Balance365 Life Radio: Episode 64: How Alcohol Impacts Your Health And Fitness Goals (2024)

May 1, 2019

Can alcohol be a part of yourlife of moderation? Jen, Annie and Lauren sit down and discuss howalcohol can impact your health and fitness goals and your life, howto assess if it’s time to make a change and how to implement thatchange if needed. Cheers to moderation!

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• Howthe United States Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee definesvarious levels of drinking
• Mommywine culture - what it is
• Habitreplacement as a way to break a habit
• Identifying the components of a habit loop -reminder, routine, reward
• Usingsmall obstacles to interrupt a habit
• Curating your environment for habitsuccess
• Therelationship between ease of access of alcohol andconsumption
• Tracking consumption to make decisions abouthow much is too much
• Separating emotion from tracking
• Howalcohol impacts hunger or perceived hunger
• Questions to ask yourself around your alcoholconsumption
• Howalcohol impacts your next day food and movement choices
• Deciding what’s negotiable and non-negotiablefor you personally
• Physiological effects of drinking

Resources:

Episode 15: Habits 101 – Hack YourHabits, Change Your Life

Episode 22: The Oreo CookieApproach To Breaking A Bad Habit

53: Secrets From The Eating Lab: Dr. TraciMann

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Transcript

Annie: Welcome toBalance365 Life radio, a podcast that delivers honest conversationsabout food, fitness, weight, and wellness. I'm your host AnnieBrees along with Jennifer Campbell and Lauren Koski. We arepersonal trainers, nutritionists and founders of Balance365.Together we have coached thousands of women each day and are on amission to help them feel healthy, happy, and confident in theirbodies on their own terms. Join us here every week as we discusshot topics pertaining to our physical, mental and emotionalwellbeing with amazing guests. Enjoy.

Annie: Do you need to giveup alcohol to reach your goal? Improve your health? On today'sepisode, we are talking all about booze. People drink for a varietyof reasons. For many, alcohol just tastes good. It can help usunwind, connect socially, and maybe even increase creativity. In myexperience. Drinking in moderation can be fine. I absolutely enjoya glass or two of wine here and there, but maybe you found yourselfwondering if cutting back or eliminating alcoholic beveragesaltogether from your diet would help you reach your health orweight loss goals faster. Or maybe you've noticed that a few drinkson a Wednesday night snowballs into poor sleep, missed workouts,and less than desirable food choices the following day. If that'syou, you've got to give this show a listen. Jen, Lauren and Idiscuss how alcohol impacts our health and questions to help youdecide if your intake is helping or harming your lifestyle. Enjoy.Lauren and Jen, we are back together. Lauren, how areyou?

Lauren: I am wonderful.How are you?

Annie: I am golden. Comingin hot after a lost a microphone or lost headphone fiasco to lasertag guns, but I recovered them and I'm sweating now but I'mhere.

Lauren: That's what'simportant.

Annie: Yes. Jen, how areyou?

Jen: I'm good and I'm soglad to be back because I had to miss our last recording daybecause of sound issues, which was super frustrating, but our soundgirl, her and I worked it out and here I am.

Annie: Yay. Three bestfriends. Anyway, we're back together. So, we, I just sang on thepodcast, you guys. We are talking about alcohol-

Lauren: Leveling up,leveling up.

Annie: Leveling up andalcohol. Both. We're doing both today. We're talking about alcoholbecause alcohol comes up a fair amount in our community and howdoes it factor into one's lifestyle and can you have alcohol andstill have weight loss goals? Can you have alcohol and still wantto improve your health? How does alcohol affect your health? Howdoes, and when I say health, I'm talking about mental, mental,physical, emotional. So we just wanted to, three of us have all hadfair amount of experience with alcohol and how much we use atvarious points of time. And I think it's gonna make for a reallygreat podcast today. You guys excited?

Jen: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

Annie: Awesome. Sodrinking a moderation can be fun. And I want to start this podcastepisode with a little bit of a disclaimer that this podcast is nota substitute for professional help. If you suspect that you have,an abuse or alcohol addiction problem, that we would absolutelyrefer you out to a professional, whether that be a doctor, atherapist, a counselor, a group, whatever sort of treatment youfeel that you need. We're talking about specifically light tomoderate drinking and how to assess if maybe you need to changesome of those behaviors to reach your goals. Right?

Lauren: Yeah.

Annie: Jen and Lauren, doyou drink, do you drink at all, Lauren?

Lauren: To be honest,lately I have not. I will have a couple of drinks on the weekend ifwe're going out or doing something. But during the week Idon't.

Annie: Jen, what aboutyou?

Jen: I rarely drinkeither. I used to drink more and I actually, which we can get intoin the podcast, but last October I cut back significantly. And sonow I just drink just socially probably. And I'm not very social,so. I don't have very many friends. So-

Annie: Kinda introverted.Well I guess I'll, I'll take one for the team here. I drink a fairamount and then it ebbs and flows depending on what's going on inmy life. But, it's not uncommon for me to have a glass or two ofwine a couple times a week, just with dinner or after dinner orafter work or whatever, a little happy hour. So, I guess I'll bethe kind of the drinker of the three-

Jen: Right. You'll be theheavy drinker.

