I know all about things that can get me in trouble when I go on a weight loss program. Plant based whole food really is more than a diet, it’s a lifestyle, but because my #1 directive from my doctor to avoid diabetes is to lose weight, I have to work this into the PBWF diet, and it’s not that hard to do. Except when I make it that way.
Wine is not illegal on a PBWF diet. But I have recently discovered (this didn’t use to happen to me) that if I have a couple of glasses of wine in the evening, I don’t sleep well that night. I really need a good night’s sleep to function properly. (That wasn’t always the case, either. Clearly these are age related indignities.) When I don’t sleep my brain gets lazy and I decide that I’m just going to have a little chocolate or potato chips, or both.
All of these things (empty calories, sleepless nights, junk food) ruin a diet. I did that life expectancy quiz everyone my age has probably done at least once. The alcohol was set at 2.7 drinks a week and I left it there, not really wanting to know how much I drink. The quiz calculated I’d live to be 92! Not bad.
I asked my husband if I drank more than 2.7 drinks a week. He laughed. “You drink that in a day.” He has a point. I don’t drink every day, and I don’t drink 2.7 drinks every time I drink, but I know I drink more, maybe 6-8 drinks a week. That sounds high. I’m a little embarrassed by that number, but it’s pretty accurate. It’s really too many drinks for someone who has to lose 30 pounds. Or maybe more. For a person trying to lose a significant amount of weight, alcohol for the week should be zero.
And so should potato chips and chocolate and cheeseburgers. Zero, zero, zero. And yet, I am all too human. I make mistakes all the time. But it is really important to be me to straighten the curve and drinking 6-8 units of alcohol a week, which leads to eating junk food and not sleeping well, is not gonna help. I really don’t care about wine more than weight loss. I don’t care about wine more than sleeping. And so I am going to stop drinking alcohol and go with the #1 drink recommended by PBWF, a drink, as luck would have it, I really enjoy: water.
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