#102 🥂 Beyond Dry January (How 30 Days Without Alcohol Will Change Your Life)

What is up and welcome back to Talking Nutrition. First of all, before anything else, happy new year. Stoked a heavy year, episode 102. I hope you had a good night. I hope you had a good night yesterday. I hope you didn't drink too much. We're actually gonna talk about alcohol today. And I actually want you to be open-minded here. I'm gonna assume that this topic is maybe one of the least popular ones, and that's okay, that's fine.

I'm gonna share some personal experience here, some of my clients. And you know what, like I think if you're open-minded here and you want to try this out, even if it's just for 30 days, like you're going to notice some benefits. Like I can guarantee that I can promise you that. But again, you need to be open-minded. What we want to talk about today, quitting alcohol, or at least for a little bit. You might know about dry January. We're going to talk about that today as well.

Kind of like what that is and you know, the idea behind it or where it comes from. But I kind of like it because Let's be honest, alcohol is a huge part of culture and it's very accepted. However, it is a drug. So that being said, I think we need to just kind of address what it really does to the body. The benefit you'll notice once you kind of give it up for a little while.

And if you want to try this out, or even if you just want to try to establish any other habit, I'm going to give you a six step process that you can apply. with our habit tracker, which I'm going to send to you for free, by the way, to basically, I mean, you can literally achieve any new habit with this. If you give it enough time, you got to show up, right? Quitting alcohol more than 11 years ago was legit. One of the best decisions I've ever made for my own health.

And with January being like a pretty popular time to kind of cut out alcohol, even for a little bit, I wanted to share this episode with you again. I, You know what's funny? Like, I really think that this is going to be one of those episodes where most people, by now, a couple of minutes in, when they hear like giving up alcohol, they're not going to want to listen. But you know what? I'm going to challenge you here. Like, listen, right? Stick around.

I'm going to promise you it's going to be worth it. Right? First of all, it will benefit you if you cut it out for a little bit. I'm going to explain exactly kind of how and etc. And hey, even if it's for 30 days, like why not try this as almost like a little bit of a boost to get some momentum going, right, for the new year? Because I'm also not here to judge you. And if you want to keep drinking after this, cool. And I'm definitely not here to tell you what to do.

Honestly, like I can't really care less about someone drinking or not. It's your decision. just how my decision was to quit. That was back in 2012. Still love it. I like, I'm not going back, you know what I mean? And I've seen more and more people kind of take that same step, which I think is super cool. So again, it's a bit of a unpopular topic, but promise me to keep listening. Again, I'm gonna challenge you a little bit here, but I'm gonna promise you that it will be worth it.

So how can alcohol or basically giving up alcohol transform your mind and body? Giving up alcohol as well as cigarettes back in 2012 was for me the catalyst for my whole transformation. That's what it began with. Yes, I started running and lifting weights and eating healthier, but that wasn't until like three months later. So I started with this. It completely changed my life, or at least it was that first step. And only a few weeks in, I really started to notice better sleep.

waking up more refreshed, better energy levels, better mental clarity and even just like, this was mostly smoking, but even like the coughing that started to go away, it got really bad. I used to smoke like a pack a day and then the very last day I smoked, I smoked two packs and then it was, I felt so shitty the next day, like I just quit right there and there, right? But maybe we can talk about that in a different episode.

I also noticed a better mood, better I also started to lose weight slowly but surely. I really felt my body change and my mind as well. It's something I can't really describe. That's why I want you to go through this. You're gonna notice that. You're gonna feel almost fresher, more energized. It really gave me a massive boost. Like I said, I also started running, lifting weights, eating healthier later, three months afterwards, but I think this stuff was the initial step.

that also gave me that boost and motivation and confidence. And as you might know already, like this ultimately led to me dropping 30 kilos, right? Just about 55, 60 pounds, which years later led to me becoming a coach. Right. And this is where we're at currently. So fast forward to 2022, 23 and now 2024. Like I'm seeing more and more people, family members, friends and clients as well. Take that same step or at least drink less because guys. We just need to be honest here, right?

I'm not here to kind of share my opinion. Like it's objectively speaking, it's just not good for you. Which is why I really like the posts that you're now seeing on social media where it's like 30, you know, 365 days without alcohol or this many years alcohol-free. For me, it's, you know, 11 years plus now. 12 years in June, July, which, you know, again, like I'm gonna stick to that. And I really want you to try this out.