Lauren: I used to drinkmore before I had kids and like Jen said, when I had more of asocial life. So, it kind of ebbs and flows too. Like in the summerI usually have more drinks than in the winter because we're out atbarbecues and just doing things and out more than I am in thewinter.

Jen: Yeah, I would sayit's, we're hopefully getting into spring here in Canada and in thesummer I tend to drink a bit more than I do in the winter too.There's just something about, I dunno, a deck, sun shining, fireand when I'm with you two.

Annie: I have no clue whatyou're talking about.

Jen: Yeah.

Annie: We do enjoy good,which we can talk about later. But we do enjoy good meals whenwe're together. And sometimes that's just like-

Jen: We do. It's verynice.

Annie: It's like a treat.It's a luxury. It feels like a luxury.

Jen: Yeah.Totally.

Annie: And I do just wantto also clarify, according to at least the United States dietaryguidelines advisory committee, moderate drinking for women is up toseven drinks a week with no more than three drinks on any singleday. For men that's up to 14 drinks per week with no more than fourdrinks on any single night. Heavy drinking is eight or more drinksa week for women or 15 or more drinks for men. And then bingedrinking is kind of its own separate category and that's theconsumption of about two hour window of four or more drinks forwomen or five or more drinks for men. And Jen, when we wereactually, I was sharing the podcast outline with them and Jen wasasking about why do men and women have differentguidelines?

Annie: And she noted evenwomen are the same size as men. Like me, which I am the, I am thesame size as a lot of men in my life. And I actually had to do someresearch on this. And what I found out was it's men are generallylarger and build in general, general quotes, not in my case, butthat gives them more blood volume. They also generally have lessbody fat, but they also have, regardless of their weight, higherenzymes that help them break down alcohol and the concentration ofwater, I did not know this in the body of an average man is around61% and a woman has considerably less water content and about 52%.So as a result, a man's body is just naturally equipped to dilutealcohol more efficiently than a woman's body regardless ofweight.

Lauren: That's reallyinteresting.

Annie: I know, I thoughtthat too. Because like Jen, I'm like, "Well, I'm the same size. Ican go drink for drink, right?" Like, no, I can't. I tried that incollege many times. Didn't work out well for me. But also how youcan metabolize and how alcohol affects you can also be affected byyour age, your sex, as we talked about your race or ethnicity, yourphysical condition, the amount of food you consumed beforedrinking, how quickly the alcohol was consumed, the use of drugs orprescription medications and then family history of alcoholproblems. So I just wanted to kind of like throw out some likebaseline, like what's moderate drinking, what is heavy drinking?What factors go into play with how we metabolize alcohol. Just sowe can have, level the playing field, so to speak. Does that makesense?

Jen: Yeah. So, question,Annie, this information is from, where did you say thisis?

Annie: This is from, wellit's from a variety of sources, but the drinking guidelines wasfrom the United States Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, whichactually now that you say that, I'd be curious to know if theguidelines vary from country to country because drinking as aculture is very different in European cities versus Americancities.

Jen: So versus like Russiaor-

Annie: Yeah, be curious toknow.

Jen: I think alcoholconsumption is very cultural, which we might get into a bit latertoo. So I think a lot of people that I know would be surprised toread this and see that they are considered heavy drinkers based onthese guidelines. I think they would feel like, "Wait a sec, I'mnot a heavy drinker."

Lauren: I am considered,according to these guidelines, a binge drinker, which is weird tosay that just because like I don't, I'm not the type that will justhave like one wine after dinner. Like I'm a social drinker, so likeI'll go have a few and then I won't drink for the rest of the week.And I'm just finding that interesting to read.

Annie: Well and the otherthing that I think is important to note is serving size, you know,a serving size, what they're counting as a drink would be five,four to five ounces of wine, a 12 ounce beer, five ounce co*cktail.I don't know about you, but when I pour a glass of wine, it isn'tnever five ounces.

Jen: Right.

Annie: It is always waymore. So-

Jen: I don't even know ifthat's standard in restaurants. Like, I don't know if a restauranteven ever pours five ounces.

Lauren: It is they'resupposed to-

Annie: Right. Because whenI go to a restaurant, I'm like, one of us is doing this wrong. I'mpouring a much bigger class than they are serving me at the steakrestaurant down the street.

Jen: So from my memory ofgoing out and having wine is that you can order either a six or anine ounce at restaurants. That's in, where I live.

Lauren: Oh, we don't havethat.

Annie: No.

Jen: Oh, youdon't?

Lauren: No, you can order,like, a tall or a short beer, but you, it's just one serving sizeof wine or like a drink.

Jen: I, yeah, no, you canorder size six or nine ounce, which is six ounce sounds like it'sconsidered larger than your standard serving. But yeah, I kind oflive in wine country, a wine region of Canada too. So maybe that'swhy they have that. Well, yeah, interesting.

