On average, I make the 600 mile drive from where we live in Ohio down to my hometown in Tennessee once a year.
On a good day, where you hit no traffic on the way down, it might take 9-9.5 hrs. On a bad day, you can add another 1-2 hours depending on stops and traffic jams.
It’s never an “easy” drive but it’s always worth it to be with family.
My grandmother (and my uncle) on my mom’s side of the family both still live there and my father is buried about 45 minutes outside of the area.
My grandmother recently turned 92 and I wasn’t able to make it down to see her for her special day but I was able to get down there this past weekend.
As I was heading out of town on Sunday to make the trek back up north, “Gram” and I were having some breakfast and coffee and chatting a bit.
She said something that has stuck with me since then, with the inspiration behind the sentiment coming on the heels of her acknowledgement of her age:
Life isn’t easy but it’s not supposed to be…you just find a way through.
I’ve mentioned this before on this site but her words of wisdom reminded me of it again.
Most of the things we value in life are the things it takes the most effort to acquire or achieve.
Parenting isn’t easy but you find value in the things you get right and wrong while raising your children.
Marriage isn’t easy but you make mistakes, you overcome challenges, and you look back with respect for what you’ve built (or rebuilt) with each other.
Taking care of your health isn’t easy but you’ve only got one body to get it right with. Some people start taking care of their body early on, some start later in life. Rarely ever will you hear someone say that it wasn’t worth it.
When Gram said life isn’t easy, she was talking about her own health, how things have changed as she’s aged and what she’s experienced in over nine decades in this world.
I heard a sentiment sometime back and I have to paraphrase it now but it was a list of things that are considered “hard”.
Getting healthy is hard, being sick is harder. Choose your hard. Etc. Etc.
And that seems overly simplistic to me.
I think that what is difficult for one, might be easy (or easier) for another.
I think some people tolerate and manage stress very well, some not so much.
I think some people are very good at time management and some people let their schedules run all over them.
And it still doesn’t change the fact that we’re all going to be faced with obstacles repeatedly which will make our lives more difficult, harder to manage, and more emotionally draining than we anticipated.
At best, we find the people and the tools to help us navigate those times.
If we’re lucky, we have enough self-awareness to be able to look in the mirror and ask: How am I contributing to this mess I’m currently in?
So, this week, it’s a little love note from my Gram to me to you, especially those of you currently struggling through hardships of any magnitude:
Life isn’t easy but it’s not supposed to be…you just find a way through.
And that path normally leads somewhere closer to where you want to be.
When I started RevFit, back in 2009, I needed to do a photo shoot for some marketing materials.
I didn’t know anywhere near as much about nutrition and fat loss as I do now but, like a lot of coaches, I felt like I needed to show off more of my body than I normally do, so the goal was the drop some body fat so I could show off more definition for those pictures.
Around that time, there was an actor on a popular television show, who had to do something similar for a series of episodes: diet down to a certain level of leanness so that his midsection would be more visible on camera.
He was interviewed in a magazine and spoke briefly about the diet he needed to follow for those results.
I looked at him, saw that we had a similarly lean physique, and figured since it wouldn’t have been comparable to me eating a diet like Chris Hemsworth or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, that perhaps I’d get similar results on the same diet.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
No doubt, I did get leaner for the very short amount of time I tried that awful diet, but I felt like absolute garbage and I never felt great about the outcome of those pictures.
And it reminded me of conversations I’ve had throughout the years about comparisons with other people’s bodies.
I’ve been coaching long enough at this point that I remember women asking for Michelle Obama’s arms and Carrie Underwood’s legs.
And of course, men asking for Chris Evans’ chest or Hugh Jackman’s arms.
And the most painful question to ask when it comes to all of this is the one we have the least amount of control over.
Do you have the same parents as the person you’re comparing yourself to?
If the answer is no, then everything that comes after is a roll of the dice.
(To be fair, even if the answer was yes, it would only matter so much).
But there are other questions to ask as well:
What drugs/supplements does that person take that I don’t?
