LESS Alcohol ~ APRIL 2023 ~ One Day at A Time

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  • itladyee
    itladyee Posts: 5,481 Member
    @lmlrn~ How exciting!! Congratulations!

    @brittgreenlikethecolor88 ~ Get back on track!! I do know stress!!!
  • joans1976
    joans1976 Posts: 2,201 Member
    edited April 2023
    @itladyee I was just thinking about you 2 days ago and then your post popped up! I am very sorry you’ve been under so much stress but am glad to hear from you!

    @ahoy_m8 Im glad you are enjoying your HS reunions. I personally would rather chew glass than go to one of mine and I actually keep in better contact with middle school friends than high school. This is the second time you’ve mentioned depression in your recent posts. Are you okay? Can we help in any way?

    @GaryM_25 Im in for the podcast review! I think you handled the business trip very well. I had a sales job for about 10 months (too much travel) and I later learned it was my territory managers way of doing things but it was constant drinking and eating after 5 pm. And a lot of pressure to do so.

    @dawnbgethealthy How ya doin?

    @lmlmrn Ohio! I live 45 minutes north of Ohio. That was very kind of you to let them let their kids finish school. My parents got pushed out of their house early by their buyers so they ended up living in a hotel for 15 days. They had to move their things to storage, then to the new place. Congratulations on your new digs! Adventure awaits!
  • joans1976
    joans1976 Posts: 2,201 Member
    @lmlmrn
    "Ok girl you have to spill you guts how far are you from Columbus? My sister is about 45 min east of there. My DD is south 3 hours LOL.......Look out all you LA friends....a retired wanna be is coming to an area near you."

    I am 3 hours from Columbus. About 195 miles. I spent summers in Toledo since my grandparents lived there. Does your new place have a pool? lol
  • dawnbgethealthy
    dawnbgethealthy Posts: 7,926 Member
    @ahoy_m8
    I am sorry that you are having depressed feelings. Good on you for recognizing it but soldiering on to events.

    @lmlmrn
    Congrats on the house!! You will be closer to your family in Ohio right?

    @itladyee
    I am with you on the no deprivation front as opposed to small lifestyle changes.
  • dawnbgethealthy
    dawnbgethealthy Posts: 7,926 Member
    I am Dawn, I live in South Eastern British Columbia.
    I joined this thread in November of 2018, a daily drinker at the time
    My primary goal with drinking less is weight loss.

    My usual goal is 16-20 AF days for the month,
    I had 17AF days in March.

    I do this diary style, I normally post the next morning.

    Tuesday April 25 - AF - My plan to stay AF during the weekdays was because of the new job that I no longer have. I admit that I was having thoughts about what would motivate me otherwise. There was a coughing child in for lunch at the restaurant, and by 2:30 my nose started running. I dropped off some resumes after work, but by the time that I got home I had a full blown cold. I thought it better to take some echinachea and stay off of the booze so that I could get better quickly. Tylenol Cold daytime is on the agenda for today, and Neo Citran tonight after a hot bath.

    Rolling total: 13AF days out of 25 days.
  • globalhiker
    globalhiker Posts: 1,730 Member
    @lmlmrn being close to family you love is always a good thing. I would love to move to Washington but the rest of my family is scattered ( have 2 in Ohio) and nobody in Washington so I guess it's not the right spot for me.

    As for pools, they are pretty to look at but most of us are not spending hours swimming laps in there getting gloriously fit or anything. I scrub the mineral and sediment buildup in it. I scoop out the bugs daily. I have to get it re-finished but it's $$$. Once it had a major leak and the whole thing drained out and went down neighborhood like a river. It's a salt water pool so had to buy like 10 bags of salt and spend 2 days re-filling it. The pool light went out and we froze ourselves trying to re-wire the electric cables. And it can't be used for 10 months out of the year. Mine is so costly I am contemplating secretly hiring a company to bring a truckload of dirt to bury it. Then I could plant a garden.
  • RockinRobyn672
    RockinRobyn672 Posts: 907 Member
    Hi All! Since joining this group Nov '22 I no longer drink on a daily basis. I'm drinking less for weight loss and overall health.

