Right now, this is feeling easier. I know I’m living a fairly quiet life these days. The end of the school year will bring many evening events. Some, I will need to be “on” for and normally I would have a drink or two before going to those, then come home from those and have two or so drinks to wind down from those. I’ve really only had one of those nights in this go-around of sobriety, so I’ll get more practice at that, I guess.

On other evenings there will be opportunity to drink. I’d probably have one drink before so that I could just drink one drink at the event. As a mom where I live, this is probably the safest socially acceptable choice. But I’d be obsessing at the event thinking about how I wanted more to drink. Was I drinking my one drink too fast? Oh! One of the other moms at my table ordered a second drink, should I do it too? I always did, then obsessed on the way home that the one-drinkers had judged me. So when getting home I’d have a few drinks to relieve the anxiety.

Now, at the drinking type of event, I’ll have to suffer the social stigma of not getting a drink at all. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I’m still working on my response when/if people ask why I’m not drinking. I want to have something planned and solid so I don’t regret what I say later, and I don’t tell every person something different. I know my response will change with time, but I want to start out with a solid message.

OK, more health concerns. Weight gain. I know that I am not a big person, but I was recently very disappointed in my appearance. I gained 16 pounds over 10 years. I know that doesn’t sound too bad, but about 10 of those pounds have been in the past year and a half. It has been enough to make all my clothes just a little too tight, so I am uncomfortable and aware of my weight gain all day long. I am refusing to buy bigger clothes. I don’t want bigger clothes, I want a smaller body! It’s also WHERE the weight ended up. I always had a trim waist, but between having kids and then the weight gain, it seems to all go to a really unflattering spare tire.

I have tried lots of exercise and I eat healthy. I’ve had a bit of success in the past doing intermittent fasting, but lately that did nothing for me. I had to finally admit that drinking was making me gain weight and/or really hard to loose weight. This was a realization I REALLY did not want to make. It took a lot of reading to finally admit to myself that if I really wanted to be in the kind of physical shape I want to be in, I need to stop drinking. I know I don’t owe it to anyone to have a good looking body. Maybe it’s the messages my mom programmed in my brain, but I know that feeling good in my clothes will make me so much happier.

I took these measurements on Day 1. The only thing I am measuring weekly is my weight. I’ll do all the other measurements on June 1st, since I quit on May 1st.

Weight – 136.0

Waist – 33.5

Hips – 40

Thigh – 22

Today was my weekly “Weigh Day” and I am at 133.0. I really want to celebrate those 3 pounds, but my weight tends to fluctuate a bit even from one part of the day to another, so I want more data before I get excited. I think 125 would be a really healthy goal for me.

What am I doing besides not drinking? Well I’ve been continuing my daily morning walks, which are about 2.8 miles. As mentioned in yesterdays digestion post, I started some jogging this week. When I jog I go slightly further, 3 miles. On the weekends I often do a bigger 3.5-4 mile walk.

I continue eat fairly healthy. I am not into starving myself. When I have a meal, I have a real meal. I have snacks and they are about about 50/50 health/not healthy. Monday-Friday I try to do 16:8 intermittent fasting – I do not eat anything besides having two cups of coffee (which do have about a Tbsp. of half and half in them) until lunch (around noon). I am usually successful in this 4 out of the 5 weekdays.

Starting a week before I stopped drinking I started a push-up/sit-up/stretching routine. It’s just 20 minutes, but it’s nice to feel my muscles again. I credit not drinking with allowing me to keep up with this. I’m fairly solid on doing it 6 days a week so far.

That’s it. I will admit that if I don’t loose weight/inches I will be disappointed. It’s certainly not the main reason I want to stop drinking, but it would be a side effect that would give me motivation during the hard times that I know will be coming.