Time To Lose The Booze

I'm starting a little experiment. I'm going to stop drinking beer, alcohol, wine completely.

I have been pretty good at only having drinks on the weekends and for awhile I was really good a tracking everything I drank. I enjoy having drinks with friends or maybe an ice cold beer on Friday after a long week. And I think these are all acceptable decisions on my journey to get healthy. Especially when I'm enjoying the company of my friends or family.

I love a big glass of wine...homemade wine spritzers are the best!

The problem is that it is really hard to stop at just a couple drinks. After two drinks, the drinks get bigger and I'm more likely to think that a couple more won't matter. And usually after a couple more drinks, I want something else to eat...and it just becomes a viscous cycle.

*I stop making the best decisions for me.*

And then I spend the next day...the rest of the week...beating myself up for drinking so much, or even if I manage to not beat myself up about it I wonder what impact it is going to have on my weigh in. And I feel like that's almost worse than the original decision to drink.

Right now I'm so close to going into the 180s. I'm so close to losing a total of 25 lbs and being halfway to my goal weight. And in reality, I might be making a bigger deal out of this drinking than I need to be. When I really sit down and think about it, I am making more good decisions than bad ones. But I know the next few months are going to be a struggle. I'm going to have much less control over my environment and what I can eat. I'm going to be around friends who are going to want to go out to eat and have drinks at the end of *every* day. And I just can't do that if I'm going to successful. And being successful is what is most important to me.

I think by cutting out the booze I will feel more in control. I just hope I can focus on all the positive things not drinking is going to do for my body (and my mind!)

Three things I'm doing to help me be successful with my choice:

1. I am going to be diligent about tracking. I have been a little lazy about this lately...and that just makes it way too easy to slip in a glass of wine or two. I need to hold myself accountable for what I'm putting into my body...and tracking is a great tool for this. I need to track!
2. I am currently reading Skinny Bitch -A no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous. I finally picked up this book and starting reading it a couple days ago, because I felt like I needed a little inspiration...something to re-light that fire I felt so strong a couple months ago. I'm loving it! And I think it's exactly the kick in the butt I need right now.
3. I'm going to use the idea of streaks that I read about in The Spark. The idea is that if you are on a streak...you have done something for so many days in a row...then you are motivated to keep the streak going. I printed off a little calendar and put it on my fridge, and I'm going to keep counting up the number of days I don't drink. 

Starting my streak...today is day #1!

So I feel pretty good about this. I'm not sure how long this is going to last. I just want to see what it does to my body and how I feel.  Now I just have to tell all my friends so they stop offering me drinks...or better yet, I guess I'm going to get a lot of practice at saying "no thank you."