    Wed 4/26: Drinks (1) - MIL has been moved to the new place in NC. We heard that she really enjoyed the 40-minute ride in the wheelchair van. I am so looking forward to seeing her and checking out the new place. As for food/drinks, intermittent fasting and limiting myself to two meals and one healthy snack during the day is working for me, although I seriously "thought" about diving into the cabinets last night after dinner. For dinner DH bought a planned half-size bottle of Cabernet, which worked out well because we each had a glass with dinner. I'm sure we would have had two glasses if the bottle had been normal size. I'm so busy right now because I'm behind at work and need to prepare for traveling, I haven't had a chance to catch up with everyone here. I will do that soon!

    Rolling Total: 17 AF Days out of 26
  • dawnbgethealthy
    dawnbgethealthy Posts: 7,926 Member
    I am Dawn, I live in South Eastern British Columbia.
    I joined this thread in November of 2018, a daily drinker at the time
    My primary goal with drinking less is weight loss.

    My usual goal is 16-20 AF days for the month,
    I had 17AF days in March.

    I do this diary style, I normally post the next morning.

    Wednesday April 26 - AF - I have another job interview Friday after work. Hoping that my nose isn't running like a faucet by then, but I will take some tylenol cold a couple of hours before the interview if it is.

    Rolling total: 14AF days out of 26 days.
  • itladyee
    itladyee Posts: 5,481 Member

    Finally.....
    After two weeks of stressing out, the company finally got back to me and they are changing the structure of what they offered to me. Still able to participate in profit sharing but not with all the tax implications as before and not making less money due to the original plan. The situation did cause me to to have to find money, for which I now am paying interest and have over paid the IRS. I guess life wouldn't be exciting without a few bumps in the road.

    Now I can get back to some self care and positive vibes!

    @rockinrobyn672 ~ wishing you a lot of success in relocating your MIL. Glad you found a much better place!

    @GaryM_25
    GaryM_25 wrote: »
    Going a month without any alcohol, my wife and I went out to dinner and I had a margarita in celebration!
    I thought you were kidding when you said you celebrate with a drink!🙂 Congrats on the MONTH and congrats on the 1 margarita!!

    @brittgreenlikethecolor88 ~ Happy to see another green check!!! I may "borrow" your record keeping for the month of May!
    @dawnbgethealthy ~ Good Luck on the Friday interview!!


    The Month recap to stay accountable
    4/1
    My plan starts/restarts tomorrow.... Mayo Clinic "diet" . Today wasn't so bad. Had 6 ounce filet and asparagus and two glasses of wine for dinner. I have only one bottle of wine left in my house and I don't plan to buy any more this month.....
    4/2/2023
    Well.... the day was actually going well. I had a couple of breakfast sausage for breakfast (not the best choice but I haven't been shopping yet). For lunch, cobb salad and for dinner Chicken with a southwest salad. All meals accompanied by water! I made it until 8:30pm when my husband came home from work. He cracked open a beer and started recapping his negative day... so two glasses appeared .... bottle is almost empty🙂
    4/3/2023
    I skipped breakfast, considering IF again. if only to kick start some action. Good for lunch (leftover Chicken and Salad) and dinner was an airfried pork chop and broccoli. Husband turned on the NCAA championship game and make Pomegranate Sours. I had one and a half (about 6 ounces).
    4/4/2023
    [Noted yesterday]I'm already claiming today as AF. Gotta get started and ignore the triggers.
    Yeah! That worked....:) AF! Mental mind games. It's funny. Once you put your mind to it, it's fairly easy. When your mind isn't committed, is easy to waiver. I came home and immediately poured my substitute wine (Ocean Spray 5 calorie juice) and proceeded to cook dinner. My husband came in and out of nowhere said, lets have a shot of Maker's Mark. I said no thank you, but go right ahead. He didn't. Then later on in the evening we were watching Jeopardy and the final Jeopardy question comes on and he says...if I get this right, you have to take a shot. It was like the devil incarnate! I said no!
    4/5/2023
    Weird day....as far as alcohol was concerned. I've been going to a place to get my nails done for over 15 years. My nail tech use to tell me to relax as my hands would be quite rigid while we would attempt to do my manicure. I use to tease that they should sell wine, that would relax me. Yesterday I went to get my eye brows waxed, nails and pedicure done. While getting my eye brows done, the tech says, would you like a glass of wine? I looked at her like she had two heads. She said, we have cabernet or moscato.... I politely declined. She continued that I could sip while getting my pedicure done. I declined again. Then when getting my pedicure done, my regular guy asked again. I just chuckled and said no thanks. I had received message late Monday from my friends son that she was in the hospital (she's 84). I tried calling Tuesday day and evening and left a message. I missed his call again but he didn't leave a message. When I got home, I tried again and got the message that his voice mail box was full. So that left me a bit concerned and put me in a solemn mood. I poured my substitute wine and air fried some catfish for dinner. It just wasn't doing it, so I finished that bottle of wine (not quite two glasses). Now here comes the weekend as I'm off tomorrow for Good Friday.

