Friday, September 23, 2016

Why I'm happy to drink less.

If you would have told me 6 months ago that I would be happy to barely ever drink, I wouldn't have believed you. It all started with having a couple drinks at home after work to destress a couple times a week. Then it was 4 or 5 times a week and I couldn't wait to get home to have my drinks. I started to realize I was looking forward to happy hour just a little too much and I wanted to figure out why. I wanted to be high on life. I also wanted to eat better and lose some weight. There are a lot of calories in booze!

So I stopped drinking for a month. The first week or so was the hardest. Life seemed so boring without it. I know how ridiculous that sounds! The good news was I really started to fill my time with other things that were more productive and interesting. Don't get me wrong I still craved a glass of wine and some cheese now and then (did I mention I'm not eating any dairy right now either?) But the cravings weren't ruling my world. I was feeling better every day.

I finally had a couple glasses last Saturday with dinner. The first glass was nice. After that it was just meh. Then I had 3 glasses last nite with some wings with friends. The first 2 glasses were nice but I really didn't need the third. I wasn't hungover or anything  but I realized how it impacted my behavior. I didn't get rowdy or say anything bad but your behavior does change when you've had a few. I'm learning I really don't like that. I'm an expressive person on a normal day and drinking just amplifies that to an annoying degree. So it was great to have that reminder because I don't need to drink to have a good time anymore. If you need to have a drink to have a good time there are some issues that need facing.
You know what I don't miss about getting drunk? Falling down and hurting myself, embarrassing myself and others, saying something mean or hurtful to someone and binge smoking to name a few things.(pretty much quit smoking as well too!) Only time I want to smoke is when I've had more than 1 or 2 but it's slowly getting non existent. I don't care if you can say this but I am proud of myself! I want to be healthy and happy and have as little regret as possible! Im trying to keep the foot in mouth comments you get from drinking to a minimum! I tend to be hyper critical of myself. Spending half the next day regretting/analyzing stupid drunk things I said is a horrible way to spend my time.

It doesn't mean I'll never enjoy a nice glass of wine. It just means I'm keeping it to once a week and maybe 2ish glasses. There's always the odd special occasion of course. In general though, I have to say I'm much happier now that I've made this change. Now if I could just do something about my hormones and hit the gym more I'd be set. (Physical health wise anyway;I'll say nothing about my mental health!)

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Here we are again

I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last blog. I tend to get really caught up with life, as we all do, and then I don’t take the time to do these things. Well that’s only really half true. The other half is that when I’m not fully satisfied with something (or many things) I tend to go inward and don’t really feel like sharing. I’m also not one of those people who feels the need to share every little thing in my life: what I ate this morning, 30 pictures of my dogs, etc. I’m not bashing people who do; it’s just not for me. I do enjoy seeing my friends post details of their everyday lives, especially when I don’t get to see them very often, I just can’t be bothered to do the same lol. But I digress.

Now this may sound like I’m saying the reason I haven’t blogged is because I haven’t been happy with things. Not at all. I just didn’t feel like it. Also I’m not really into sharing the journey, I’d rather just skip to the end when I have things how I want them. I feel like I see people chat up their intentions all the time (of course it’s great to have goals and strive for them), but I feel like a lot of the time it’s just blah, blah, blah the same thing over and over again but no results are going to come, or if they do, they don’t last. For me personally, I’d rather just do it rather than talk about it endlessly. Then, when I share the results at the end, it’s a surprise. I don’t have to worry about people asking me, “Oh, how’s that going so far?” and feeling discouraged because my results aren’t where I’d like them to be. Now this is relevant to everything from losing weight, to redecorating the house or even knitting a sweater. I do these things to please myself, not others, but sometimes the stress of explaining your progress can be a buzz kill. (To me, anyway)


It just so happens that right now I’m in a sharing mood, lol. So I’m going to try to blog more. We’ll see if that actually sticks.