I’m in the early stages of an experiment: avoiding the consumption of any alcohol until the end of February.
Depending on your perspective (or how well you know me), this may not seem like a very big deal. And in the scheme of things in life, I guess it’s not. But it is a pretty big adjustment because as many people know, alcohol easily permeates our lives in so many ways.
First, let me get this out of the way. The primary reason I’m cutting out alcohol until the end of February is purely selfish: I want to see how much (if at all) it helps me lose some weight. The pounds have crept on the past few years as my activity level has dramatically dropped due (I’m hoping to change that part of the equation shortly as well). Secondarily, I also like a good challenge, and it seems like trying to go 6 weeks or so without a drop of alcohol is a good challenge for me, given how much I love my microbrews and how used I’ve gotten to having one at the end of the day (or when out meeting a friend).
Renee is joining me with this challenge, so that should make it a lot easier. We’ve decided not to buy any beer during our grocery trips – our thinking is that if it’s not in the house, it’ll be a lot easier to avoid. And now that college football season is over and the NFL season is almost over, there will be fewer obvious opportunities for us to imbibe in the near term.
So we’ll see how it goes – I’ll provide some updates posts (including any weight loss successes) in the next few weeks.
