Summer Series Finale Kick-Off

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Welcome to the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife six week summer series. Everyone's asking six short, practical, summer-friendly episodes to help you answer the biggest questions about moderating your alcohol intake in midlife. As always, with no pressure and no judgment. I'm your host, you can call me D, and this is week six, where everyone's been asking, What now? You're listening to the Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife podcast, where it's my goal to help you take back the power of choice from alcohol. I'm your host and mindful drinking mentor, Denise Hamilton Mace, and this is the start of your journey to a life less intoxicated. So, after five years of drinking differently and helping hundreds of people to do the same, these are the most common questions you've all told me you have about moving forward with a life less intoxicated. Let's jump straight in because this is the last week in our six-week summer series. And

Will Cutting Down Make A Difference?

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our first question is will I even notice a difference if I cut down rather than quit? Now I know that those well it depends kind of answers can be really annoying, but I'm very sorry. It really does depend. However, I can tell you what it does depend on, and it's largely on how much you were drinking initially and how much you cut down to afterwards. If you remember, way back in week one, don't worry, I'll link to it in the show notes if you haven't heard that yet. But I told you about the British broadcaster Adrian Charles, who cut down his alcohol intake from over 100 units a week to now sitting comfortably for him at 20 to 30 units a week. Now, his consumption is still considered very high, it's above the safety guidelines and all of that stuff. The point of sharing this with you, though, is to show that a reduction in your alcohol intake can be meaningful and impactful depending on what you're reducing from and what you're reducing to. Now, Adrian's uh example is an extreme, and you do not have to be living in such extremes to feel the benefit of a meaningful reduction. If you are currently finding that you're drinking on most days, or that most of the times that you drink, you are over-drinking, cutting that down to half, cutting that down to just having enough when you're out, cutting that down to always being able to feel like you are in control of the choices that you're making around drinking can have a meaningful impact on you and on your life. So it does depend because this is a personal journey and it's about where you are now and where you want to be with this and the choices that you can make along the way to help you get there. But yes, you will notice a difference if you put the effort in to making this a meaningful reduction and making it stick.

Early Wins When You Drink Less

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Okay, question two people often want to know which benefits are usually the first to appear when you start changing the way you drink. We're all different. I think that's a given biologically, physically, so it changes for everybody, it's different for everybody. But quite commonly, one of the biggest areas that people see the most difference in, first of all, is sleep. And it's one of those areas that people can start to see improvement in straight away. When I say straight away, I don't mean on day one or day two, but within the first couple of weeks, you can usually start to see some improvement in your sleeping patterns. And that can be a huge winner because a better night's sleep leads to better, more rested days where you can feel more focused, more energized, sharper, more responsive. Uh, you feel better able to cope with uh the irritations and uh incompetent colleagues and annoying kids and frustrating partners. Getting better sleep isn't just about reducing the bags under your eyes, it's really a game changer and it's a huge focus for me because I've struggled with sleep, particularly in perimenopause for the uh women listening. This might be something that's impacting you as well. Perimenopause has a huge, huge impact on sleep for most women. And adding alcohol into the mix, even though we think it might help us to fall asleep better, interrupts our sleep cycles, it interrupts the deep restorative sleep that we need to repair our bodies and our brains and to build the energy that we need to cope with the next day. Um, there's also a raft of um biological improvements that happen whilst we're sleeping. I've recently discovered that a lot of weight loss takes place whilst you're sleeping. So if you're trying to lose weight as part of your mindful drinking journey and perhaps you're starting doing some exercise, you're burning some fat, actually, we lose a lot of that overnight whilst we're sleeping. We breathe it out. I didn't know that. I thought it was really interesting. But there are a rat of other changes going on as well, other benefits that you might not know are improving. Things like your blood pressure, um obviously liver repair, depending on what state it was in, uh, your levels of hydration should improve. Again, all of this depends on how much you were drinking before and how much you've cut down to. But I always like to remind people that the more you decrease your intake, the more biological benefit will be returned to you, whether you can see it or not. So remember that a lot of this stuff will be going on below the surface and you might not be able to see it. But the sleep is definitely something that you can notice sooner rather than later, and it has such an important knock-on effect to other areas of your life that it can feel like a much bigger gain when you consider all the benefits that it can bring.

