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Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mini Mikkipedia on a Monday. And this Monday, I want to chat about alcohol. And unfortunately, I am not really putting a positive spin on it, I suppose. Equally though, this is, I'm actually just talking about myself and my own personal habits and some changes I've made, albeit I will say from the outset, I'm not promising that.

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this is a forever thing for me. This is just something I'm doing right now with respect to the frequency with which I'm drinking, but also I guess my reasons why. And a lot of people have asked and I've talked a little bit about it and it's actually no big deal, but me making a podcast about it will make it seem like a big deal. But I've just had not necessarily a change of heart, but I've just really thought over the last say six months or so I've examined, I suppose my own

00:56
behavior around alcohol and how often I drink and also how it makes me feel. And unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it's not like every time I have a drink, I wake up with a stonking hangover and I question my life decisions and I say never again and then I do it again. Equally, I'm very fortunate that I don't start drinking and have a trouble stopping. And finally,

01:23
I suppose I'm fortunate that it's not 10 a.m. every morning where I'm like, man, I could do with a drink. But it really is thinking about alcohol in the context of how I see myself. And this is where the friction happens for me, actually. up until I was, I would say before Hubster, who's editing this podcast, and I were together, I would say I was definitely more a minimal drinker than anything else.

01:50
I had a period of time with my practice husband where I barely had a couple of drinks a year because he wasn't a drinker. And so in that context, it's actually really easy to not drink alcohol yourself if you're with someone who doesn't drink. And after that, of course, in my single years, they weren't my best years, if I'm honest, I would drink sporadically and quite minimally around, you know, I'd enjoy a glass of wine with friends out on a Friday, maybe.

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twice a month, and maybe in between times would enjoy another glass. It might be, if I'm being generous, it would be a couple of glasses a week, but that is actually being quite generous. And then I met the love of my life, who just happens to be a Brit, and I believe they put it in the drinking water over there, but it's pretty normal, and I know a lot of, and gosh, I don't know, is this racist? A lot of Brits enjoy a drink, and no shade, obviously.

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I enjoy a drink as well, but I didn't actually realize I enjoyed a drink until I started dating Hubster. And more than just deciding that I enjoyed it, I actually started to enjoy things like beer and craft beer. And in fact, I think both of us together discovered Pinicius Weed from Garage Project and subsequently became connoisseurs of craft beer. Unlike Hubster, who will enjoy a nice four and a half percent craft beer, I tend to like the higher alcohol variety. They just taste nicer to me. So not only am I

03:18
enjoying beer, which I never did before, opening up my sort of alcoholic drink choices to beyond just wine. I also like the higher alcohol variety too. So it's like a bit of a double whammy. And I think probably COVID had a little bit to do with this, albeit I'm not blaming it on COVID. It was just circumstantial that at the same time as COVID hit in 2020, we discovered we quite liked pernicious weed.

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Garage Projects started sending me private personal emails inviting me to join their beer club and each month getting me to enjoy one of their monthly releases. And of course, when you sign up to these things and you're buying alcohol online because out west you can't buy alcohol in the supermarkets, of course I wasn't just buying one beer, I was buying whatever they had on special in a four pack and then topping it up so I could get free shipping. Ridiculous really, but it is what it is. So subsequently,

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I just love a beer and also I enjoy a wine and dare I say it, I quite like like a margarita as well. And there are some yummy cocktails out there. All this to say, it's not like I went from absolutely nothing to seven nights a week, but my typical sort of even pre-COVID one to two nights a week, I think really has shifted into maybe, you know, three to four nights a week or four to five nights a week actually in some instances. And it just,

04:43
suddenly this behavior didn't really gel with how I saw myself as a healthy person. So on the health front of alcohol, just to remind you, alcohol is absolutely not a health food. And I think you know that anyway, right? And of course, Huberman would argue that there is no safe dose of alcohol and has actually backed off and he's no longer saying everyone needs to avoid it, but he's still very,

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very, he's a non-drinker himself and so he's very much like, know, alcohol is one of the worst things you can do for your health. Whereas others would argue that in fact we see that there is a sort of minimum safe or maximum sort of dose of maybe one to two drinks a day. But you know, what we know about alcohol is that by itself it adds a layer of complexity that makes it difficult to achieve your health goals. So first and foremost, ESA is a toxin.

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Some people are going to process alcohol better than other people. Some people are going to notice the effects of alcohol much worse than other people. And as we age, we tend to tolerate those effects less. Albeit there are plenty of people out there who would be functional drinking half a bottle to a bottle of wine, and they would actually not feel that drunk. And I know that there are people like that out there. So alcohol has different effects on different people. And even

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if you feel like it doesn't impact negatively on your sleep. And look, for me, if I've done a really long run, then one of the best things that I love doing is enjoying a beer afterwards. And typically sleep isn't an issue because I'm exhausted from the exercise. But what I have noted of late is that red wine isn't sitting quite as well as it used to. And this is where I do get that disrupted sleep. And of course the flow on from disrupted sleep is that you get increased hunger and cravings the next day.

