Wine

It’s long been an angel/devil, love/hate thing but I’ve finally made a decision about the drink which is so much a part of my middle aged life.

I’m not going to have full bottles of it in the house any more.  I’m happy to have a glass when I eat out.  I can also buy those little single serving bottles once in a while as long as it’s for a social situation.

But it can’t sit by the bottle-full in my fridge and be just neutral in my life.  It’s not neutral; it’s negative.

I don’t like how it makes me feel.

I don’t like how it makes me eat.

Judging from conversations with friends of a similar age, we’ve got to the point where alcohol in general has a swifter and harsher effect on our brains and bodies.  Even a couple of glasses can leave us with headaches the next morning.  And who needs that?

I’ll let you know how it goes

I decided to take a different approach to this “regime”. (The word is in the news so much these days that it just seems to fall off my fingers onto the keyboard.)

Basically – I sat down and thought about what I wanted to eat every day that would still allow me to lose weight. That’s  such a different starting point than sitting down and wondering what I should cut out of my diet every day.

I came up with this:

• breakfast – a big bowl of porridge, fruit and yogurt (porridge made with half a cup of oats and 2.5 cups of water.) Right now my fruit is tinned pumpkin heated up and stirred in with the yogurt.  I’ll probably have blueberries next.

• lunch -cottage cheese and 4 slices and ryvita. I eat 150g of cc which is about a quarter of a large tub. Sometimes I nibble on a couple of the crackers about an hour before I eat the rest.

• snack – dried fruit.  About 60 calories worth and, I’m afraid, for now I’m buying the over-packaged individual portions for some extra built-in self-control.

• I also build in 6 big mugs of coffee and/or tea per day – each with 1/3 cup 1% milk.  I tried to have less milk but it tasted like a diet, so I got rid of a 100g yogurt snack and just enjoy my milky hot drinks.

• dinner – a big plate of vegetables and lean protein.  I originally had thought about half the protein and a small portion of rice, but I’m happy with more chicken and no rice. (One less pot to wash.)  These past couple of days have been chicken breast cut up with a green, red and yellow pepper, an onion and 2 carrots, all tossed in 2 tsp of olive oil and roasted in the over. I think the next 4 days will be a big pot of veggie chili.

• alcohol -  In the absence of a commute, I do like a drink to signal that the working day is over.  Wine is hard to control once that bottle is open so I’ve opted for a well tonicked G&T.  I use a measure of gin and a 300ml bottle of Fever Tree naturally light tonic which is very tasty.  It’s nice long grown-up tasting drink with only 1 unit of alcohol.

Once I figured out what I wanted to eat, it was easier to figure out what needed to be temporarily off the menu, namely:

• cheese
• peanut butter
• bananas
• wine
• all other forms of crackers and bread

With wine, the thought process was, “I want wine but can’t control it.  What should I have instead?”

With all the others, I didn’t actually notice I wasn’t eating them because I started from “What do I want to eat every day?” and they didn’t feature on the list.  Interesting.  If I’d wanted to eat peanut butter every day, I would have made it work, but it didn’t even come to mind.  Not just interesting – bloomin’ amazing.

Tomorrow:  What happens on the days when I can’t just eat to my own selfish routine?

I know what I want.

I know what I have to do to get it.

I haven’t been doing that.

And I know why.

Because I’m at the slow end of weight loss and these next few pounds will require sacrifice. And I’m not in the mood.

So the question is: Am I more in the mood to drink wine every night or to get these last few pounds off and finally keep that promise to myself?

I’m heading off for a weekend of work with a little socialising in the evenings and I’ll be eating out for seven of the next nine meals. On Monday morning, I’ll decide what I’m going to do but I know for a fact that it will not be a decision to faff around for the next three months with no real results.  I’m done with wasting time.

I keep going on about wine, not because I drink vast amounts but because it’s the one thing I could cut out of my diet which would not reduce my nutritional intake.  I’ve been averaging about 1500 calories in wine every week and that could easily be turned into a calorie deficit if I drank mineral water instead.

In other words, I don’t really have to wait until Monday to decide what I have to do.  I think it might be time to give up severely curtail the demon drink if only for my waistline.

After the weekend.

I’m not reporting in arrears today, rather, “As It Happens”.

Much has been said about triggers for eating.

stress

hormones

anger

grief

and the rest.

But today I want to talk to you about The Hangover. I don’t drink more than two glasses of wine very often any more because the next morning dawns with a ripping headache and a desire for nothing except lying a still as possible on the sofa.

In the dark.

It lasts till about noon and then I can go about my day – but, by then, the eating is usually shot.

I’m saying all this because I’m feeling much better now – thank you for asking – and I can decide that it’s all shot to hell or I can reign it in and replenish the nutrition I swamped out of my body last night.

That’s about all I can manage for now.  Time for another large mug of tea.

I love wine.  Yes I do.

But recently a lot of things have conspired to make me realise that maybe it doesn’t love me back.

Over the years, and especially lately, I’ve tried to quit drinking for all sorts of reasons. I’ve been worried about:

• my liver
• how often I use wine as a stress-buster
• the cost
• how much I didn’t want to give it up
• calories – I reckon 3 bottles of wine  per week add up to the calorie equivalent of 20 pounds of fat per year

But giving up for any of those reasons only lasted as long as the next social function or stressful day or wine offer at the grocery store.

Then, not long ago, it started to make me feel horrible because of an ulcer.  I kept trying to find an amount that wouldn’t make me feel so bad and it turns out the amount is zero.  I couldn’t even think about a glass of wine without feeling queasy so I quit drinking.

Desperate measures I guess, but it’s been interesting to see what happens to calorie consumption when a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc is replaced by a bottle of Perrier.  I’ve also pre-spent the wine budget up till Christmas on a new coat.

The best thing is that there’s no social pressure at all because no one can argue with an ulcer.   The next step is to get rid of the ulcer and not re-engage the drinking habit but, until then, I’m  enjoying the teetotal life far more than I thought possible.