Like again, I know it's not the most popular topic and I know that you're likely going to be like, you know what, fuck that. That's okay, that's okay. But I can promise you this, there's no downside to giving it up. There's only benefits. You will feel better. And as little as two drinks per week can already be bad for your health. So I can't say this enough. If you are a frequent drinker and... You kind of feel like this topic is, ah, you know, like you kind of don't want to hear it.

Keep listening again. This will be your least favorite section, but we need to talk about this stuff without being too dramatic. Alcohol by definition is a drug. Ethanol, right? It's a CNS or central nervous system, the present that acts on your brain, your emotions, our perceptions. It also causes, here we go, inflammation. It blunts fat loss, hinders muscle growth. It's very high in calories, so it's easy to overshoot and gain weight.

Plus of course, when you're a little drunk, you know, you start to, you know,

get a little, you know, cravings, you eat a little bit more, you stop caring. Um, it destroys your hormones, like testosterone and stuff just goes in the tank. It also impacts your sleep, which then also plays into recovery performance. I mean, the list literally goes on and this is not me hating on alcohol. This is just me stating the facts. Again, maybe not a popular thing to talk about, but we got to talk about this stuff.

Because you might have heard that old claim where it's like, you know, a glass of wine a day is good for you or, you know, moderate drinking is healthy for your blood flow and all that stuff. Turns out that's actually not the case. Even though like that's what we've been hearing for more than, you know, multiple decades now, it was a recent study in actually 2023 studies, systematic review and meta-analysis of 107 cohort studies involving more than 4.8 million participants.

So there's a lot of people, a lot of data, right? is what we need when we look at the research. And it showed there were no health improvements for moderate drinkers versus lifetime non-drinkers. On the contrary, it actually showed there was a increased risk of all-cause mortality. So a higher risk of dying of all causes for the group, right? Or for the people who were moderate drinkers versus lifetime non-drinkers.

So it turns out that not even like a small amount of alcohol is considered healthy for you. No amount is healthy for you. And in Canada, they actually even change our guidelines based on this. So where it used to be, um, and this is from the Canadian center of substance use and addiction. It used to be between 10 and 15 drinks a week, which would be kind of like to, you know, no more than that. Right now they say as little as two standard drinks a week. comes with serious health risks already.

And of course, that's the guidelines, right? Let's not actually talk about what people actually do because it's still super common. I want to bring up a quote here that I really like from Chris Williamson, who by the way, has an awesome podcast, Modern Wisdom. If you don't know it yet, check it out. But he tweeted, alcohol is the only drug where if you don't do it, people assume you have a problem. I can't tell you like how often I got that question, right?

Because I tell people like, yeah, you know, they asked me, do you want to get a beer? I went, no, I'm good. I'll have a Coke or something, you know? And they're always like, almost surprised. And then I tell them like, I don't drink. It's been like 11 plus years now. And it's, they almost feel like awkward, but they kind of want to ask like why, you know? Because people assume that you're alcoholic or whatever it is. And I'm like, well, you know, I just want it to be healthier.

And that's really it to be honest with you. Like there was no problem. But in today's culture, it's still so much more common to get absolutely blasted on a

weekly basis than it is to actually enjoy just the alcohol free night, right? Where you don't drink or you say no, you say, no, thank you. I want to be fresh. Right. And because of that, there's also a little bit of social pressure here, which going back to what I've in the beginning said, right? Dry drinking already, or maybe just, you know, you don't even have to call it that. You can also just say, hey, we're going to not drink for a little while. That's it. Simple as that.

Let's say let's call it 30 days. For a lot of people, it's not even not drinking. It's the comments from other people and it's that peer pressure, especially if you're right, used to going for drinks with the girls or, you know, hanging out with the dudes, couple beers, right? That's fine. Those things are all great. But if you want to try something out like this and you're like, hey, you know what, like, I'm actually going to sort of, you know.

put alcohol aside for a little while, make that decision for yourself and just stop caring about what other people might think. Like personally, I've wasted too much energy and time worrying about what others might say or think, like my whole life, right? Until really only like a couple of years ago. And that's always like the stuff that most of the clients who tell me like, I quit drinking and you know.

