How many are considering Dry January?

I don't blame you. I love them too.

 

Thanks, I absolutely agree with you, on all of your points. We are still looking for ways to improve our approach, and will implement improvements during 2026.

 

Be specific on how you want it cut, or you'll end up with way more ground beef and sausage than you'd like. Also a lot of chuck or round steaks, Those are better as big cuts for braising.

Not that too much sausage is ever a bad thing.

 

How short is this woman?

 

5ft 1inch.

For many years she lied to me and insisted she was really 5'2".

 

Very good advice. Much appreciated.

I bought two large books about meat a few months ago, and have only just begun to study them. Will keep your advice in my notes.

 

A three hour tour?

A three hour tour?

Oh for the days over forty years ago when in my twenties one of the 'normal' dinners involved a pound of tossed salad and a whole rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, most always totally consumed that night (or at least the salad & 3/4 of the chicken).

Or the 'usual' get together grilling with friends that involved a pound of ribeye/KC strip, a huge bigger-than-fist-sized baked potato and either some red beans & rice or some kind of green vegetable/cole slaw as well.

Nowadays it's down to either a half a pound of salad & a half a chicken or a half a pound of rib-eye/KC strip & a smaller-than-fist-sized baked potato.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread about something-something January involving less mass quantities of beer.........

 

Glad it's working. These types of diets do work well for most, at least for awhile. The majority of people overeat on carbs, and protein is the most filling macronutrient.

Not sure how lean you are, but where these diets tend to fizzle is out is when you becoming leaner, you'll inevitably be hungrier and overeat on this type of diet. Best of luck to you though, sounds like it's working!

I've been to a few parties where I would have liked there to have been less.

 

This thread is making me hungry

While I'm also on a diet this month, my meat grilling and smoking are definitely keeping me sane with no beer and no excessive calories

Second that working with many cuts of meat really teach you techiques and ways to make it taste great. My diet hack is being a good cook as I can control the portions and ingredients and it doesn't feel like I'm depriving myself. No chicken breast rice and broccoli for me.

I'm still going strong on the dry thing, almost to the halfway point. I've decided I'm breaking one day early for the Pure Project anniversary party.

 

I applaud anyone's attempt at disciplined self control but this past 30 months were brutal.
Best I can do for dry January is some dry irish stouts,hopefully I get credit for staying close to the theme

 

Thanks, appreciate it.

I have lost most of my visceral fat at this point and will shortly pivot just a bit to eating to maintain, by adhering to a particular range of fat to protein based on my optimal weight.

Have already replaced most of my clothing at this point, which was kind of fun.

 

Not that you guys care, but I figured that I'd give you an update.

The Good: I'm down 5 lbs from last week and my excitement about drinking beer is slowly coming back.

The Bad: The first week of the diet I actually gained 2 lbs., so to reach my goal I have to lose 14 lbs. in the next 4 weeks.

The Ugly: Although the goal is still very attainable, I'm going to have to change some aspect of it every week. That will mean that this coming week will see me increasing my cardio by 50% and the week after that I'll drop another meal. This cycle will probably be repeated for the last two weeks of the diet.

The big take-away is that so far I'm not really missing drinking beer. I feel "twinges", usually in the evening, but that's normal for this type of diet as that's when I get the strongest cravings for carbs.

For those of you using this "Dry January" to shed some lbs., how has that been going?

 

I did something close to what you are describing at the beginning of 2023. I went from 240 on NYE to 188 on March 23rd. I did most of the damage in January and continued at a diminished pace due to alcohol and less strict dieting in the last six weeks. Don't dwell too heavily on scale fluctuations day to day, or even week to week to an extent. You'll hit plateaus and massive losses. More or less just follow the math of calories in and out, and keep the calories you have quality so you don't lose too much muscle.

This January I'm trying to go from 202 down to 185-190. I'm on creatine now and wasn't before so at least part of the 188-202 was the 4-5 extra lbs of water, but none the less I've let it creep up a little over the last year or two and the travel schedule has made it really hard to lock into my diet.

Given I've been on sabbatical I'm taking that time now to make the correction. This morning I weighed in at 193. Conditions were ideal for a good weigh in so I'm calling it 195. I'm a bit over halfway to goal far as I'm concerned. Not doing any crazy diet, keeping it to 1800 a day, mostly quality carbs, fats and high on protein, + 1-1.5 gallons of water consumption per day. Running 4-5 days a week and weights 3-4 days a week, walking a lot everyday.

 

Weekly Friday update:

Down another 3.5 lbs., so I'm back on schedule. Sort of. I just need to lose 3.5 lbs. a week for the last 3 weeks to reach my goal. Obviously a little different than the 2.5 lbs. a week that I initially planned, but, like I said before, these diets never go according to plan.

Also, I would REALLY like a beer and a bacon double cheeseburger! Just in the evenings, when my blood sugar gets low and my brain knows that I'm going to be going to sleep in short order. I really like the fact that I'm looking forward to having a beer in three weeks. That first beer's gonna be fucking delicious! I'll probably go with something Belgian, but we'll just have to see. Maybe bockbier?

The other good thing is that there are obvious signs that I'm in ketosis. Weird taste in my mouth and runny nose are the main two. Next three weeks I'm going to stay with the plan of knocking out one meal and increasing my cardio on alternating weeks.

These three weeks haven't been fun, but at least I'm half way through and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Kinda have a similar situation, but when my wife asks if it's okay if I have a beer, the Dr's were nice enough to say the beer won't be the cause of death.
Just sayin'....

 

I do it every year. Alcoholism runs deep in my family, so I do it simply to prove to myself that I haven't developed a dependency. Although if I'm being honest, my alcohol consumption has been cut more than half the in the past couple of years.

 

I’ll take February off again. Just a good reset to prove to myself I don’t need alcohol. And, let’s be honest, our barrel aged imperial stouts and triple IPAs probably (definitely?) have us drinking more than we should, at least from a health standpoint.

 

Entering the home stretch this week. After the “habit” part of my brain died down a week or two in it’s not been hard at all. I have been buying diet soda by the two liter and downing all sorts of herbal tea. Looking forward to a nice beer next week.

health-wise I’ve noticed my resting heart rate averages 5 or so BPM lower though at least part of that may be taking a break from work. Being back to work this last week I definitely saw some variations that were not there in past weeks. This morning my 10 day average weight dipped below my goal weight, so I consider that to be 12+ lbs knocked off and a win on the month. Going to wrap up the month strong as my diet has been pretty sustainable. It’s required structure and discipline but I’ve had maybe one day all month where my cravings really started going nuts. I’m treating myself to some beef shanks tonight (all in plan).

Hope everyone who’s played along this month is hitting whatever goals they’ve attached.

 

Not gonna lie, it's pretty cool to hear about other people's success stories or just their participation. Having everyone pulling for each other is awesome. LET'S GOOOOO!!!!

 

The best way to buy meat assuming you like your local grocery stores is to know the seasons for what meat and cuts go up in price and down and buy when they are low…look at the weekly circulars for deals and when ridiculous pricing stock up, age in the fridge if steak, then freeze.

We have a family friend who does that- buys a whole cow for meat, has it butchered and fills up his freezers for the year. Sounded interesting until they told me they go to the 4-H type fairs and buy the prize winning one…got flash backs to Charlotte’s Web…