    When all is said and done and I get annoyed for not staying AF, I have to give myself credit that I am continuing to limit alcohol and not drinking nearly as much. And I can see the difference with the reduction. Glad I found this group.

    4/6/2023
    Thursday was my "Friday" as I'm off today!

    Guilty - went shopping for weekend meals including Easter dinner and did buy wine. Did drink wine. I think my next AF target day will be Monday, 4/10...I want to have mimosas on Easter Sunday morning. The rest of the weekend is unplanned.

    I learned that today (4/7) is National No Housework Day.... I must observe!🙂

    4/7
    4/8 -
    4/9 - Easter - Had my desired Mimosa's and had wine with dinner
    4/10 -
    4/11/2023
    I spent time regrouping yesterday. Just like eating, it so easy to continue those drinking days once they've started. I had more alcohol on Easter than I have had in quite a while. Monday it was easy to come home and pour that glass of wine. I was content with getting back on track yesterday but just had a horrible day.

    I really want to meet my weight loss goals for this year and in order to do so I've got to get a handle on both eating and drinking. Now I say this while coming off of vacation and the holiday so I feel like I'm really out of control, but if I look back, I'm not. I took half the cheesecake to work, we ate 1/4 of it on Easter and 1/4 is still in the refrigerator! Hopefully my husband will make it go away.

    Sooner or later, I'm going to find something I can consistently work with. I am doing a combination of things. The Mayo Clinic diet focuses on servings of food groups, basically making sure that you are balanced within a certain calorie range. The problem is I swap things on the menu which is legal, but I think my swapping upsets the food balance. I think I will continue to use some of the recipes that they provide and plug them into MFP to make sure my I am within my range of calories and carbs. I am going to alter my daily calories, ZigZag or Calorie cycling they call it so that I don't consume the same amount of calories everyday. I will average about 1400 calories but not all days will be the same. And finally, I had some success with IF last year so I'm going to add that process to the mix as well.

    It will be almost impossible for me to include wine on my low calorie days, so that's another motivator to help me with this plan.


    Recap for 4/13/2023
    This has been a horrible week. Not so much with overeating or drinking, but other stuff had been grating my nerves which then leads to over drinking and then overeating. Last night there was overdrinking.

    The short story is this... since this is a public board, I won't go into detail but if anyone has knowledge or experience with going from W2 to K1 and is willing to educate me, please inbox me. The end result as I see it, is causing me to have a significant reduction in income due to additional taxes being paid by me. I had a quick conversation with my cpa, but it's the final hour of tax season so he's really busy and thought he was done with me!

    I worked from home today to avoid biting anyone's head off.
    4/14 - 4/24 - MIA

    4/25
    On 4/13 got the news about my change in status causing me to pay additional taxes.
    4/18 Followed up with HR to see if there we any updates - Was told it was under review.
    4/24 - Got an email last night from HR that they were "still reviewing" and hope to have some information by the end of the week.
    12 days of being on edge...Not sure what my next steps are at this point. I spoke with my accountant and he said they need to adjust my pay so that the impact is Tax Neutral.