This even goes for like businessmen who like travel during the week, go to conferences, like everyone else is like getting drunk and stuff, you know, in the evening, like liquor, whiskey and shit, you know, and they're not, you know, gonna fight in the morning. But it's like, it's the main point of friction is the comments from other people. And sometimes the jokes, and especially if it's from friends, right?

You'll, you'll get that where everyone's kind of like breaking each other's balls, which is fine. But again, you're making this decision for yourself. And, um, That's why I think with that dry January, like, as much as maybe still not popular, it's still, it's at least something that more people may be willing to try because it's at least a little bit more common. Because again, I made that decision a long time ago, and I mean, people who know me now, they just kind of know.

But if it's like a new, you know, new connection, new friend, whatever, they'll still assume that you have like a problem, you know, a drinking issue. Not the case, just want it to be healthier. So also then, right, if you make this decision and you get those comments, you'll just have to deal with it, to be honest with you. Share why you're doing it, but that's it, right? Stop caring about it, really. doing this for you. So should you try dry January again or whatever you want to call it.

I do want to talk about where it comes from because I thought it was kind of cool. So back in the 1940s as a anti-soviet union campaign the Finnish government launched, I can't pronounce it but I'm going to say it in English, it was called sober January. So that's where it kind of started.

Then 2014 alcohol change UK Straight marked dry January and since then it's been you know at least becoming more popular It's still not huge, but I've seen more and more people do it and I think it's cool and guess what it's January 1st right now Why not give this a shot, right?

Why not give this a shot? Or by the way, if you're listening to this podcast like at any other stage Just do it whenever give yourself 30 days start right now But let's go back to dry January, because I think at least it's something that's at least a little bit more common than just quitting drinking altogether. Try it out, honestly, like try it out, see how you like it, and then decide what you wanna do moving forward. Like if you cannot do this for 30 days, you take your health serious, right?

You gotta talk, you know, you gotta look in the mirror and have a good chat with yourself. And I mean that, right? We just talked about the downsides of drinking alcohol. We just learned that as little as two drinks a week is objectively bad for you. Again this is not my opinion, this is the data, the research. And whether you want to even keep drinking after this or not, at least be open. Do yourself the favor, take the 30 days, see how you feel. It's definitely not going to be worse.

And if you're a frequent drinker, you'll definitely notice the difference. I can pretty much guarantee that. Unless you go and just replace that with a bunch of other unhealthy behaviors. But anyway. The social pressure at least is a little bit less. I also feel like January is a good time because motivation is high. We just had, you know, the holidays and stuff and new years and a lot of people are going to want to at least take their health series by now, which I love.

I think that's important, right? Whether you want to call it the New Year's resolution or not. Hey, like we all have goals. Let's work towards those goals. But as much as I'm saying 30 days here, I still want you to think long term. Because let me say this too. And the reason I'm bringing this up is that I had conversations that were like this and you should not go in with that exact same mindset.

I've seen people almost use the right to 30 day alcohol detox, whatever the fuck you want to call it, right? You're not detoxing anything, but I've seen people use that as, um, Almost like a get out of jail for free, or sorry, get out of jail free card, but for free. Get out of jail free card to almost like make up for their past and future behavior.

It's like, hey, I'm gonna drink like an asshole, I'm gonna cut it out for 30 days, acting like it's gonna fix everything, and I'll just go back to whatever I was doing afterwards. Again, I'm being very direct here, but let's be honest, let's not kid ourselves. You're listening to a health podcast, a fitness podcast, nutrition. We've got to talk about this stuff. We have to cause it's so huge. So huge. So that being said, don't go into this thinking.

I'm just going to get shit faced every single weekend. Anyway, afterwards. Plus. I think it's a nice way to build some momentum. Here's the thing. We know those couple drinks a week are going to be bad for you. So why not at least give yourself a chance to try this out and feel it? And then see. I can guarantee that this will allow you to create a little positive momentum.

And maybe just like me, it might lead to more beyond that, where you're going to get more motivated to get to the gym, start eating healthy. and really kind of kick things in the gear. Now let's talk about the six steps that I mentioned in the beginning, because this stuff will improve your health and wellbeing. Let's just get into it, right? And I do want you to keep that long-term mindset.

Long-term mindset, use this as a start, something that's gonna build momentum, that's not supposed to be a quick fix. First of all, create awareness. Now we're talking about alcohol here, but I want you to think beyond alcohol. I want you to think, really, and sit with this. Think, OK, what habits do I want to create?