Annie: It is. And I meanto be full disclosure, there's nights where I'm like "my servingsize is a bottle."

Jen: Yeah. And I mean youhave to, everybody has to understand, these are guidelines. Theyaren't, just like nutrition recommendations are also guidelines. Itdoesn't mean, you know, you want to roughly make sure you're in therange of the guidelines, but just because Lauren goes out once amonth and has four drinks in two hours and sees that those alignwith binge drinking doesn't mean she is a binge drinker.

Lauren: It doesn't, right.It doesn't make me unhealthy. You know what I mean? Like it'sbalance, you know?

Jen: Yeah. You gotta,like, you gotta zoom out always and put everything inperspective.

Annie: Well, and I thinkthat hopefully what we'll get into in a little bit here is thatwe're going to pose some questions to help you determine if youralcohol consumption, your alcohol intake is serving you positivelyor if it's affecting you negatively. And then what you do with thatinformation is for you to decide because, true to Balance365 form,we believe in body autonomy and that you get a right, the kind ofthe owner's manual and what works best for you is all that's reallyin our best interest. We're not here to tell you to cut out alcoholtogether, although that might be what you decide after listening tothis podcast or evaluating your intake or to reduce it or, youknow, I think there's, there is some, I don't want to saymisinformation, but there's, there's plenty of articles that wouldsay alcohol is good for you and they're a little bitgray.

Annie: I don't think thatthe general guidelines from, you know, the source that I mentionedearlier, the United States Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committeenoted that there might be some benefit, but that they wouldn'tencourage anyone to start drinking because of it. So, this isreally just like a more tools in your toolbox to help you evaluateagain as this serving you.

Is this moving you where youwant to be? Are you comfortable with this? Is this problematic foryou or is this adding to your life in a way that you're enjoying itand you're comfortable with? So, reasons that you might want toreconsider your intake though. We have a couple here and the firstone is that you're stressed. And I think we see this a lot. Peopleare stressed out. They're feeling anxious, they're feeling theoverwhelm and they pour a glass of wine and it's almosthabitual.

Lauren: It's become, like,in the mommy circles, right? It's become a thing. Like I needwine.

Jen: It's actually called,it's called mommy wine culture.

Lauren: Yes, thank you, Icouldn't remember the name.

Jen: Yeah. And we've,there's a lot of people have been talking about this in the lastyear about how alcohol companies or even marketing to moms now inas far as "Here's a way to manage your stress, here's some wine,have some, it's okay." So I have mixed feelings about it. I thinkit is a slippery slope and based on personal experience, Imentioned earlier that I really peeled back on drinking lastOctober and I was going through a very stressful time. We had movedin August and I had basically done that move by myself with kidsand, you know, new city, just everything was new and I wasstruggling with some anxiety and my consumption just went way up.And then I, here's some, here's some, here's some honesty foryou.

Jen: I met you guys inOctober, remember we met in Detroit and we went out to that concertand I got, like, wasted like just like 19 year old university frathouse drunk. And I was, I don't know where it came from, but I wasmortified the next morning, like, "Whoa, that was too far!" And,when I got back from that trip, I just really tried to have anhonest talk with myself about my consumption going up and up and upand I just was so stressed out that it had become toxic for me.Like it really was a way for me to manage my stress and anxiety andthat's a slippery slope. So, and people do this all the time withlots of different things, right? Like, whether they, sometimes withfood we talk about that quite a bit.

Jen: And so yeah, I justhad an honest talk with myself and I set some boundaries formyself, which is when I, at that point I said, you know what,unless I am socializing, then I don't need to be just drinking wineon a Wednesday night. And, I'm just going to keep it to two drinks.Um, even when I'm socializing for now. That was sort of theguideline I set for myself and now a year and a half has gone byand I feel really good. I feel in control of my consumptions but Idon't have that stress and anxiety anymore so it doesn't feelcompulsive to me. But yeah, it was just a really good choice forme. It was a really, really good choice.

Annie: And you know, itmight be a really great opportunity if you find yourself drinkingbecause you're stressed to explore, expand your toolbox, so tospeak, of other ways you can manage your stress. And that mightmean taking a shower, going for a walk, meditating, reading,knitting.

Jen: Or going to therapy.So I used that experienced and reflection and to go, you know what?I need to start going to see a therapist and I'd been thinkingabout it for a long time and just not executing, not executing. Andthen I use that as sort of a turning point for me. So then Istarted therapy and you know what I've done in the last 18 months,I cry significantly more. I think, it's because it is great and Ijust find like I'm, you know, I just went through, I just, I'm acrier and I process my emotions when I'm crying and it's not anegative experience for me. It's really positive for me to cry. SoI've noticed since I pulled back on drinking and started going totherapy, I've just learned that how to process my emotions in amore healthy way. And it's been really great.

