DAY 31: To Drink or Not to Drink

Today's step is deciding whether to include alcohol in your diet.

I mentioned back on Day 5 that I was surprised Dr. Beck waited 26 more days to mention alcohol. As she points out now, alcohol has a lot of empty calories and it relaxes your inhibitions, meaning you could start making the wrong decisions about your diet when you start drinking. Alcohol also slows down your metabolism, making it harder to burn calories, so it's not the best thing to have on a diet.

However I do enjoy a cocktail now and then, so I have already addressed Dr. Beck's question of "how much, how often". I'm a big believer in "moderation in all things", so it's rare for me to have more than 1 cocktail in a week and often it's more like 2 cocktails in a month. And I always consider the calories in my food plan, counting the drink as a snack or part of an otherwise low-calorie meal.

I've also figured out how to get the biggest bang for the least calories. My cocktail of choice used to be a screwdriver. But then I learned (from a nutritionist on another, ill-fated diet) the folly of drinking my calories -- and orange juice contains at least half of the calories in a screwdriver. So then I switched to drinking cuba libres, substituting diet soda to cut the calories in half. But serious drinkers (and quite a few bartenders) snicker at such a lightweight drink, so I caved to peer pressure and now usually opt for a gin and selzer at about 70 calories.

Since dieting requires giving up so much, it's nice that I can still treat myself to a cocktail once in a while. Here's to that!