What habits do I want to get rid of? What's the biggest things I've got to address here? Might be a couple things. Might be one. I don't know. Depends where you're at. But start by creating awareness, because you cannot change. What you don't know needs changing. And remember, I'm going to get back to this at step five. There's going to be more than alcohol, but let's say your main thing in this case will be alcohol. Second, you want to take action.

You want to take action as January 1st right now at the time this episode launches. Get started. People always say tomorrow or Monday or next month, whatever it is, get started today. Take the shit serious. Do it right now. The only thing that will get things moving that will create momentum is you actually getting started. There's no way to round it. Third, and this is where the tracker comes in. I'll make sure to link this in the show notes.

But the secret ingredient to being successful, creating consistency, is tracking. You got to keep track. That's step three. And this is how a past client of mine quit smoking in the middle of his fat loss phase. And most people don't want to do that, because it's going to cause cravings and all that, which is true. It can actually, smoking tends to blunt hunger. But he didn't.

fat loss phase, he lost like 25 kilos and has been more than a year now since he quit smoking and he hasn't smoked since then. And what we use, and this was a client of mine, what we used was the Habitracker that you can download right now in the show notes. Go to our show notes, you'll see Habitracker link or Habitracker download. Click that, it's free, no strings attached. All you got to do is put your name, your email. That's it. Use it. If you love it, awesome.

If you don't want to be on the newsletter, unsubscribe right away. That's also cool. But use this stuff. And just start with one day. That's what my friend did, too. Like just one day of not smoking one more day, one more day. And for you, maybe drinking, right? Maybe it's not going to be like a daily thing, but that's OK. Then at least it's simple. It's easy. And we're going to reflect step four, because you want to have that list.

And with the tracker, like all you got to do is you got one day, right? You tick the box and you win the day. You get a W. You don't want to do that every single day, right? Keep collecting those wins. We're also going to make sure that whether you use that and you can use the tracker on your phone, your desktop, you can even print it.

Um, but make sure that you have it somewhere where it's like you see it and you see on paper how consistent you are because yes it's about creating awareness it's about taking action keeping track but nothing reinforces positive change more than you actually seeing how consistent you are on paper it's going to show you how many days you succeeded and that's what's going to motivate you that's going to create that momentum that you're going to need to keep going

It's also going to allow you to see yourself and catch yourself when you slip up, which is by the way, okay, this usually happens. Maybe with the alcohol thing, like let's go hard. Let's maybe really make sure like, Hey, we, this is a daily thing, but generally speaking, whatever habits you're trying to create, you're going to have a couple of slip ups and that's okay. You just get right back to that taking action step, right? And you keep going the very next moment.

You're not going to wait another month or whatever it is or week or even day. You just go right back to where you were the very next day or moment. Number five. Remember that I just asked you to also think about other habits you may want to create. And again, this framework you can apply in the new year doesn't have to just be alcohol. You can apply this with any new habit you want to create or change or you know drop even. If you feel like it's easy, like I want to add to the challenge.

I'm going to quote Alex Hermosy here, he said, when things get easy, go hard. If you think, right, it's actually relatively easy to tick those boxes and not drink for another day, awesome. Well, that means that you can do more. Let's do more because if it's easy, you can go hard. You're able to do that. That's why we started with an awareness. I want you to add to these positive effects. Just how I told you, I quit smoking, I quit drinking. I then start to eat healthy, run, lift weights.

Those were all things that were adding up. And I kept feeling better and better and better. And I would do so for like a year straight. And then it kind of became the new norm, but I lost 30 kilos, right? I literally like, it changed my fucking life. I can't say it is enough. So it's, it's way more than just cutting alcohol. It's, this goes way beyond dry January, whatever you want to call it. This is like. the long term game.

This is the stuff that you're going to need to be successful for life. I can guarantee that. Like if you start with this stuff and you add maybe a simple habit, right? Because in the tracker, you can add two more. You can have up to three daily habits. Those simple daily little mini actions. Like if you really stay consistent and you keep doing it day in day out for weeks, months, even years.

And I will say like after a couple of months, you're likely going to switch the habits you want to keep tracking. But when you do that, you're going to make your you're going to change your life. I like I can guarantee that there's not a lot of guarantees and I know I've said that phrase a couple of times in this episode now, but if you do this stuff, you will notice a difference. Last step number six, keep going. You hear this all the time.