Lauren: I find crying is astress reliever for me too, for sure. Like when I'm stressed, likeI will just have like a mini breakdown by myself in my roommate andI'm like, "Whoa. Alright."

Jen: Yeah. Like that wasjust so great.

Lauren: Everything'sokay.

Annie: Yeah. I agree.Maybe, I just, I attribute it to therapy as well, but feeling yourfeelings is quite nice, sometimes even the ugly feelings, even thereally uncomfortable feelings. Um, okay. So another reason that youmight be drinking, and that you might want to reconsider yourdrinking is because it's, you're doing it out of habit, which Ithink I've told this story many times, but I got into a habit ofdrinking shortly after Blair was born because she was probablyeight weeks old or so and really fussy and hard to get to sleep. SoI would like spend all this energy and time and mental effortgetting this baby to sleep. And the minute she would like go tobed, I would come down and I would just pour a glass of wine andsit in the kitchen and talk with my husband.

Annie: And I realizedpretty quickly that there was, there was a habit which we've talkedabout in our Habits 101 podcast and How to Change a Bad Habit thatthere's a habit loop there. And in that habit loop is the reminder,the routine, the reward, the three Rs. And the reminder for me todrink to have a glass of wine was putting Blair to sleep. It waslike super stressful. I was tired. It was just like, "Oh my God, Ijust, I can't do anything more right now. I just need this glass ofwine." The routine was drinking the glass of the wine and thereward was, is that it kind of felt like it took the edge off. Igot to spend some QT with my husband in the kitchen. It was kind ofour own little happy hour and once I realized that there was thisloop replaying almost nightly, that I could replace thebehavior.

Annie: The best way tochange a bad habit or an unfavorable habit or a habit that you wantto decrease is to replace the routine with something that elicitsthe same reward. So for me, instead of drinking glass of wine, itwas immediately going and taking a shower or going and taking awalk and then coming back and having a Lacroix or a Diet co*ke andstill sitting in the kitchen with my husband, still having some QT,our own little happy hour. I just replaced the routine withsomething else that still took the edge off, still gave me a littlebreather, still take, like, some downtime. Still felt like thatreward that I was getting from the wine, but served my goals alittle bit better because ultimately I don't want to be, I don'twant to drink every night and in order to get the same kind of takethe edge off feeling I was having to drink more and more andmore.

Annie: So what started outas one glass of wine was quickly becoming three glasses of wine,like, over the course of a couple months. And before you know it, Iwas like quasi tipsy, putting my other kids to bed and I was like,this isn't something I want to do every single night. Like that'snot for me. It was affecting my sleep and I could go on and onabout the ways that it was affecting my life negatively. But thatwas one way that I addressed the habit loop. Just swap in theroutine was something that elicits the same reward.

Lauren: Yeah.

Jen: Sorry, go ahead,Lauren.

Lauren: I think that kindof what you described happens really frequently. So like we weretalking about the stress, right? That was part of your story,right, was stress? And then you had the drink to like take the edgeoff or whatever. But then what happened is that became a habit. AndI think that happens really frequently. And so I love that storytoo. And I tell it all the time too.

Annie: Remember when youwere drinking all the time?

Jen: I think that people,so if you haven't listened to our Habits 101 podcast,you

people don't understand howstrong habits are, right? They think they just have horriblewillpower and I, they just can't make good choices, et cetera, etcetera. But, habits are just like, they're like primal. They'redeep in our brain and they're basically, they're practically asurvival mechanism, aren't they?

Jen: Because they allow usto do things without wasting time and energy on them, right? Sowhen you form habits, it's really important to identify those threehours. Like, and he said in this can apply to anything, right? Sofor Annie, her, she was putting her kids to bed and then her brainwould like light up and go time for a drink. But sometimes that istime for a chocolate bar or time for some TV. Like it just, and youjust, you go through the motions of life because are we just, ourbrain has so many habits running on repeat and in order to changethem, you have to identify them and identify what your reminder is,what your routine is, what the reward is, and then try andtransition to a different habit that you'd like to replace it withas Annie did.

Jen: But yeah, so it's notnothing to do with you personally, you know, and your willpower.It's important to acknowledge. I think that this is like, you know,I used to close my kid's door, but them to bed close the door. I'dbe walking down the hall and I would start salivating. Like it waslike my brain was just like "snack time." Like I wouldn't behungry, but it just was a deep routine for me to snack at night andso I would just go straight to the kitchen and get somefood.

Lauren: So very timely.Last night I watched The Office episode where Jim does that withthe Altoid with white with the noise in his computer

Annie: Like Pavlov'sdog.

Lauren: Yup.

Annie: Same thing, same,same. The other kind of element that also some plays into why youmight be drinking and also habits is environment plays a strongstrong element and a strong role into drinking. And when I sayenvironment, it could be like your physical location. It could bethe people you're spending time with. It could be the time of year,it could be like a restaurant, like where you always, it triggersthese same sorts of behaviors. For me in the particular case ofputting Blair to bed, part of the environment was that we justalways had wine on hand and in fact, we would buy boxed winebecause we thought that that was like an easier way to serve uswine and save money in the long run. We'd get more use out of it.We wouldn't let it go bad. What ended up happening was it was justlike wine on tap all this time and that element of our environmentmade it just a little too easy to pour wine all the time or a halfa glass of wine and then another half a glass of wine.