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especially for those high carb, high fat foods, like your brain's reward centers really spark up due to that lack of restorative sleep. You have reduced insulin sensitivity. So again, this is playing into sort of unstable blood sugar. You get changes in your brain chemistry that lowers your motivation and does make it hard to follow through on healthy behaviors like exercise or food prep. And it can put you in a pretty low mood actually. And that can take a couple of days for that sort of cloud to lift.

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In addition to that, course, alcohol contains calories of which you can offset if you are trying to improve your body composition, et cetera. There are ways with which you track alcohol, which allows you to account for the calories and still meet your body composition goals. But if you did that too often, it would definitely impact because it's always opportunity cost when it comes to food, right? Like when you're having something, you've got to choose between that and something else, which may be better for you.

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Because we process alcohol first and foremost, foods that we eat with alcohol are more likely to be stored. And if you think about those usual things like chips or nuts or savories or treats like that, they're high fat, high calorie foods. And fat is very easy to store anyway, even more so if your body is trying to process that alcohol. And I'm only thinking about the calories in sort of plain alcoholic drinks, wine and beer.

08:00
But then when we get to the ones that I love, like the craft beers, which have a whole lot more sort of calories because of the alcohol content and the other bits and bobs. And then of course cocktails, which might have sugared mixes. I mean, these are clearly going to compromise your body composition goals if you do that all of the time. The one last thing to mention about alcohol is that it does lower inhibition as well, which means that we may go in thinking, just going to enjoy a glass of wine.

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I'm not going, I'm just going to avoid that chip bowl or whatever else I've got that piece of pizza or have dinner when I get home. Suddenly all bets are off and you're half a pizza deep and you're half a bottle of wine deep and you'll, just think stuff and I'll worry about this the next day. So there are a lot of reasons why you do want to moderate and consider your alcohol consumption. And I think I would fall into a lot of the traps that I've just sort of described, albeit I've never really had an issue with motivating myself to

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exercise, if anything it's the other way around. But it certainly does impact on my mood the next day, I definitely notice it. But that would be hard to disentangle from that sort of lack of sleep which I would often get. So what I decided to do is I decided to sort of think about, you know, what are my non-negotiables when I enjoy a drink? Unlike other people, in fact, the time that I enjoy a drink the most is at home with Hubster, which does make it somewhat tricky. Like if I only ever enjoyed a drink out,

09:27
It would be no big deal because we might go out once or twice every two weeks. But because you're at home most of the time, it means that there's that opportunity to make the decision every single day. Are we going to have a drink tonight? So I had to think about what is my non-negotiable sort of space where I really enjoy a drink and when can I give or take it? I can absolutely give or take it if I'm doing work drinks or meeting up with colleagues or meeting up with a wider bunch of friends. Like it doesn't have

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same element of enjoyment for me because I don't need alcohol to necessarily enjoy that time, I suppose. Not that I need alcohol to enjoy time with Hubster, but it reflects something different there. It's a nice space where we get to disconnect from work and think about just our lives and do all the fun things that you do when you're a couple. There's that element there. But also, within that time, when is my non-negotiable drink? When is my witching hour? I just really love a drink. When are the times where

10:26
That doesn't really, you know, I could give or take. And for me, it is absolutely that pre-dinner drink. It is that half a glass of wine that you have before a meal or half a beer that gives you that little buzz in your head that you can sort of feel immediately in your legs and you almost feel that stress dissipating or that anticipation dissipating because anticipation is a big thing. I look forward to a drink and you're like, ah, here I am. You know, I've arrived. It's arrived.

10:55
So it is absolutely that pre-dinner drink. Whereas with dinner, I mean, I enjoy it with say, you know, a red wine with a nice steak, but you know, a couple of sips is fine. In fact, if it was a choice, I would always go pre-dinner rather than with dinner. After dinner, honestly, none at all bothered. I just want a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate. So for me, that non-negotiable drink is pre-dinner. What is your non-negotiable drink? So if you were making these decisions to help you

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make better overall decisions around alcohol, think about that non-negotiable drink for you. And decide with intent as well. So something else which has really helped me is that I decided I'm only gonna drink three nights a week. And it doesn't matter what nights of the week they are, but these are the nights that I'm enjoying a drink. And so what Hubster and I have been doing is just sort of deciding around the start of the week, what nights are we enjoying a drink?

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And what nights are we not? So both of us can manage our expectations around it. So I don't expect that we're going to open a bottle of wine and he doesn't either. And of course it doesn't mean that if he comes home and he's like, I really feel like a glass of wine, doesn't mean he's not going to do that. But it just means that there's no obligation or pressure from him because I haven't already made clear from the outset that I'm not having some. Of course, if I said, ah yeah, me too, it would be delightful. But he's absolutely cool with the fact that I'm like, I'm having a kombucha.

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rather than a wine, so there's no guilt. I'm not sort of guilting him for having one, he's not guilting me for not. Also with that though, by pre-deciding what nights am I going to want to have a drink, I'm not having to make the decision every single night or fall into a decision just because and then regret it. So, you know, if someone just spontaneously invited me out for a drink and it was a night that I wasn't going to have a drink, then actually,

12:48
probably I would just go and have like, you know, non-alcoholic beer, no big deal. But had this spontaneous drink invite occurred and I hadn't already made the decision that I was going to enjoy a drink on Friday, Sunday and Monday, and this just happened to be a Thursday, then I would probably drink on Thursday. But then also my brain would expect a drink on those other three nights as well. So make the decision at the start of the week and then just sort of stick to it. So you're not having to waste energy and time thinking about it.