I've been talking about a lot recently too, but Why do you think most people fail? It's not because they fuck up, it's because they just stop right there and then. It's not about failing, that's part of it. It's because they give up as soon as they fail. If you drink on the regular, this goes back to that social pressure, right? You're going to get the commons. That's fine. They're not on your journey. You're not on their journey. So that means that you can just keep doing your thing.

And I love seeing my clients make this decision for themselves and then give zero shits about what other people might think or say. Again, like this is a mistake that I made for the majority of my life, like 30 years, basically, right? I'm almost tomorrow by the time this launches tomorrow, I'm going to be 34. So just about 30 years, like I spend way too much energy worrying about what other people may think or say or whatever. Fuck that. It's not worth it. So don't worry.

If you want to improve your health, then that's all right. And if anyone asks, just say that, like, hey, just want to improve my health. Like, that's reason enough. That's all you need. And feel free to, of course, involve others, but like, just make sure to keep going. use the tracker, maybe even involve a friend or family member, whatever. Like hit me up if you want, like I'll hold you accountable, right? Let's stay in touch for your Instagram or something. That's cool.

But make sure to keep going. Promise yourself that. Again, this is not like a quick fix kind of thing. This is something that can really lead to real change. So here's maybe an unpopular prediction that I have. But I truly think that for future generations people are gonna view drinking alcohol the same way most people currently view smoking cigarettes. I really think that.

And this is not me being the, right, the alcohol-free nerd, whatever, like, yes, I'm alcohol-free, I've been for 11 years, I'm going to stick to that. It's a commitment that I made with myself, right? Because I like it so much, I wanted to kind of keep doing this. But that's me. What you do is completely up to you. I do really think that now with more research and as that becomes common knowledge, we're going to see that change. I'm pretty sure we're not there yet.

It might be multiple generations. But at least more people now are becoming aware of the effects and are making those changes. Which I think is a good thing. So there's my little prediction there. So I'm going to encourage you to try this out. We've talked about this enough. It's January 1st. Let's just get started. Give yourself a month. If you hate it, fine. You still did something good for your health.

If you get anything else out of it, whether it's the motivation to go to the gym, eat healthy, whatever it is, awesome. It's worth it. If you decide to go back to drinking, OK, cool. Hey, like at least promise yourself then to do the work to optimize every other aspect, sleep well, eat well, rest, lift weights, do a little bit of cardio, get

your steps in, manage your stress, that's a big one, but promise yourself that at least. So I wanted to quickly summarize the six steps and then I'll leave you to it. Remember, first, create that awareness. You need to think about what needs changing. We talked about alcohol today, but this could be applied in any... other scenario, how do you want to create, et cetera. You're going to take action too, step two, right? Don't wait, not for tomorrow, whatever. Just get started right away.

If you haven't yet, go to the show notes at step three, keep track, right? Get my tracker, it's free. Start ticking those boxes, collect your daily wins, but keep track. Step four, reflect. On a regular basis, you want to check your tracker. You want to see where you're at. And then of course, when it gets easy, you want to go hard. Step five, amplify, right? If it's easy, like make sure to keep challenging yourself. We're not just here to do easy shit. And lastly, keep going.

Don't let anything hold you back. Don't let anyone hold you back. Again, you're doing this for yourself. So make sure to kind of keep showing up for yourself. Give yourself those 30 days, show up and enjoy those positive effects. Like you'll notice this physically, mentally, you'll think more clear. I really want you to think 30 days from now, like how will you feel? And then once that moment hits, right? At the end of the month, reflect and compare how you feel.

Compare how much of a change 30 days can really make. And then you decide what to do next. Because I really think this might just be the start of something bigger. I really mean that. I know it was for me, and it doesn't mean that it has to be for you. But if there's one thing, I could point out that's kind of like low hanging fruit. It's going to be something like this. Cool. Happy New Year. Thanks for listening.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to drop me a quick rating on Spotify or Apple. And I'll say it a lot, but again, we do this for free. Um, we don't do ads. This is my only ask to you. And then we'll be back on Thursday and I'll follow up with a new topic, which I'm going to record in a couple of days. We'll see what it is. So. Surprise. Talk to you then.