Brooke Hamilton

Today is the first day of November. I just got off the treadmill and am literally dripping sweat. It’s a good feeling, knowing I worked hard at something.

I’m taking a break during the day to write this. As of yet, I haven’t gone over my daily allotment of calories and I have a plan for dinner. You may call me diet obsessed. I learned recently that I show signs of having an eating disorder (binge eating disorder) because I often eat past the point where I enjoy my food and I generally feel uncomfortable around food to the point where I have anxiety dreams about dessert.

I literally dreamed I was eating cookies last night. Chewy Chips Ahoy. I had one and then Mom took the box away from me.

Starting today, I am moving towards the new Canada’s alcohol intake guidelines. It used to be that woman could have 7 drinks a a week, and no more than 2 a day. now both men and women should supposedly only have 1-2 drinks per week, MAX. That’s a significant change. I have been scaling back to be more in line with these guidelines. I used to enjoy having a beer at the end of the day but that didn’t last long. I moved to only weekends. That’s 2-4 drinks a week, which puts me in the middle of the moderate degree of health risk category. My goal is to get it down to 1-2 and be in the low risk category. I’ve always had problem with moderation.

Maybe the shift is causing some anxiety.

So I’ll focus on the positives of reducing my alcohol intake:

-less empty calories

-not a slave to the drink

-better health prospects (less risk of cancer and heart disease)

-happier Mom and Dad (I’m 32 years old, but yet it’s still a factor)

-less anxiety (eventually, once I get used to it)

-better mood (eventually – I hope)

-more money in bank account

-less gas on going to lcbo or brewery

I can do this.

It’s a psychological challenge more than anything. I’d rank the difficulty of this challenge a 7/10, but I know if I decide on changing something, I’ll stick with it.