How many hours a day must that person train to be able to have that body (or body part) or how much of their current physique simply comes from genetics?
Can that person afford a nanny for childcare, a personal trainer, a chef, a dietitian, etc. to be able to eat, train, and focus on their body in a way that I cannot?
Does that person have an eating disorder? Or, more importantly, do I?
Is the information I’ve read or heard about how that person eats and trains valid, accurate and comprehensive?
Fact is, you could know every detail down to the last rep and morsel of food as that person you’re comparing against, follow it all to the “t” and your outcomes will be different.
And once I realized that bitter truth for myself, I knew that the only thing I could do, was focus on building the best body I could for me.
Which means, it wouldn’t have mattered if there wasn’t enough context or detail for that TV celebrity I was taking inspiration from. What worked for him likely would never have worked for me because: we don’t share the same DNA and we’re just different people.
Not all comparisons are bad, of course.
If you were a physique competitor or bodybuilder, I can imagine making a vision board of admirable bodies or body parts could be inspirational.
But like a lot of things in life, competition aside, it’s mostly a game of you vs. you.
Calorie counting works pretty damn well for a certain population of people.
Some people can track long term, some can get by with short term tracking and for everyone else, you can succeed without tracking a thing.
This week’s article will give you thoughts and insights if you want the scale to drop but you don’t want to count calories.
The Movement Solution
I know you already know this but exercise DOES burn calories. It may not burn a lot of calories but you are burning something when you exercise and those calories do add up. Unfortunately, your smart watch is God-awful at estimating how much you burn so the numbers it tells you can be off by a wide margin. Even places like Orange Theory which have successfully found a way to game-ify what you burn in a workout, their estimations are even worse than your smart watch. However, you have an upbeat atmosphere, community support and if that’s what gets you to show up and train, then stick with it. Just don’t get too emotionally caught up in how many calories you burn per session.
Beyond exercise, there’s all the other movement you do in a day: walking from one place to another, taking the steps instead of an elevator, chores, fidgeting, etc. (commonly referred to as NEAT or non-exercise activity thermogenesis). This can contribute to a significant amount of calories expended in a day and when sedentary people can find ways to increase movement into their day this also counts towards your overall expenditure.
While you don’t necessarily have to hit 10k steps a day, increasing your step count to an average that’s higher than where you currently are can reap big benefits over time. It’s not intense movement but it doesn’t have to be, you just have to get your body moving consistently more than what you’ve been used to.
For some people, starting with moving their body is easier for them to psychologically handle than cutting back on food. After the routine is in place with a relatively consistent training schedule, increasing daily step count and getting adequate recovery, it may be easier to make changes to the diet at that point.
NOTE: It’s not uncommon to find people who take a “if some is good, more than that is better” approach to exercise. To an extent, they might be right. However, more exercise “tends” to lead to more hunger, and many people fall into a nasty trap of training hard (burning a lot of calories) and eating more calories back into the equation. The end result? No success with fat loss.
The Food Solution
So, if you’re not going to count calories, how do you succeed at fat loss?
You find places to cut back.
You can reduce/eliminate alcohol.
You can reduce/eliminate dining out.
You can reduce/eliminate ultra-processed treats (candies, cakes, donuts, ice cream, etc.)
You can use smaller plates/bowls than normal.
You can leave food behind.
You can swap out starchy carbs (rice, bread, potatoes, pasta) for fibrous veggies like green beans, broccoli, asparagus, etc.
You can cut out post-dinner eating.
You can reduce/eliminate calorie laden drinks (not including protein shakes): milk, juice, full calorie carbonated beverages, or souped up caffeinated drinks (coffee or tea with cream, sugar, etc.)
You can slow down the rate at which you consume food.
For yourself, you’re trying to zoom out on your current eating habits and understanding the magnitude of your food choices.
For instance, if you tell yourself you’re going to stop eating cookies, that’s fine. However, if you only average one cookie a week, it’s not likely to make a difference. If you’re someone who eats cookies every day, that’s going to have a greater effect.
