alcohol, caffeine, nutrients and life

Another half-pound down!  Woohoo!  The big trade off seems to be wine for weight-loss -- WHICH will i find more life-enhancing, today?  ...Because they're different facets of the same precious stone, quality of life.

I've never made a secret of the fact that caffeine and alcohol are my drugs of choice.  What i've learned more recently, though, is that nutrients qualify my desire for them in some very interesting ways.  Since i started using tyrosine, i'm more likely to reach for the decaf than the high-octane coffee.  (In fact, now that i seem to be "replete" in tyrosine -- if you can say that about an amino acid -- i'm even more wired by it, and i'm stepping down my intake.)  As a hypothyroid, i'm so accustomed to being under-energied, it feels strange to find it hard to sit still and focus my mind on ONE IDEA.  I'm still learning how to do it -- something that people with normal energy probably learned in elementary school!  :-)

When i feel over-stimulated like this my instinct is to go have a glass of wine, which then puts me in a pleasant alert-but-mellow state, but it's also a bandaid situation.  For a lot of reasons.  And i consider it a mistake to do as a default.

I looked for years (before the internet made information easier to find) for how alcohol fits in a weight-loss diet.  I kinda suspect that not a lot was really KNOWN till the end of the twentieth century.  Yes, it was realized that alcohol ingestion crippled weight loss efforts.  Yes, alcohol (especially the distilled kind) has a shitload of calories.  But something else was going on beyond that, and diet-book-after-diet-book told me NOTHING -- they either failed to mention the subject entirely, or skimmed over it evasively.

I still don't have the whole "skinny" on it.  I know enough to be going on with, though.  Seems to me, the body tries to burn first what is most deleterious to let hang around.  If alcohol is in the system, the body wants it OUT as expeditiously as possible.  Then sugars.  Finally fat burns as the body's planned default fuel.

On the way out, alcohol tries to screw things up due to its puckish delight in mischief -- setting traps in the liver involving metabolic flexibility (among others), so even though you've gotten the rockstar out of the hotel, you enter the room he last inhabited to find it trashed ... figuratively speaking.  He promises to pay the bill if he's readmitted (and some fools let him back in), but he never does.

Though not a carbohydrate, alcohol and sugar-alcohols seem to have metabolic problems that are similar.  I find it ironic that the fastest way to trash your liver is EITHER alcohol and omega6s, OR fructose and omega6s!  And some poor misguided souls think agave nectar is a healthy alternative....

At any rate, i've found that it's POSSIBLE to lose weight and still have a glass of Mount Pleasant with my steak, but when the losing gets difficult, the wine HAS to go!  Truel but crue.  I strongly suspect that the worst thing one can possibly consume are sweet cocktails!  You get the double-whammy of alcohol and sugar, all in one very moreish package!

So how best to get the relaxation of a glass of something, without the metabolic consequences?  There are a number of things, and i'm still working on identifying the best ones for me.  Sometimes it just isn't possible to get into a meditative state -- the world is too doggone NOISY.  Using carbs as downers isn't a good choice for MY body, and i have yet to experiment with herbs (though Wooo has some good information and advice available about those, on her blog).  I'll keep seeking....