Cutting Back

After some days of limiting myself to no more than one drink, sleep is better, morning energy is better, alcohol craving is gone, and the pants seem to have expanded to need another notch cut on the belt. We'll see how it holds up over the next couple of months.

 

For me, I have found more health benefit from increasing my exercise and making other dietary changes. I eat less red meat Lowered my cholesterol intake from other sources, reduced fat and oil, and increased the amount of whole-grain and fresh vegetables that I eat.

 

Bicycle riding can help you to reduce belly/body fat just as any cardio can. But diet is a huge part of the equation and agree with you that strength training is important also.

 

@HopfenUndMalzGottErhalts When I was a 10-year-old kid I was delivering newspapers on my bike while riding on the sidewalk when the local high school football coach stopped me. He had some bicycle advice that fit his needs to get strong kids into his football program. He told me the only way my bike would do me any good was to strap it on my back and start running. The moral is: thinking outside the box can get you somewhere.

 

I've gotten away from the really big beers most days. As I get older, the more I don't like getting drunk, and the longer it takes to recovre from it. Oddly, this also came as my tastes morphed from bigger boozier, hoppier, to more appreciation of pilsners, kolschs, farmhouse styles, etc - lower alcohol, more delicate flavor. Not that I don't still pick up the occasional BB Stout or Imperial IPA every so often, but more often it;s a can of session beer or something. That'll usually do me for a weekday, maybe a half pour of a homebrew to cap it off once or twice a week. |I have tons of bombers in my cellar, but I look at them and think, "now how'll I finish that in a night now?"
Part of it was also seeing the ol' gut go from a 6-pack, to a growler, to a sixtel. I really didn't want to get to the keg status.

 

There are a lot of causes and triggers for AFib. While alcohol in excess can cause it, they dismissed that since I wasn't a heavy drinker. More likely a prior heart attack and a recent PE caused it. Once you have it, too much of any stimulant can trigger episodes. The doctor said I was OK with two beers a day a few times a week, and we've noted no correlation between episodes and drinking.

 

During the pandemic and shelter in place I drank myself drunk 5 nights a week. It was a tough job but someone had to do it.

Now that im back at work, I am only drinking 4 nights a week and during the work week it is a few hard seltzers a night (don't make fun of me pleeeeeasse haha).

I have lost 35 pounds since December, and I also feel that I am engaged with my family more when im not focused on drowning myself in expensive beer. I have a 3 and a 1 1/2 year old at home that I will play with more often because, well, what else is there to do when not fixated on crackin brews???

Im enjoying it to say the least.

Sincerely,
Chef

 

For a long time, I wondered how you reviewed the quantity you reviewed. I tried to do the same, but burnt out with it after a year or two of 500+ beers each. Glad to hear you've struck a better balance.

I had a similar realization in terms of how much I was spending on beer. Now I pretty much buy exclusively from two or three local breweries (unless people invite me to another to drink socially), or I'll buy Sierra Nevada/Odell at the store and call it. Cutting down the number of breweries I support has also cut down my consumption. A couple of those breweries are only open on the weekends, as they're returning to normal operations. The urge to tick is there occasionally, but I find a Sunday afternoon can be plenty of time to write a couple reviews and keep myself satiated until the next weekend. Some weekends it doesn't even cross my mind.

 

Years ago I had a tachycardia episode that resulted in a visit to the emergency room via ambulance. In the end the doc said the causes were uncertain and "...MAY be linked to alcohol and caffeine" but he advised quitting caffeine AND alcohol entirely. I said "Nope...pick one" and I made the case for the social aspect of wine and beer in our extended family. He picked caffeine to be eliminated. I went cold turkey after having been drinking about 6 cups of coffee per day. No problems doing it and I sleep way better. I never set an alarm clock anymore, (I just wake up at the required time as long as it is plus/minus 30 minutes of my normal schedule) and have had no more heart issues.

 

initially diagnosed with tachycardia and A-fib, the best of both worlds.

 

Man, I've been so tempted to cut out caffeine. Everytime I consider it, I remind myself how much I enjoy coffee, or how I just bought a nice coffee grinder. I will say, the months where I don't drink caffeine are generally full of: better sleep and more productivity. Maybe I should put my coffee grinder in storage for a month. Then stick to just having beer on the weekends.

 

And the carbs too, another important piece of the equation. For reference a HS can have 100 calories and 2g of carbs and SN Torpedo has 237 calories and 18.6g of carbs so if you have three of each just do the math to see how big of a hit the Torpedo is (pun intended?).

 

I didn't quit drinking coffee....I quit drinking caffeinated coffee. Just like there are some nice NA beers, you can find some nice decaffs that are reasonable substitutes for real coffee. It may mean looking further than the supermarket shelf, just as finding good NA beer means searching a bit wider. Think of it as an adventure or an experiment. one of my favorites is from a local roaster here: Morning Fog Lifter from this link SLO Roasted Coffee - Don't Just Drink Coffee, Enjoy It!

 

Caffeine is definitely tough. I had to cut back to one cup, as Doc said my life of caffeine addiction (5 strong cups a day) made it so that one cup a day after quitting alcohol, sugar, meat, pastries, fried foods, all fats except EVO, and white flour likely would be no worse or better than quitting completely. Not sure I could have succeeded at quitting completely. I thought I would be craving beer constantly, and I did for most of the first year, but now two years in it's pizza that I get the withdrawals for

 

That's true. I have some quality decaf at my place. May pick up some decaf Onyx and just quit drinking coffee and only fix a cup when I'm really craving it. The bitter aspect of coffee is another reason I need to forgo it. Decaf rates better than caffeinated in this respect, but it can still cause problems.

True. When I cut caffeine before a race, that's the toughest cut for me. Alcohol is tough for a few days, then I don't think much of it anymore. Coffee cravings are every day. Then again, looking to when I consume coffee vs. alcohol, it's easy to avoid behaviors that I associate with alcohol, i.e. go for a walk when I get home and don't sit on the couch until after dinner. It's not easy to avoid behaviors that result in me drinking coffee (i.e. waking up in my home.)

 

Depends on how fast and hard you can build up to. When I was racing bikes and got decent at it I was right under 40 yo and ate decent, but way too much at times and sometimes crappy food and the weight just went down (around 8% body fat when targeting a race). Bicycles are a very efficient mode of transportation and to get results it requires a focused effort to move at a pace sufficient to kill the fat. Weights are very good and I found combining the two a very good thing. The health benefits of that training back then and my selective indulgence in craft beer/alcohol is my motivator for cutting back. I love good beer but the increased weight, higher blood pressure and AIC numbers that came from me focusing on drinking instead of bicycle racing/working out does not work for me personally. Sorry @HopfenUndMalzGottErhalts for the long winded response as I'm also chiming in why I'm cutting back and actually drinking a fair amount of N/A beers these days and training hard on the bicycle again!