If you elect to cut out alcohol, try not to replace those calories with something of a similar caloric profile. Switching out 200 calories of booze for 200 calories of walnuts (despite being a “healthy” fat) isn’t going to do much to get you closer to your fat loss goals.
Truth is, MOST (not all) people know exactly where the slippery areas of their diet are. Whether or not they want to change those areas is another conversation entirely.
However, if your weight has been hovering in the same basic area for weeks (if not months) on end, you are somehow managing to eat in alignment with what your body currently burns in a day. Something has to take the scales out of balance.
NOTE: There’s nothing inherently wrong with low calorie diets. That being said, if you’re trying to go low calorie every day, you may find that energy, mood, libido, and sleep become negatively affected. Try alternating lower intake days with higher intake days. You don’t have to be in a deficit every single day of your life and women who are currently still having periods may need to take a maintenance break during that time of the month.
The Medical Solution
For some people, the solution is to go the route of the increasingly popular (and effective) GLP-1 receptor agonist medications for fat loss. These medications (among other factors) slow down gastric emptying and send a signal from the gut to brain to say: Hey, I’m full! and this signal is typically occurring sooner than normal. This allows the user to eat less than normal and achieve an energy deficit.
There are other mechanisms at play with these medications and some people respond better to them than others. However, for people who have struggled with their weight for most of their lives, these can be helpful in getting a patient to eat less without necessarily counting any calories.
Bear in mind, that should you get off of the medications, the rate of gastric emptying will likely go back to what it was prior to the medication. For this reason, many people will likely need to stay on the meds indefinitely (even if it’s at a lower maintenance dose).
Taking a GLP-1 medication for weight loss doesn’t make calories less important, what it can do is reduce your intake to the point where you remain in a deficit without being hyper-aware of the calories you’re taking in.
NOTE: Just like gastric bypass surgery can help an individual take in fewer calories, these medications can work in similar ways. They aren’t fool proof and some people can still “out eat” the medication but if your body is responding as it “should” at the right dosages, then fat loss should be a foregone conclusion.
Something I find interesting, the longer I coach, is that some people tend to get very anxious about the health decisions they make.
I believe social media, and the vast amount of contradictory advice probably feeds into the anxiety.
So, this week’s post is a way to take some pieces of information, give you some guidance and allow you to make improvements so that you’re not “sweating the small stuff.”
How much water should I be drinking? If I’m being honest, I normally like to find out what someone’s baseline for water intake is. I also like to figure out what else they drink aside from water: juice, energy drinks, milk, Coke/Diet Coke, coffee, tea, etc. But for the average person I talk to, with some exception, try just increasing water by 20-30oz per day. That may mean you have to give up your 3rd and 4th coffee of that day to do it. If you already drink upwards of 100 oz per day, there’s a decent chance you don’t need more than that.
How much protein should I be eating? The average woman who comes to see me is off the street consuming 50-60g per day. If I can get this same woman closer to 100g, I’m happy. That could be as simple as a 30g premixed protein shake, or increasing the protein you normally get in lunch and dinner by an extra 2-3 oz.
How often should I lift weights? Probably somewhere between 2-3x/week. Don’t just phone it in. Actually make a concerted, lifelong effort at getting stronger.
What if I hate meal prepping? Either find a local food service that preps calorically appropriate meals that you can zap and eat or find some high protein frozen options at your grocery store. Some people truly thrive on their meal prep skills. Some never meal prep. Each one can be successful.
What if I love Zumba, Barre, Yoga, or Pilates? You should absolutely stick with any movement practice that you love. However, for all of the benefits of Zumba, Barre, Yoga and Pilates, you still need to strength train.
How many calories burned should I be aiming for when I work out? As of now, smartwatches are not accurate enough to tell you how many calories you burn when you train. That number can be wildly off and is not worth staking your success against. Train because it’s good for your heart, lungs, mental health, social life, etc. It does have the added bonus of burning calories but if you’ve been training for awhile consistently, and you’re trying to lose fat (for instance), and the scale is not dropping, pay closer attention to your intake than on how many calories you’re burning when you train.