    At any rate, I find my self falling into old habits. While not AF, I was doing really well at limiting my intake. I've had a couple of bad days...bright side, only a couple.

    I am starting to calm down a bit though and I will find a way to deal with this situation if the answer isn't exactly what will be best for me.

    I'm mentally moving on to May.
    I'm actually doing well with my calorie cycling, even with a couple of not so good days.
    My goals for May will be to continue to zig zag the calories and aim for no more than 2 glasses of wine per night. If I do less, that's a bonus but I'm setting myself up for success vs failure at trying to be AF as that's not working.
    On the days where I have limited calories, I will have to only have 1 glass.

    Deprivation and stress do not work well for me. Hoping by May I am less stressed!

    Thanks to all who commented and gave me support! I appreciate it!

    Off to catch up with all the posts, sorry if a little late with my comments and I add on as I read more...




    My 2023 Stats...
    AF = 1
    A = 13
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    January
    AF = 53%
    A = 47%
    February
    AF = 29%
    A = 71%
    March
    AF = 0%
    A = 100%
    April
    AF = 3%
    A = 97%
  • Michieb125
    Michieb125 Posts: 869 Member
    Quick pop by to check in for the day…. I see everyone is starting to prepare for May! I know I am.

    AF - 18
    A - 8
    Goals - 20-22 AF days total
    Limit - no more than 2 glasses on A Day
  • tmbg1
    tmbg1 Posts: 1,451 Member
    4/1 - A
    4/2- AF
    4/3 - AF
    4/4 - AF
    4/5 - AF
    4/6 - 4/7 - 4/8 - A
    4/9 - AF
    4/10 - AF
    4/11 - A
    4/12 - AF
    4/13 - 4/14- 4/15 - A
    4/16- AF
    4/17 - A
    4/18- AF
    4/19 - 4/20 - A
    4/21 - 4/22 - A
    4/23 - AF
    4/24 - AF
    4/25 - AF
    4/26 - AF
    4/27 - A
  • RockinRobyn672
    RockinRobyn672 Posts: 907 Member
    @dawnbgethealthy Wishing you a dry nose and a successful interview!
  • RockinRobyn672
    RockinRobyn672 Posts: 907 Member
    @lmlmrn That was fast!
  • dawnbgethealthy
    dawnbgethealthy Posts: 7,926 Member
    I am Dawn, I live in South Eastern British Columbia.
    I joined this thread in November of 2018, a daily drinker at the time
    My primary goal with drinking less is weight loss.

    My usual goal is 16-20 AF days for the month,
    I had 17AF days in March.

    I do this diary style, I normally post the next morning.

    Wednesday April 26 - AF - I have another job interview Friday after work. Hoping that my nose isn't running like a faucet by then, but I will take some tylenol cold a couple of hours before the interview if it is.
    Thursday April 27 - AF - Went to bed with a Neo Citran the last 2 nights, it dried me up enough to sleep, and I guess put me to sleep : - ) Beautiful morning here as I type this early Friday. My plan is to get lots of yardwork done over the weekend, the forecast is 22c (around 72F). I don't have a plan for AF over the weekend except for Sunday, which is always an AF day.

    Rolling total: 15AF days out of 27 days.
  • GaryM_25
    GaryM_25 Posts: 98 Member
    @dawnbgethealthy Best of luck on the interview coming up!
  • globalhiker
    globalhiker Posts: 1,730 Member
    @itladyee I can relate to your post since stress really gets to me. Glad the bump in the road is over!

    April was a strange month for me, lots of ups and downs. Not happy with my progress or lack of-in retrospect I had not as many AF days as I expected or wanted. Didn't hit my weight loss or running goals. I blame work and stress and well, I suppose I can continue this blame as long as the stress is there.

    Ready to make a change and I get that it means I need to let go of some stressors and what's most important is for me is to live my happiest life and if it means ditching my so-very-toxic job, I may have to do it.

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