass of wine as I have no desire to "get back into it."

It was OK initially but not so much as the evening progressed. I suspect I may not see them in future. A pity in one way but not in another.

 

Off-topic I know, but coming from a diet drink addict.

I had my first diet drink in 12 months tonight,
It was glorious.

Did I miss it, yes
Will I start back on it: no

So let's see if i can stay off it