I’ve struggled with my weight for years. What else should I be focused on aside from an energy deficit? Finding a qualified therapist, finding a coach who cares beyond the numbers of fat loss, exploring any topics like childhood trauma, neglect, alcoholic parents, dysfunctional relationships, unsupportive partners, vices you have which might be seen as addictive/maladaptive behaviors, and sleep.
One last thing… If you’re a woman in or near post-menopause, please make it a priority to slow down the rate of osteoporosis (bone loss) and sarcopenia (muscle loss). Get as strong as you possibly can, stay up on your annual doctor’s visits and try not to diet aggressively.
Several years ago, I got a lovely reminder in the mail that due to my current age at the time, I needed to schedule my first colonoscopy.
If you’ve never had one before, I can think of hundreds of things that would take priority on a scale of pleasure.
That being said, colon cancer didn’t sound like something I would enjoy either, so I needed to get updated with a new general practitioner so that we could get the procedure scheduled.
I put that process off for about a year and then I finally found a local doctor who was taking on new patients and could help along the way.
Because cancer has affected both of my parents, claiming the life of my father in 2011 and my mother who has been in remission since 1993, it’s something I’m sensitive to and I want to do my best to stay on top of those things for myself.
So, each year, I’ve asked my doctor to take blood for a comprehensive panel: A1C, cholesterol, liver enzymes, etc.
Like many of us are cautioned not to do, I find it difficult to not go on Google and start looking into why certain numbers might be high or low respectively.
And, because I didn’t go to medical school, I don’t understand enough of the nuance to see how all the pieces might fit and craft a bigger picture.
What I do know is despite having an active job, lifting weights 4x/week, having a high step count, prioritizing sleep and having a “normal” BMI, there are still numbers that require greater attention.
In other words, books shouldn’t be judged by their covers and people in smaller bodies can have health issues just like people in larger bodies can.
But you wouldn’t necessarily know that unless you’re staying up on your bloodwork too.
I’m not in any obvious pain and despite having had the (mis)fortune of catching nearly every bug that’s crossed my path since last November, having up to date bloodwork helps to see what’s happening under the hood.
So, this is a much shorter post and actually a very strong suggestion, to call your doctor, schedule your annual bloodwork and stay on top of it each year.
While diet and exercise have an important place in your health, they can’t fix everything and it helps to have a doctor who cares about your wellbeing to help decipher what else needs a closer look.
Several weeks ago, I had a young man and woman stop by the studio to pitch their services to RevFit.
While they were in my office, they noticed the pictures I have up of my family.
The young lady was enquiring about my marriage and asked how long Marissa and I had been together.
“We’ve been together as a couple for a little over fifteen years and we’ve been married just over ten.”
And then she asked: “What would be your best advice in keeping a relationship that long?”
The gentleman with her added: “I’d actually like to know that, too.”
I looked at both of them and said: “Be willing to have uncomfortable conversations.”
When we consider the steps we have to take to improve our lives and improve our health, most everything that needs to be done is done by ourselves.
YOU are responsible for your doctor’s appointments.
YOU are responsible for nourishing your body.
YOU are responsible for moving your body.
YOU are responsible for resting and recovering as needed.
However, the person you’re in a long term relationship with has a direct influence on your ability to do those things effectively.
And every relationship handles those dynamics differently.
Perhaps your significant other (S.O.) will set the doctor’s appointment up for you but you still have to show up and take the doctor’s advice.
Or, maybe your S.O. is the one who cooks the majority of the meals but you are in charge of how much you eat in one sitting.
When you and your S.O. decide to join a gym together, maybe you train at the same time or at a different time, but you’re both motivated by different things: one of you chases personal records, one of you wants to burn as many calories as possible.
And no matter how those dynamics go, your S.O. can easily be your #1 cheerleader and fan or your #1 saboteur.
This is the person who you arguably spend the most time with in your life.
This is the person who helps you make financial decisions in the home.
This is the person who helps you raise a family of kids or furbabies (and often both).
This is the person who can say a word (or not say a word) that can leave you feeling on top of the world or make you feel smaller than an ant.
