Reasons not to Drink Booze.

I'm having a crack at not drinking for a bit.

Hello,

I hate the winter, and for whatever reason I’ve decided to make it a little bit worse, but cutting out all the good stuff for a while.

Reasons I’m not drinking alcohol for a bit.

1. Trying to stay healthy.

2. Dry January.

3. Alcohol tolerance reset.

4. Histamine and Allergies.

Healthy Living.

I’m not drinking, not specifically for a calorie deficit fitness related reason, although shit-me it’s helping. I heard the phrase “don’t drink your calories” the other day and that made sense; whole milk in your coffee, sugar in drinks, calories in alcohol, they all add up.

I’ll get to the main reason in a bit, but, turns out, if you live off very only fresh things, skip all the nice stuff and stop drinking, the Christmas fat reserves don’t last all that long.

When you’re not drinking booze that’s around 500 calories per day saved by skipping a couple of glasses of wine. Bonkers really.

Health nerds can be a right bore, but If you’re looking at 1,500 calories per day as your target deficit, 30% of your calories coming from 2 glasses of wine is a bit of a waste.

I did read this the other day too.

Changes in alcohol intake, fitness, and all-cause mortality in the HUNT Study, Norway

J Nauman, E Ingeström, A Tari, U Wisløff, Changes in alcohol intake, fitness, and all-cause mortality in the HUNT Study, Norway

Conclusions

Increased alcohol intake over time was associated with higher mortality risk. However, maintaining high cardiorespiratory fitness attenuated this association, highlighting fitness as a stronger predictor of mortality.

Key messages

• Even small amounts of alcohol raise premature death risk. Regular physical activity may modify alcohol-mortality association, but it’s unclear if changes in fitness affect this association.

• Maintaining a high fitness lowers the mortality risk associated with alcohol intake, and a 10-year change in fitness is a better predictor of mortality than contemporary changes in alcohol intake.

I’m taking from this that keeping fit and healthy is better in general than stopping drinking altogether. Something like that anyway.

Dry Jan

I’m certainly not drinking for any trend around Dry Jan either, that garbage was a marketing ploy that too many people have jumped on.

It just so happens that the start to the year is a sensible time to try a few new things, particularly ones you’re definitely not going to start in December.

Other than the Finish Government’s 1940’s ‘Sober January’ campaign, the modern iteration of Dry Jan seems to have started with with a girl called Emily, and her marathon training, pounced on my Alcohol Change UK’s and their “Evidence based reduction of harm caused by alcohol” narrative.

Tolerance Reset?

You can tell yourself “Wine is just a nice drink, and I don’t want to live off squash and green tea” all you like, but there’s a zone, around 3 glasses of wine that’s a lovely spot.

You see, people who drink little and often have a bigger tolerance, and you have to work at maintaining it. The feeling non drinkers get after a couple of glasses is very different to that of a seasoned professional.

But, what if, like me, finding the gentlest comfort in that perfect “not quite yet tipsy-zone” is further away than acceptable, or long term sustainable?

I’m wondering if there’s some logic to taking a month off every now and then, to keep that sweet-spot at around 2 glasses of wine. Maybe hitting the reset button, for one full month, twice a year, rolls back your tolerance just enough to enjoy two glasses of wine again the rest of the time?

Essentially, can you proactively manage your alcohol tolerance?

I’m wondering about month off in Jan, ready for the spring and summer, and then a month off in September, ready for hunkering down through the winter. That’s the framework for riding the tolerance levels through the year.

I’ll update you in Feb.

The main reason is the histamine.

I’ve said before I take anti-histamines most days, and I’m not going to bore anyone with the science again, but if you overload on histamine, it can feel like an allergy. If you can’t breakdown excess histamine quick enough, you can overload all the time.

I’ve had an inkling for a while, and confirmed an inability to quickly break down histamine with an enzymatic blood test, but never had the gumption to actually cut it all out and see what happens.

So, it’s January and I’ve cut out all the high histamine foods, which inevitably with any diet, is all the nice, delicious stuff.

Histamine is high in anything preserved or matured, or fermented, especially yeasts. Wine, beer, chocolate, soy sauce, kimchi, nutty old cheeses, all the cured meats, most bread. All the nice things in life, plus weirdly there are naturally high levels in random stuff like tomatoes, spinach, aubergine and beans and pulses.

I’m essentially eating like a sick dog, living off chicken and rice, fresh veg, salads, flatbreads. Annoyingly it seems to be working. I think I feel better?

I’m longing for a sourdough pizza with tomato, Parmesan and salami, washed down with a glass of red wine though.

As a side note, caffeine isn’t ideal either. But the week I stopped drinking coffee was horrible, so I’ve at least decided to “reintroduce” that pretty quickly. It’s only so long before wine makes a welcome return.

Look, there are plenty of reasons why people might not drink for always or for just some of the time. But, I’ll definitely be starting again soon.

Let me know in the comments what your thought are…

dk