LESS Alcohol ~ APRIL 2023 ~ One Day at A Time

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  • itladyee
    itladyee Posts: 3,866 Member
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    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: 493 Member
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    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: 1,276 Member
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    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
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    @dawnbgethealthy Wishing you a dry nose and a successful interview!
  • RockinRobyn672
    RockinRobyn672 Posts: 907 Member
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    @lmlmrn That was fast!
  • dawnbgethealthy
    dawnbgethealthy Posts: 7,554 Member
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    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
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    @dawnbgethealthy Best of luck on the interview coming up!
  • globalhiker
    globalhiker Posts: 1,517 Member
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    @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.

  • Fursian
    Fursian Posts: 522 Member
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    @ahoy_m8 I'm sorry to hear about your mom! Mine passed away last July, it's tough. I think that these things change us permanently in ways. I'm lucky and thankful that I still have supportive people around me, and I hope this for you as well, it can help for sure.
  • joans1976
    joans1976 Posts: 2,201 Member
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    @ahoy_m8 @Fursian Loss is a tough one and I think fursian is right, these things change us permanently. I lost my best friend in March of 2022 and have still not found the strength to face that grief. She was like family to me, I knew her for 38 years. My therapist gently pushes me to face it and I push back. My logical mind knows I need to go through this but my heart is shattered into a million pieces over it. Sending you both big internet hugs.

    @globalhiker I feel you on the toxic job. I have 2 really good things keeping me in mine. Well, 3. I work from home 100%. I (usually) only work Mon-Thurs and I get 50% off pet care. There aren’t hardly any WFH jobs anymore. The rest of the job is a giant tub of toxic suck.
    I can’t remember what it is you do. Do you have a plan of where you’ll go? Will it be easy for you to find another position? Will you change direction altogether?

    @itladyee Im so glad to hear things are looking up and you are back with us, I missed you.

    @RockinRobyn672 You live such an exciting life!

    @dawnbgethealthy How is the drippy nose and how was the interview?
  • dawnbgethealthy
    dawnbgethealthy Posts: 7,554 Member
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    @joans1976

    I have known a few people in my life that have become Reiki practitioners. I have had it done to me a few times.
    Yes, chakras, those that are blocked they try to open up.
    I don't think that it is very expensive, maybe 25 bucks?
    Some people learn to do it to themselves also.
    It is good that you almost fell asleep, relaxation is golden!

    How is the job hunt going?
  • dawnbgethealthy
    dawnbgethealthy Posts: 7,554 Member
    Options
    @globalhiker

    I am sorry that you are feeling stressed.
    You are so in tune with yourself, I admire that.
    Big hugs from over here.
  • dawnbgethealthy
    dawnbgethealthy Posts: 7,554 Member
    Options
    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.
    Friday April 28 - 2 drinks. I had a good interview, they are interviewing all week and apparently have hundreds of applicants. They asked different questions other than the usual, that was refreshing. After that I went to help a friend move some fragile boxes to her new place, then went to pick up a few groceries and soil. When I came out of the store the entire town was surrounded by choking smoke. A woman in the parking lot thought that it was a prescribed burn. I can see it around the perimeter this morning, but up above the sky is blue and clear. My plan for today was to do a gazillion things in my yard. If it is too smoky I will reluctantly do household chores indoors, always the last on my list. It is still chilly right now. I do have a piccolo of prosecco in the fridge and a flute in the freezer, so I doubt that I will be AF today.

    Rolling total: 15AF days out of 28 days.
  • Michieb125
    Michieb125 Posts: 493 Member
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    Thanks @MissMay for starting the May thread!! I appreciate you.
    This thread has helped me greatly with my choosing to live with LA since Feb. 2023.

    Read through posts too quickly but will be back to continue the conversations tomorrow or Monday. I was busy all yesterday getting ready for sisters visit. She is moving out of state in July.

    I didn’t get a chance to post so updating numbers today before we head out to an Art and Wine festival with some family and a couple of friends.
    Had planned wine last night and will again today but went way over my personal limit and stayed up until midnight catching up. Feeing a bit sluggish for sure and woke up at 4:20 am for awhile - no surprise.
    See you tomorrow for final post, and thanks for being here.

    AF - 19
    A - 9
    Goals - 20-22 AF days total
    Limit - no more than 2 glasses on A Day
  • itladyee
    itladyee Posts: 3,866 Member
    Options
    Self-care and positive vibes!
    My theme for May...but starting it now.

    4/28 AF ~ Yippee! 💚

    @globalhiker ~ Keeping you top of mind to rid those stressors! Stress is weird, you almost don't realize how on edge you are until the stress is gone. Do your best to do what's right for you!

    @Missmay, you were missed! Glad you had a great time


    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...

    4/27/2023
    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!



    My 2023 Stats...
    AF = 3
    A = 27
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    January
    AF = 53%
    A = 47%
    February
    AF = 29%
    A = 71%
    March
    AF = 0%
    A = 100%
    April
    AF = 7%
    A = 93%

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