When it comes to how you improve your life, no matter how you choose to do it, this is your “ride or die.”
So, how are you having uncomfortable conversations to make sure you both thrive?
Let me offer some tips:
-Be very clear about your goals. Within that, talk about WHY those goals matter, WHAT steps need to be taken to reach those goals and HOW your S.O. can help you.
-Be willing to hear how you get in your own way. Change is hard. Your S.O. may be acutely aware of what it’s like when your plans derail. No one is perfect and everyone has space and room to improve. If you’re not aware of your vulnerabilities, be open minded in understanding what those vulnerabilities are so that both of you can fill those gaps as a team.
-Be explicit about how it feels when you get stuck. Be explicit about HOW you want your S.O. to speak to you or offer assistance when you need it. This could be as simple as a re-distribution of tasks/chores around the home, what groceries are purchased for the home, and what effective stress reduction looks like for each of you.
-Always be willing to take your concerns to a therapist. You may not be able to effectively solve your problems with the same thought processes which created those problems.
-Recognize that when it comes to matters of personal health, each person in the relationship will see progress at a different rate. For instance, if both of you are trying to lose fat, one person may be seeing the scale drop faster than the other. What do those conversations look like so that one person doesn’t perceive themselves as a failure for not seeing success at the same pace?
-Remember that conversations about health, body size/shape, and our relationship with food are amongst the most sensitive conversations two people can have. Understand what words/phrases are triggering to each other.
I will never be able to overstate how crucial the person in your corner is to your success. The path won’t be without it’s potholes and obstacles. But the person you chose to embark on the path with could be the difference between reaching your goals or not.
I recently read a remark by a woman online where she stated (I’m paraphrasing): Oh look, a man who thinks he knows more about a woman’s body than she does!
And I’ll follow that up with a comment from one of my clients last week (also paraphrased): You know, it would be nice if women learned more about our bodies growing up. I get my advice from my middle-aged male personal trainer!
Last year, I got certified as a Menopause Coaching Specialist through Girls Gone Strong.
Shortly afterwards, I got their certification as a Women’s Coaching Specialist.
Why?
Because since we opened in 2009, the majority of my clients have been female.
And the majority of that majority have been women in the menopause transition.
I wanted to equip myself with as much accurate information as I could to help not only those clients but also I’ll be there side by side with my wife when she goes through the transition herself.
What I find, as a male who will never personally experience menopause is that this particular demographic is unfairly and deceptively marketed to.
They are often treated as if they are broken, as if their “meno-belly” can be whittled away and sometimes that their symptoms are just in their head.
All of which is basically untrue.
What we do know is that hormones decline during this transition and not in a linear fashion. This decline can create a host of changes in the body due to mostly protective effects of estrogens.
Line ten women in the menopause transition up next to each other and you will get ten completely different outlooks and experiences on what that journey will be like.
Which means, there is no blueprint for how best to navigate the path.
The things that tend to be of best advantage to women in the transition also have a sneaky similarity to what you hear across the board anyway:
-Stay hydrated
-Eat a mostly nutritious diet
-Have a movement practice
-Prioritize a good sleep routine (with the understanding that hot flushes and night sweats can affect sleep patterns)
-Lift weights
-Have a strong support system (friends/family/therapist)
-Document any changes in your body, mental health, and how you’re affected by the food you eat and what you drink
-Stay up on routine, annual bloodwork
I try to stay current on the subject of menopause because A) I will never experience it in my body B) I genuinely want to help the women in my life (personal/professional) who struggle through it.
I have a small handful of professionals I trust when it comes to the topic. This list is not comprehensive but these are the voices I continue to come back to:
I know there are other voices out there in the field, some of whom might actually have larger followings but there are certain people who put far too much emphasis on the usage of unregulated supplements or who do not provide evidence-based nutrition information and I just can’t put my support behind them.
I believe, as a male coach helping women in menopause, being able to listen and provide nuanced feedback helps.
I don’t have all the answers but I do have an insatiable curiosity to learn and share.