Annie: So a simple swapwas we just started buying bottles of wine and a bottle of wine formy husband and I is about two glasses each when it's gone, it'sgone and trained. Traci Mann actually talked about this in ourpodcast with her about the small obstacle, like make something, putit in a position, make a small obstacle to whatever you're tryingto do. So it's a little bit difficult or a little bit moredifficult than it would be otherwise. In my case, the wine was justtoo accessible. So making it less accessible made the habit harderto implement.

Lauren: Yeah. I think akey when you're thinking about environment in the habit context isto think about, if you are trying to change a habit that you don'twant to be doing, just make it a little bit harder to engage inthat behavior. And if you are trying to create a new, healthierhabit, you want to make it as easy as possible to engage in thatbehavior.

Jen: So I keep, I don'tactually keep wiring in the house as much anymore and,but

when I do have one in the house,I have it in a high cupboard. Same as I keep our treats in a highcupboard, but I have my tea in a low eye level cupboard. Andbecause the habit I want to have is when I'm feeling like somethingin the evening, I just make myself some te, and so yeah, I justkeep the tea really accessible right there. Yeah. So the otherthing I wanted to mention around environment is just sort of on agrander scale is Canada used to not have alcohol in, like, grocerystores and places. It was really only accessible. You'd have to goto a liquor store, like a special store that only served alcohol.And when I moved to New Zealand in 2010, New Zealand has alcohol intheir grocery stores.

Jen: And I walked, Iremember into a grocery store and seeing an aisle of wine and beinglike, "What?" and just from there, it was just so easy to buy. Andthen they have like their bargain bin wine that was like $6 abottle. And so that's another time in my life. I remember when myconsumption increased because it was just so accessible to me.Suddenly it wasn't like you have to make a special trip to aspecial store to get alcohol. Anyways, things have changed inCanada and it's now, now you can get alcohol in many grocerystores, which I know isn't kind of new for us. I know it's not newfor you guys. I think when I go to you, you can get it in the gasstation, it's just like, you know. And so it's just recognizingthat, and we talked about this with Traci Mann, I think it wasTraci Mann. Yeah, we talked about this with Dr Mann as well aroundtreats, right? Like you can go to staples or an office depot andthere's chocolate bars at the checkout. They're like, you startnoticing that all of these foods that people actually struggle withmoderating, they're sort of, they're in our environment everywhere,right? Like you don't go to Office Depot and have apples andoranges at the checkout, right? You have, you know, these processedfoods. I don't want to demonize any foods, so I don't want anyoneto thinking that's what I'm doing. But you know, it's chocolatebars and bags of chips and you know, things that keep for a longtime. But so alcohol is kind of the same thing. I think if you arestruggling with your alcohol intake, it's just something totake note of.

Jen: Like, "Oh, like it'sat the gas stations. It's at the grocery stores? It's for-"Yesterday when I was, we were messaging about this, the three ofus, but my kids were at their ski and snowboard lessons yesterday.So we were up on the mountain and I sat down to do some work at thelodge and there's a bar right there. And I was like, "Oh, I shouldget a glass of wine while I'm working." But it was just that. ThenI actually just did that pause as we discussed in the Traci Mannepisode. And it was like, "No, you know what, I'm good with thecoffee." But I just noticed that all around me there's peoplecoming in from skiing and they're sitting there having a beer andyeah, it was just there and I realized, you know, it was just, itwas just, it was just there. Right. And I was going to have somejust cause it was there and I just took that second to pause and Iwas like, "Nah. Yeah."

Annie: That's was exactlymy experience with wine in the home. I mean, and you're right, youcan get wine in the gas station, at least in Iowa. I think it'sdifferent from state to state, who can sell alcohol where and atwhat times, but-

Lauren: You can getalcohol everywhere in Michigan all the time.

Jen: The other thing thatjust floored me was when we moved to Australia, you could, like,get in the movie theaters, I was like "What?" And then it's thisnovelty, right? You just, you want to get it. But now in Canada itis also available in, things sure have changed in the last decadehere in Canada. But you can also get it at movie theaters in Canadanow too.

Lauren: I remember a fewyears ago, it was all like a big thing that you can now buy beer atthe zoo.

Jen: Oh Wow. That's crazy.So I don't know if this is good or bad, right? Like we all have tobe responsible. You know, there's the personal responsibilitypiece, but then there's also the environment piece. And we knowthat, we know through, you know, there's tons of research done whenyou remove things from people's environments. So they've donethings, you know, they've done studies in hospitals, they've donestudies in big sports arenas and they've manipulated the food andthe drinks that are being offered. And it significantly changeswhat people choose. Right? So even at a sport, I think there was astudy on a sports arena where they didn't remove the soda machines,but they cut back on how many soda machines there were and theyincreased the water machines and suddenly consumption shifted topeople drinking more water than soda. And so, I don't know if itwas a terrible thing in Canada that you had to go to a liquor storeto buy liquor. I don't think it was a terrible thing, but anyways,times are a-changin.