Weight Loss Expectations And Reality

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Question three: Will I lose weight? And is it normal if I don't? So alcohol contains around seven calories, kilocals, per gram. That is more than carbs and protein, but less than fat. So by drinking less often or choosing, say, a mid-strength drink with less alcohol in it, you will technically consume fewer calories. But there's always a but, isn't there? Um, but it doesn't change the impact of the other things that you do around your drinking. So, for example, if you swap a full strength pint or a large glass of wine, and instead you drink pints of coke, or you swap going out with your friends and being active and socializing for sitting at home on the sofa eating snacks, you probably won't notice much meaningful change. But, good one this time, but if you are still uh participating in your own life, going out, making healthier choices, using your newfound energy from all that extra sleep you've got to move more and to eat better, you know, all of the usual stuff that people tell you to do, then you should begin to see difference in time, not just in your weight, but in your general outlook on life. And that is what makes the biggest difference. Because when you can start to see a change in your general outlook on life, the way you approach things, the choices that you make, that's a knock-on effect that leads to you being able to take the actions that help you to take the weight off if that's what you want to do, and to keep it off. So is it normal if you don't lose weight? Yeah, absolutely. Because it's not just a straight line between, oh, I didn't have a glass of wine last night, okay, I've lost a couple of pounds. It doesn't work that way. I wish it did, we all wish it did, but unfortunately it doesn't. So it is very normal if you don't instantly lose a bunch of weight when you start changing. Plus, remember that the choices that you make around your drinking are still going to have that ongoing uh impact. It's not just the whether you're having a porn star martini, which is full of loads of sugar, or glasses of prosecco, which are also super sweet and contain more calories. It's the other choices that we make as well. It's the when we over drink and then perhaps having the kebab or the pizza on the way home. It's the not having the energy to do that workout that we said we were going to do, it's the um sitting on the sofa all day because you don't have the energy to go out for a walk. All of these things all add up. So it's a far more holistic journey than just making one choice about one drink on one evening.

Alcohol Tolerance And Taste Shifts

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Question four, will my alcohol tolerance change? This is a good question. I know that mine certainly has. My tolerance is way, way down. Uh, to be honest, I've not wanted to have sort of more than a couple of mid-strength drinks uh on any night out for a while now. So I can't completely compare my old party drinking habits to what I'm doing now, but I can tell you that um my ability to consume um large amounts of alcohol, strong alcohol, uh, intense drinks has definitely um reduced quite some way uh my taste. You know, I used to love an old-fashioned uh, which, if you don't know, is basically stirred bourbon with very little else. Uh now, if I tried to drink a whole one, uh I'd feel like I was sort of swigging straight from a petrol hose. I just don't have that capacity for drinking the way that I used to. Um, I can taste it, I can sip it, I can still enjoy it in small quantities, and I can definitely feel it more when I do have it. Uh for me, that's a good thing. I'm happy with all of that. It's what I wanted to do. You know, I wanted a different life, so I had to do things differently, and as part of that, my tolerance and my tastes have changed. And for me, that's a good thing.

Making Changes Last Past Summer

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Question five: how do I make these changes last beyond summer? In the beginning, when you start this new way of drinking, it is going to feel like a challenge, okay? Complete honesty with you. That's what you'll always get from me. It's going to feel harder before it gets easier, and that is normal. It did for me, it does for most people. Um, you're changing decades of habit that has been there through you through the good times and the bad, and it's going to take a moment or two for the new systems, habits, ways of doing things to stick. While you're on the way to making them stick, therefore, you do need to give yourself a little bit of grace for the moments when things don't go to plan, and a little bit of extra love and support to help turn things around the way you want to. I spoke last week about bouncing back from the times when you drink more than you intended. So I'm not going to go over that again here. But what I will tell you is that if you want to make these changes stick beyond the summer season, or whenever you're finding these episodes, then take these biggest takeaways from each of the last few weeks. From week one, know that moderation is possible, that you can change the way that you drink without having to commit to giving up forever. From week two, remember that moderation looks different for everyone. Never ever compare your progress or your journey to anyone else's. They do not matter in the story of your life choices. From week three, remember to start with your three-level why. Go deeper and understanding what drinking differently means to you beyond the surface level and hold on to that with all your might. And then go forward with baby steps. You do not have to get this all right on day one. From week four, be prepared. Know that social situations come with other people's opinions, but that you do not owe them an explanation. Whether they understand your choices or not is not your cross to bear. That is a them problem, not a you problem. And also know that drinking at home can be an underappreciated challenge that you need to prepare yourself for too. From week five, accept that still feeling the urge to drink when you've decided not to is normal and that it will pass sooner than you think. And if you do end up drinking more than you intended, know that it is a learning opportunity, not a restart point. And lastly, from today, from week six, remember that you are building towards something and that nothing changes until something changes. It might take time, it might not be linear, but each choice that you make to drink differently contributes to a greater choice to live differently, with or without alcohol in the moment. And with

End Of Summer

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that, we have now reached the end of our six weeks summer mindful drinking series. I really hope you found this series valuable. I have loved putting it together for you and really getting into the weeds of some of the most common questions about how to moderate in midlife. I have one simple ask, and that is if you have enjoyed this series, would you please let me know by leaving a rating and, if possible, a review on your podcast listening app of choice. That is all I would like you to do for me. It lets me know that you're listening, it lets me know what you've enjoyed and what I should continue to focus on for you next time. Okay, any links I've mentioned will be in the show notes. I'll also link to the other weeks in this series so that you can uh grab them all whenever you find this show. Don't forget, please, that the new website launches very soon if it hasn't already. Uh, it's over at low nodrinker.com and you can find everything you need for drinking mindfully and moderating in midlife. I'll see you next week when we return to our regularly scheduled programming. I hope that you've had a brilliant summer with your friends and your family, littles, bigs, and everyone that you love. Mine has been brilliant but exhausting, so I'm going for a nap now. Um, but I will see you next Wednesday. And until then, cheers to a summer less intoxicated.