And I’ll go to bat for the other male voices in the industry in the same position who aren’t looking to use predatory tactics to sell their shitty services or products to a vulnerable community.
I have conversations about fat loss every day and sometimes I have to remind myself that even if it isn’t new or novel information to me, it may be helpful for you. Here’s a list of topics which have come up over the last couple of weeks that might help you along the way.
-If you’re struggling with fatigue and you’re also trying to lose fat, you may need to make a decision about what’s more important at this moment: dropping the number on the scale or trying to increase your energy. If fat loss is more important, then you may need to reduce training intensity and keep your calories where they are or drop them. If energy is more important, you may need to push your calories higher temporarily and see how it affects your energy levels during training.
-If the only thing you’ve consciously tried to do over the last several months is diet and you can’t recall the last time (if at all) that you’ve taken a maintenance break, then you probably need to take that break sooner as opposed to later.
-If a diet succeeds at helping you lose fat, it is because said diet put you in an energy deficit. Forget about what calorie calculators and macro targets tell you. You’re either in a deficit or you’re not (and there could be factors that affect your ability to be in a deficit). Hopping over to another diet won’t give you better outcomes unless it manages to put you further into a deficit.
-On the note of aggressive deficits, if you’re going to diet aggressively don’t train aggressively as well. Pick one or the other.
-If I could take nearly every woman I’ve worked with (with few exceptions), a protein range of 100-120g would be the sweet spot for helping with fat loss success. You can overshoot it if you’d like but I would encourage you getting as close as you can to that bottom end as often as possible.
-If you are a woman in the menopause transition, it is absolutely possible that certain foods (including alcohol) no longer agree with your digestive system. Keep a journal and eliminate/reduce any foods you think are problematic.
-It probably isn’t seed oils that are the problem, it’s the fact that seed oils are present in a lot of the foods you might be likely to overeat: chips, crackers, sweets, etc. If hyper-focusing on seed oils allows you to remove those foods, you’ve probably eliminated a lot of unnecessary calories and that could be the difference between success with fat loss or not.
-Despite what you see and hear on social media, no you do not need to practice intermittent fasting to lose fat. Not if you’re a man, a woman, a woman in the menopause transition, etc. It works for some people, it’s terrible for others and it’s not universally a helpful tool.
-Here’s my super-woo comment on fat loss. Hating yourself and your body might get you off the couch but it’s an awful sentiment to hold on to throughout your journey. If you don’t find something to love and respect about your body, your journey will be unnecessarily painful and more problematic than it should be. Fat loss is difficult enough even when you give a damn about yourself.
I probably won’t write this as eloquently as others have before me but I think that lessons in strength training provide a crucial perspective on lessons in life.
Succinctly: nothing you want will come without struggle.
The first time I remember bailing on a lift in the gym, I was the stereotypical skinny guy in a box gym who underestimated how much weight was on the bar, didn’t have a spotter, and when I couldn’t clear the weight back to the top it came right back down against my chest and I had to wiggle myself free between the bar and the bench.
Thank God no one saw that happen because if they did, I don’t think I would have had the courage to go back.
And yet, as embarrassed as I was, I knew that I had to get better at it.
Not because the bench press was the most important lift for me but because the whole point of going to the gym was to get better.
You learn how to work within your means, you learn how to push the meter to get stronger, you learn to have a spotter so you’re at less risk of injury and you never, ever stop trying to improve.
And even though I spend several hours in the gym helping others improve and still learning how to improve myself, strength training continues to provide countless lessons about how to “fail” and how to keep coming back for more.
I’ve lost count how many “bad” workouts I’ve had. But a bad workout is better than no workout.
I’ve lost count how many mediocre workouts I’ve had. But the mediocre ones helped to develop consistency.
And I’ve lost count of how many great workouts I’ve had. Because the longer you train, the less often the truly great workouts show up.
In fact, what differentiates the great workouts from the ones that aren’t often has less to do with achieving personal bests and more about the attitude and confidence you gain in yourself when you’re putting the reps in over and over and over again.