Annie: In addition to likeyour physical location, another element of environment, which Ithink I kind of mentioned beforehand, was, it can be people and itcan be totally, it could be it could even be like situations likeyou're at your family's Christmas or your office work party and itmay be like, you know, that one office work party a year. Like, youneed a gin and tonic, or you need a glass of wine or whatever tomake it through with whatever gusto you need.

Jen: Yeah.

Annie: And it could bepeople, you know, I have girlfriends that I don't drink with ever.And then I have girlfriends that we seem to, every time we seem toget together, we always have a glass of wine orwhatever.

Jen: Yeah. We had aBalanced 365er talk about that recently. She was talking about howthat's what her friends do. They get together and drink on theweekends. So for her to try to cut back on her alcohol consumptionwas very, very, very hard. Just, you know, the peer pressure Iguess around it. And also like, that's what they do. So-

Annie: Yeah. Yeah. And,and you know, again, it's not necessarily that you have to doanything with it, but just creating some awareness like, "hey, thisis our pattern. Every time we get together we do x, Y, Z, or everytime I'm with this person, you know." And the same could be saidfor desserts. You know, like every time I go out to dinner withHeather, we always get a dessert or you know, for example orwhatever. It's just creating awareness of how your environmentaffects your habit is really awesome.

Jen: And there's nothingwrong with any of it. It's more about the frequency, right? If yougo out to eat every single day with Heather for lunch and you guysare sharing cake every single day for lunch, well then that mightbe something you examine. If you and Heather go out once a monthfor lunch. Are we talking about Heather Osby? DifferentHeather?

Lauren: Hi,Heather!

Annie: Actually, Iactually don't, we do go out for lunch, but Heather just came tomind. But yes. Heather and I don't, I don't think we share adessert though. I don't actually.

Jen: Anyways. Anyways,Heather's a fitness professional that is a good friend of Annie'sin Iowa. Anyways, yeah. So it's more about the frequency. Like howoften do you do this?

Annie: Are you comfortablewith the frequency? If you are, great, if not, then maybe it's timeto make some changes. Speaking of making some changes, I do wantto, kind of move on. So if you're considering making some changes,you heard all of this and you're like, "Huh, yeah, maybe I shouldkind of examine my consumption." We would encourage you to gathersome information on the situation before you make decisions. Andstep one can simply be like, take note of how much you're drinking.And as I mentioned, portion size is key here because a serving sizeof wine is four to five ounces. And in my house that's, like, nothappening. So to really be honest about like "how much am I reallydrinking?" can be your step one. And that could just be like a foodjournal. It could be like a note in your phone, it could be a tallymark on your cover, I mean, whatever that looks like foryou.

Annie: You don't have totrack calories, you don't have to track macros, you don't have todo anything with that. You could just, just take note of thequantity. And then step two would be to review the data. And thisis where I think a lot of women get tripped up is they, we wouldencourage women to look at the data as just like, "This is justinformation. This is just data." It doesn't mean that you're a goodperson or a bad person or that you are a failure or that you didreally well or that you did anything bad. It's just like, like,"Let's just look at it as objectively as possible." And somequestions to ask yourself when you're reviewing the data, "Am Idrinking more or less than I thought? Are there patterns that wediscussed earlier to your drinking? The people, the places, thedays of the week?"

Annie: This is really key.Is it bringing "unwanted friends" to the party? Which that couldmean binge eating, emotional drama. Like, are you fighting withfriends or your spouse or are you short tempered with your kids?Are you enjoying, you know, an extra dinner after you starteddrinking when you're aren't hungry to begin with because as I'veexperienced many times, alcohol actually does suppress leptin,which is the hormone that tells your brain when you're full and itnegatively affects other brain chemicals that are involved inappetite suppression. So, it's easy to see why like, "Yeah, pizzasounds great!" At 2:00 AM after a couple drinks, college Annieknows that very well, but it really is harder to read hunger andfullness cues after a few drinks.

Jen: We also don't, youknow, we typically pair alcohol with higher calorie foods. It's notlike, you know, it's not like you go to a party and everyone'shaving wine and there's veggie tray and salads on display. Likeit's usually chips and candy or you know, dips and bread and thatkind of thing. And so a Balance365er did recently share this aswell. She was talking about how it's not actually the alcohol forher that she thinks she's over consuming. It's that she has acouple of drinks and then she eats, she just mindlessly is eatingat the snack table and pretty soon she's gone through like a partysize bag of Doritos. Right. And so that's sort of where it canaffect your over consumption or if you have weight loss goals orthat-

Annie: It can just lowerinhibitions. But, I mean, really, as I noted it does make, alcoholmakes it harder to read hunger and fullness cues.

