I had a few drinks yesterday and slept like hell. Like, cannot recall the last time I slept this poorly. Plus, it's empty calories and I'm fat and I'm more likely to eat garbage if I've been drinking.
I've thought about cutting back, but after evaluating the situation thoroughly, I've decided complete abstinence for one year is the best way to go.
I wish I had that kind of will power! I'm going to start by trying to eliminate drinking during the week. No more nightly beers or glasses of wine. Like you, I've been sleeping like crap and can't handle the fact that so many of my calories come from alcohol.
Good luck!!
ETA: This is totally random but I bought myself a juicer and plan to make some cool juice concoctions to ween myself off of alcohol. I realize this totally makes me sound like an alcohol, but I needed a trade off.
This is a different situation, of course... but I am a big, big, big drinker and gave up alcohol entirely for my first pregnancy (9 months plus very limited drinking when I had a newborn). The first couple of weeks were tough but for me the hardest thing was finding a new "ritual" to fill the place of my evening beer/wine and especially my weekend manhattan(s). After a couple of months I found I really enjoyed NEVER waking up with a hangover or getting a bad night of sleep (which is my M.O. with more than 2 drinks in an evening) and I actually have never gone back to drinking quite as heavily as I did pre-baby (and that has nothing to do with the lifestyle change of becoming a mom).
Maybe you can save your drinking money and treat yourself to something fun once you have a particular amount saved up, and/or find something else to sort of fill in for the ritual of drinking (I listen to my favorite music while I cook dinner now instead of having a glass of wine and it's just as fun and relaxing).
Good luck! Sounds like it's a good decision, for the best, and I bet you will enjoy being hangover and insomnia free so much that you will just naturally moderate more in 2014.
Good luck! I lost ten pounds the minute I stopped and haven't really missed it (disclaimer: pregnant). No weight gain at all in 16 weeks is making me wonder if I would have lost more if I could exercise and wasn't bakng a baby. You can do it!
You know, I'm semi considering the same thing for the exact same reason. I'm still exhausted and I ended up skipping the gym (and most other productive things today) because of a headache/general crappiness feeling. And all I did yesterday was happy hour with a couple of beers following it up. This is lame.
Are you 100% never having another drink this year, or just not getting drunk? I'm thinking the latter for myself. I don't think I could totally give it up but limiting myself to 1-2 is probably a good idea.
Post by GailGoldie on Dec 31, 2012 16:24:36 GMT -5
good for you!
my DH stopped drinking (b/c he knew it was an issue for him) almost 10 years ago.
be prepared for people to push you to drink, question why you stopped, etc - people get weird around my husband sometimes when he says he doesn't drink anymore.... it's like it makes other people feel like they are sloppy drunks if they are drinking around him - so they try to get him to drink. In reality he doesn't care if others drink, it doesn't bother him to be around it- but it DOES seem to bother other people who ARE drinking (some, not all)... just letting you know this so you can prepare a response, etc... as i'm sure people will question, etc.
Ditto Carmen. I drank pretty heavily the year before I got pregnant. Giving it up was hard for the first month or so. And then I really enjoyed not waking up hung over/ grumpy.
And since then, it's now a big deal for me to have more than 2 drinks. I had a beer and two whiskey/7ups last night and had a headache this morning. Damn it sucks!