It’s monotonous, it’s often frustrating, and aside from the handful of times where I’ve had an injury, I’ve never left a workout wishing I hadn’t done the workout at all.
Lifting weights teaches you how to listen to your body.
It teaches you how to filter out the noise around you.
It teaches you how to move in ways that no other form of movement can.
And I’m not trying to build an empire of bodybuilders and powerlifters. I’m trying to build an empire of people who know that the work they do in the gym isn’t just about aesthetics and achieving a dream physique, it’s about having physical and mental skills to navigate the world outside of the gym.
If you want your body to perform its best, you fuel it with the most nutritious food you can, as often as you can, in amounts appropriate for your body and your goals.
And you take the lesson of every lift you bail in the gym to step back and ask: How could I have done that better?
If I had never walked back into the gym 20-odd years ago when that barbell pinned me to the bench, I’d be at a disadvantage for everything that would come after and I’ve had a lot of life to live since that happened.
If you want different outcomes in the gym and in life, you take the losses and you figure out how to turn them in your favor. The weights won’t always be kind to you but the lessons will transform you.
We live in a world that rarely consoles weakness. I don’t say that with a hint of bravado or toxic masculinity.
You have a right to be as strong as you can for as long as you can and it is arguably one of the finest gifts you can give yourself.
In 2006, after ten years of being neck deep in that world, I gave up on drugs.
There was no dramatic intervention, I wasn’t incarcerated, and I didn’t have a close call overdose that scared me straight.
I just had finally opened my eyes to the damage I had done to myself and my family and it was time to call it quits.
One of the things that made quitting easier was the fact that about two months later, I moved to a different state and no longer had direct access to all of the other users I was friends with anymore.
Throughout my life, I’ve had to periodically (or permanently) step away from behaviors and lifestyles that had run their course.
Most recently, I’ve done this again with alcohol.
Unlike drugs, alcohol has always been a relatively easy vice to put down.
Shortly after my wife and I started dating, and after my father was diagnosed with cancer, I sobered up for four years.
When Marissa and I got married, we were on our honeymoon in Paris and we had a bottle of French champagne in our hotel room.
It was a “when in Rome” moment and my sobriety ended during our honeymoon.
Because I had gone so long without alcohol, my taste had changed and many things I used to be able to consume no longer sat well on me.
Before long, I transitioned into bourbon and remained there as a devoted fan for several years.
Bourbon was also the drink of choice for my wife and I when we ventured down into Kentucky in 2020 for our anniversary and got to learn more about the history of it.
It was that trip in particular that rekindled the parts of our marriage which needed attention and it became the next chapter of our love story.
However, over the last year or so, while my consumption didn’t increase, I did reach points where I felt I was just drinking for the sake of drinking or I’d find myself drinking alone if Marissa wasn’t with me.
And late last year, after spending much of November and December fighting off a variety of illnesses, I finally decided to take a break from drinking altogether.
Not for Dry January, just because.
So, I’m writing this after being dry for about six weeks.
I’m sure I’ll have a drink again because there is some really nice bourbon in our dining room but I have no idea when.
What I’ve found is that the less alcohol I’ve had, the less I’ve wanted or craved it.
And this was part of my inspiration for this week’s post.
I’m not going to ask you to give up drinking.
I’m not going to tell you any scary facts about alcohol.
What I will ask you to do is to take inventory over any area of your life where perhaps more of your identity is tied than you might like.
Maybe you gamble.
Maybe you chronically overeat.
Maybe you look at porn.
Maybe you’re a smoker.
Maybe you have a habit of doom-scrolling several times a day.
Maybe you rely on retail therapy every time life gets difficult.
Sometimes, it feels refreshing to just put the brakes on certain behaviors in your life.
Part of it is knowing that you can.
Part of it is gaining the confidence that you can remove parts of your life that aren’t serving you well.
Part of it is recognizing that you can find other areas of your life to fill the same space but that do so in a way that’s more fulfilling.
It’s not my place to tell you what to go without.
But there may be some places in your life that would improve if you find the strength to do so.
Jason Leenaarts 