What Happened When I Didn’t Drink for a Month....
At the end of November I decided to challenge myself a bit…. with a month of no drinking! I say challenge because I am always out and it’s easy to grab that glass of wine when it’s right there in front of you… and even easier around the holidays. To be honest, there are a few reasons I did this and I’ll get to what happened in a bit, but the main focus was health. That being said, tons of other amazing things came from it that I wasn’t expecting…. Plenty of people do dry January to « detox » from the holiday season of sweets and one too many rum eggnogs. To the contrary my plan was to do it before the New Year so that I would start fresh and on the right foot.
I posted this to all of you when I was starting this mini challenge, inviting a few of you to jump on board. I actually had an amazing response and had people emailing me and messaging me about how they were in…. Mostly girls… only a few angry husbands saying their wives cut the alcohol consumption in their house (sorry boys!).
So if we look at why, it really was to have a challenge, to focus on myself and to recharge health wise for a new year. I wanted to get rid of extra bloat and be in control of my holiday munching… but strangely enough much more happened than I expected…. Here are a few of the key points that really made a shift in my December and I’m starting to think my year in general!
My tolerence shot down a lot… and now going back to one glass of wine is difficult!
I didn’t binge on crap during the holidays! (yay!! New year same pants!)
I was in control of my emotions and my actions… strange enough to talk about but alcohol makes us emotional and sensitive. So do the holiday! I had a few crazy things occur but I feel like I was totally in control of my response.
I tapped into real emotions… and trusting your body. My body told me how to feel out what was right and wrong because I didn’t hinder that with alcohol.
I was able to wake up early, hustle and stick to all my routines!
I partied… a lot… sober! Seriously, I was out all the time because I knew that I wouldn’t be put in a situation I couldn’t handle… I also knew I would have no hangover dancing till 3am or not.
I was very tired staying out till 3 am because the only thing keeping me up was …. Me… and all my energy.
I had so much fun, going out, working out, my energy was high and my mood was always ready for anything…
I lost 5 pound and I didn’t change any of my eating habits, in fact I probably was worse just because of the time of year.
To be honest, I didn’t think it would have such an impact. I don’t drink that much in quantity, but I do drink often… out of habit… and we all do a lot more than we notice. (Let’s face it .... sometimes Friday wine night starts Wednesday with our girls…) At the end of all of this I felt amazing, thin and not bloated at all!
I went back to drinking right before Christmas. That was my time frame, November 22-December 22nd, so I could still enjoy a drink with my family and friends over the festive time. To be honest I don’t feel as awesome as I did that’s forsure….. it hasn’t even been a month and not drinking brought down my tolerence so low (like after one glass of wine I start teaching bodylicious… to my Chihuahua, low) you really feel the affect when you reintroduce it.
It was an amazing challenge and experiment to see how to the body changes and how your experiences change. I did it once for 4 months but that was over 3 years ago. I lost a ton of weight and I find your skin starts glowing and you look awesome. Honestly, I’ve had a really hard time going back to drinking because of that….
Did any of you try it with me and what did you feel? I would love to hear!!
Should we do it again for feb??
xx Sam