Jen: Right.Yeah.

Lauren: For me, it alsowent beyond that, right, for like the next day, cause I would betired and crabby and craving more, like, high fat comfortfoods.

Jen: Right. So then youwant, you get up and you're like, "Oh, Mcdonald's-

Lauren: McDonald'sbreakfast.

Jen: Yeah.

Annie: What is it aboutfast food the next day? That

Lauren: It's sogood.

Annie: Makes you feelbetter.

Lauren: I don'tknow.

Annie: Is that just habit?I wonder if there's science behind that. Like a higher fat, highercalorie meal.

Jen: I actually don'tcrave fast food when I'm hungover, I crave like Booster Juice, likea smoothie, something like-

Annie: Oh, noway.

Lauren: That would neverhappen.

Jen: For me, that's like,hydrate. I'm just drawn to it.

Lauren: Genetics, likesome genetic cause, like, that's honestly what you crave, right?And I honestly would never have that the next day.

Annie: I am honestlydisgusted by your hangovers.

Jen: Who areyou?

Annie: So yeah. We get,let's circle back to that in just a little bit, but when you'rereviewing the data, additional consideration would be how is itaffecting you physically? Is it affecting your sleep? Is itaffecting your workouts? Do you generally feel good before andafter you drink? Do you feel in control of your drinking? If youhad to give it up for a week, how would you feel? Would you feelpanicked? Would you feel calm, cool, collected about it? And thenare you in choice of your drinking or is it your friends and yourfamily controlling how much and how when, and I mean, ultimately,we want to be the ones that are in control of how much we'redrinking, that we want to feel like we're in choice. We're notpressured, we don't feel obligated. We don't feel compelled toparticipate in consuming alcohol if that's ultimately what we don'twant. So alcohol and weight loss, like can they go hand in hand?And Lauren, do you want to, do you have any thoughts right off thebat or do you want me to jump right into it?

Lauren: You can jump rightin. I think what I was going to say is, probably you're going toget into it.

Annie: Yeah, because Itultimately boils down to calories, calories in, calories out. And alot of times people might find their calorie intake increases withadditional caloric drinks like alcohol, especially if you're mixingthem with like Daiquiris and you know, like high caloriemixers.

Jen: Like it would benothing for a Pina Colada to be like a 400 to 500 caloriedrink.

Annie: Right?

Jen: And like a standardglass of wine I think is about 200 calories. And so, and caloricdrinks don't improve or are, you know, they're not, they're notsatisfying as we touched on. And so that's why it's easy to overconsume them.

Annie: Right. And alcoholdoes have calories. It has about seven calories per gram ofalcohol. So, but usually like Jen said, we're mixing them withother elements that can increase the calories. So it's not that youcan't lose weight and have alcohol as part of your diet, it's morehow does that intake affect your overall caloric intake over theday, over the week, over the month? And additionally, I do want toshare that when alcohol is broken down, that it will burn out, yourbody will burn alcohol before any other calories consumed arestored, including fat or sugar. So even if you drink and consumemore calories, if you drink and consume more calories than youneed, you're more likely to store the fat from the wings, you ateor sugars from the monster cookies you ate because your body isgetting all the energy from the alcohol.

Annie: And additionally,it's possible the alcohol temporarily inhibits lipid oxidation. Soin other words, when alcohol is in your system, it's harder foryour body to burn the fat that's already there. So again, with allthat said, it's really an issue of calories. And looking at thechain of events, which we kind of touched on, that happens oncealcohol is consumed. So if you're having two or three glasses ofwine a night and then you indulge in late night snacking, you sleeppoorly, then you skip your am workout cause you're tired, you feelcrummy because you skipped your workout and you slept like crap. Sonow you're opting for higher fat, higher carb foods, and then itjust sets off this chain of events that affects your entire day. Soit's not just like that two or three hour window where you'reconsuming alcohol. It's, like, now a 24-48 hour thing.Right.

Jen: RIght. I don't have,and I don't have, for me, I don't have the luxury of time anymore.Like when I was younger to recover from being hungover.

Annie: Where you couldsleep.

Jen: Yeah. Where I couldlay on the couch all day. I just don't have that luxury anymore. Sofor me, you know, when it comes to any choices we makenutritionally or drinking alcohol or workouts, it really comes downto what is negotiable for you and what is non negotiable, right.And so I knew I wouldn't quit drinking. That wasn't, I wasn't goingto just crank the wheel and quit drinking. But I, you know, when Iwas really honest with myself, I knew that that a lot of my alcoholconsumption was actually negotiable for me. It's non negotiable forme to, you know, get together with you two and have a glass ofwine. That's just something I really enjoy and I'm not going to dosomething crazy like cut that out.