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on those other nights of the week. And I think that decision fatigue is the thing that really makes it more difficult. And also if you're vulnerable to having your mind changed due to the pressure from other people, then it's really good to sort of have a plan in place and back yourself to stick to it. And I think that expectation management of yourself and those around you, I think that's another critical one as well. There's far least likely to be any social pressure if everyone sort of knows the deal. And you would hope that there wouldn't be social pressures these days, but...

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I know that that's not what happens because I hear from like literally hundreds of people who talk to me about their alcohol related conversations. Now to also be practical about it, make sure you're hydrated before you start drinking. And also think about the place of alcohol for you as well. And clearly all of these things I'm sharing with you relate to me and how I want to approach alcohol in relation to

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my life and everything like that. So not all of this stuff is going to be true for you. So if you are leaning on alcohol as a crutch, as a stress management, a coping mechanism, then obviously there are other things that you need to sort out to enable you to sort of release, I guess, expectation that alcohol is the thing that is going to help the stress management. And maybe for you, it's going to the gym after work to sort of skip that.

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which in our when you would otherwise have a beer to wind down after work or it's going for a walk around the block or it's having something and I do this having something else there so you can come home and you can pour something into a wine glass or a beer glass that isn't beer or wine or alcohol containing could be you know a non alcoholic version and enjoy that instead and and here's the best bit for me I think now I'm drinking less I'm just enjoying it more

15:09
And think I'm enjoying it more because I'm no longer questioning my identity when I enjoy a drink. And I will of course say that this is me in real life. If I'm on holiday, if we are over in Europe, for example, which would be amazing, wouldn't it? Then it's not that all bets are off, but these are the sort of like the real life rules, if you like, that I'm not going to be stringent on in a different scenario or setting necessarily.

15:36
I'm not saying I'm not, but I'm not going to deprive myself because I only drink three nights a week. It's more about what you feel comfortable with in the time. And life happens, holidays happen, how you act in that situation happens. And hey, last time we were away, I absolutely enjoyed a drink almost every night that Hamster and I were together. Maybe next holiday I go away, that's not going to be part of the thing that I enjoy. But if it is, then that's okay as well.

16:03
because it is what you do most of the time that actually makes a difference. And I really lean into that delayed gratification when it comes to enjoying a drink nowadays. And I just know that, yeah, sure, it would be nice to enjoy one on a Thursday night, but actually I'm okay waiting until Friday and then really enjoying it then. And for what it's worth, you don't have to only enjoy alcohol on the weekend, or you don't have to drink three nights if you said you drink three nights, you can just drink two nights.

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but at least you've got some guardrails up so you know how you're approaching situations. Because also what I do know is that despite the fact that I only enjoy a drink mostly before dinner, it doesn't mean I don't have one with dinner, and it doesn't mean that the pours that I end up pouring from the wine bottle are actually standard drinks as well. So by eliminating these extra sort of days, then it just absolutely cuts back what I've been doing. And oh, the last practical thing I want to...

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mention is just make sure you're hydrated. So many of us go into an alcoholic drink being thirsty and drinking it super quickly, not really enjoying it and then moving on to our next one even more quickly. So if you can make sure you're fully hydrated during the day, then that also helps cut down on how much you drink. And actually the final point, which I notice this in myself, I notice it in clients, if you're too low on carbs, your alcohol cravings do increase as well.

17:28
Of course, there are some people who love to run a low carb diet. I am one of those people. I definitely eat less carbs than a lot of other people, albeit of late over the last few months. I've lifted my carb consumption in almost every meal, and I think this is also helping me make these other decisions around alcohol. So I find that super interesting too. Anyway, so this was my thought process. This is how I'm sort of approaching it and what I think about it. I don't know, you might find it interesting, you might not, but...

17:56
Alcohol is a real deal that we do have to consider. And you often hear that it isn't what we're drinking, it's how we're drinking. And I think particularly people of our age, we've come through that university scene of heavily drinking in university. Although to be fair, I did more drinking probably when I was 14 or 15. And then, you know, it's just, it's a norm of our society and it's not uncommon to put back least a bottle of wine between two people in the evening time. So.

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which is too much actually for your health regardless. yeah, these are just some thoughts. Let me know what you're thinking about it. You might not be thinking anything about it. Before I go though, I've got that Unlocking Fat Loss Success webinar that is taking place Wednesday of this week, 1pm and 7pm. And I can absolutely talk more about alcohol and the impact it has on fat loss in that webinar, because I'm actually sending out an email to get some questions from you guys. So if you have questions, then pop it in there.

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You can find information about the webinar on my website and there's a link in the show notes. Otherwise, hit me up I'm on x,threads and Instagram @mikkiwilliden Facebook at mikkiwillidennutrition or that website address again mikkiwilliden.com. Thanks guys