Things got pretty out of hand last night.  I had THREE cups of decaf PG Tips.  I was in bed by 12am with a major tanin BUZZ.  I think the cream might have mind altering qualities I was previously unaware of since I was most certainly —

YAWN.  Could I be more of a boring old lady now?  Seriously.   No snacks, no alcohol, no smoking, no caffeine*, un-fun amounts of sugar (3 teaspoons to be exact), and no excess of salty fatty things.  I had 2 modest slices of muenster cheese after my bowl of pasta.  This level of healthy living is extremely irritating.  The only way I could have irritated myself more is by taking a long walk or visiting the gym.

I’ll tell you one thing this tells me: I will not fail in reaching my 3 months of not drinking goal unless someone I love gets dreadfully sick or dies**.  I can’t see anything else shaking me from my resolve to get back to a healthy place with alcohol because the thought of a lifetime of sober Fridays and Saturdays fills me with such terrible depression – NO.  I must relearn how to drink in moderation*** and not drink every night.  I must get to a place where not drinking most nights is comfortable and I’m motivated to do it for my health.

So that’s the good I got out of my very dull Friday night.  And tonight will be more of the same dull tread towards a healthier body.  Speaking of my body – after 11 days and a minimum of at least 11,000 fewer calories consumed in that time than I normally consume in 11 days, I have only lost 4lbs.  I once heard that 3,000 calories = 1 lb.  So if I really only cut out 11,000 calories, my weight loss is right on target.  However, that’s only beer calories I’m accounting for.  Not the other 600 to 1,000 in food calories I haven’t been eating (the stuff I eat after dinner to keep from getting tipsy). This tells me that my body is grimly hanging onto every pound it can.  But I’m going to win.  That’s all there is to it.  It can’t keep hanging onto the weight if I consistently consume somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 fewer calories a day that was maintaining my enormous weight.  My body thinks I’m going to give up like always.  It’s wrong.  I have my teeth in this thing now.  And I suppose every dreary Friday and Saturday night is going to remind me why I’m doing this in the first place.

Right now I’m losing at a rate of 2lbs per week.  Which is a healthy amount.  More than that is not considered healthy.  If I can at the very least keep up that rate of loss I will be able to lose 24lbs in my 90 days of sobriety.  Perhaps if the ball is really rolling at that point I will extend my sobriety to another 3 months just to keep things simple.  More than anything else I need to not be obese.  Honestly, I’m more comfortable being an alcoholic than being obese (though it would be best to be neither).  I guess for my health’s sake it’s good that excessive drinking for me means obesity rather than gauntness as it does some drinkers.  I know exactly why, of course.  So I can’t drink excessively and also lose weight.  It’s a good bind to be in now that I’m dealing with both.

Right now all I talk about is this challenge and my weight.  I realize how boring this is to some.  Sadly, it’s mostly what’s on my mind right now.  All the places my brain goes and all the thoughts I have about addiction and this challenge and what’s led me to this point are things I need to get out and process.  I haven’t checked stats in a long time so I’m pretty divorced from whether I’m gaining or losing readers.

I think maintaining a healthy relationship with alcohol will be much easier when I’m a regular sized person again.  I’m going to scan some pictures of me when I was “regular” sized to illustrate what that means to me.  One thing is for sure – I will not have succeeded in my goals until I have a discernible waist again.

*There is always a small percentage of caffeine left in beverages that have gone through the decaffeination process.  I only foot-note this because if I don’t let people know that I know this statement isn’t an absolute there is always some fucking bored reader whose main object in life is to SCHOOL people.  Actually, that happens on facebook way more than it happens on my blog.  And when it happens on my blog it’s rarely a regular reader.  The length of this footnote and the tone illustrates the degree to which I enjoy being schooled.

**Maybe I could get through something like that without drinking but I doubt I would see much virtue in that.

***This word is misleading since some of my friends drink once in a while but think of that as drinking in moderation.  Moderation to me is something like 2 drinks a night or not drinking several nights a week and have several drinks only a few nights a week.  Just so we’re clear on what I mean when I use that word.