Jen: So yeah, but my, youknow, my Wednesday night making separate glass of wine, that wasnegotiable for me. And the more, the other thing too is that, youknow, there's no bad foods but you, what we talk about people is,you know, there's kind of foods you want to have more of and thenthere's foods you maybe want to have less of. And that's simplybecause if you say you need 2000 calories per day, the more youknow, whether it's chips and chocolates and alcohol that you havein a day, it crowds out those other foods that you actually want tohave more of like fruits and vegetables and whole grains and leanproteins, like the things that actually support your health andfeeling good. Right? And so it's sort of like making sure yourratios are right when it comes to moderation.

Annie: Right. And thatgoes back to the question I posed earlier. When you're reviewingthe data, like okay, over the last seven days I had x amount ofdrinks. Did you generally feel good? Were you able to do the thingsthat you still wanted to do? Or like we said, are you sleepingpoorly? Is it affecting your sleep quality? Is it affecting yourmood, is affecting your stress levels? Is it, you know, are youable to get your workouts in like you had planned, are you keepingup with all the other things that you want to do? Like it's justtrade offs. It's, you know, you're saying yes to this coupleglasses of wine tonight, are you saying no to anything else or viceversa? And are you okay with that?

Jen: Yeah. The other thingto note as far as weight loss, there was a Balance365er who, shereally, she had been in Balance365 for several months and shereally did not feel her alcohol or, or her weekend intake was aproblem. Her, I should say her weekend, caloric intake, heroverall, but I feel like the three of us just really kind of knew,like, when she was, she joined Balance365, this particularBalance365er had fat loss goals and you know, we troubleshoot inthe group, here's what she's doing, here's her habits, here's whather week looks like, here's what her weekends look like.

And I feel like we knew it washer weekends, but we just, you know, we can't really tell somebody,you can sort of guide them to making their own decisions. But shewent through a season of her life that was very, very busy. She's astudent, she had to cut back on drinking significantly and she wentdown two pants sizes, like, immediately. And even though prior toshe had been, she didn't think her weekends were a problem.However, she also hadn't been willing to, like, track her alcoholintake or her food consumption on the weekends.

She, I think she was just, therewas a blind spot that she wasn't willing to look at it and she justwasn't willing to do, which is fine. Everybody has to go at theirown pace. But that was such a wake up call for her to how high hercalories were on the weekends. And again, it wasn't, she's, I'mtalking about the same person I had mentioned earlier, so itactually wasn't about necessarily about the drinking was that shewas eating so much on those nights when she was meeting up withfriends and drinking.

Jen: So anyway, so it wasa huge wake up call for her to actually how much she was consuming.And so she decided, you know, again, for her, the process of goingthrough what's negotiable, what's not negotiable. "Can I pull backon drinking a little bit? Can I bring the veggie tray to the partyinstead of the chips? Like, can I use Diet co*ke as my mixer insteadof regular co*ke?" Cause you know, there's like an all or somethingin there too for people if they want to, you know, they don't wantto quit drinking. They don't have to, there's lots of changes wecan make inside of that behavior to just pull back abit.

Annie: And it's not in ourmanifest or ethos to say "Just stop drinking." Like, yeah. I meanthe three of us have tried to cut out a variety of things and whiteknuckled it for a while, but ultimately like, I want to live a lifein a body where if I want a glass of wine, I can have a glass ofwine and it's my choice and I can enjoy that in moderation and feelno guilt or shame, knowing it's not going to derail me fromanything that I'm trying to do ultimately. You know, like that Ijust, that I have the tools in the toolbox to decide how muchquantity and frequency alcohol gets to play in my life or howlittle it gets to play my life.

Jen: Yeah, totally. Andeverybody's situation might look a little different. I cut back onalcohol and that was totally fine for me. But you know, there's,you know, I know what wine I like and I'm a quality over quantitykind of person. So I would rather have, you know, the wine that Iknow I enjoy than like there's these other wines on the market thatget more, advertised like skinny wine or whatever it's called. Ican't remember what the brand is called but they have a low caloriewine. But it is gross. No, like I'll just pass. Right. So for meI'm like that's a non negotiable for me. But everybody'snegotiables and non-negotiables are going to be different and youjust have to find out what yours is.

Annie: And so that's whyit doesn't make any sense for us to say, "Here are the rules. Dothis, this way."

Jen: Right.

Annie: I mean, it's veryperson specific and as you can see that among the three of us, Jendoesn't drink at all during the week. And it's not uncommon for meto have a glass or two on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I'm notworking in the evenings. And in fact, that's when I do my bestInstagram writing.

Lauren: And Lauren willhave six once a month-

Annie: And we're allhealthy in our own right.

Lauren: Right.

Annie: Alright, well,anything to add on our alcohol podcast?

Jen: I don't thinkso.

Annie: Alright, this wasgood fun. This is fun. Next time we record something on alcohol,maybe we should do it in the evening though and we could, like,share a glass of wine. I mean, not share it.

Lauren: I was thinkingthat when we first started the podcast and I'm like, "Well, it'slike 11 o'clock."

Annie: Yeah. But you know,if we were in Switzerland, I feel like that would be totallykosher, so you know, to each their own. Alright, thanks ladies.Good talk.

Jen: Bye.

Lauren: Bye.