Now I know that most of us are unaware of the number of units in a glass of wine – for years we were told that a small glass was 1 unit. However, these days, we have had considerable wine inflation! I don’t mean in the price, as there are still many deals to be had at the supermarket; I mean in the number of units! I know, I know, I know, that the wine we tend to drink these days is stronger than the Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun that we used to drink 25 years ago, and I KNOW that my favourite wine is 13%, but I hadn’t quite realised quite how this equates to units per glass. At home I always drink from a small glass, which I know to be 125ml, which I imagined was probably around 1.4-1.5 units. I was rather shocked, then, to discover that just 2 glasses was 3.4 units according to “My Drinkaware”, and this was OVER the line on their chart of recommended intake! And I thought I was doing really well, having cut my consumption down to ONLY 2 small glasses! The only saving grace was that I wasn’t drinking on 4 days a week. That was, of course, until Christmas! I don’t just mean Christmas day and the couple of days around it, I mean the whole week before (well, I HAD broken up from work…) and the week or so afterwards… I continued to dutifully log my drinks on the website until the website started to give me warning messages that I was becoming “At Risk” because of my increased consumption! I found this REALLY scary, so I stopped logging my drinks until after Christmas! (Risk level is now showing as ‘Low’) :-)
Showing posts with label alcohol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alcohol. Show all posts
Monday, 28 January 2013
Counting units
I mentioned in my previous alcohol-related blog Wine my attempts to cut down. To support my efforts, I decided to start logging my drinks on My Drinkaware, a website on which you log your consumption and it, very helpfully, gives you the number of units and the number of calories in your drinks. It also makes lots of 'helpful' suggestions, such as "Did you know that you could have eaten a burger and fries for the same number of calories you have consumed in alcohol today?". Great, except I'd prefer to drink away my calories than eat a MacDonald's anyday!
Now I know that most of us are unaware of the number of units in a glass of wine – for years we were told that a small glass was 1 unit. However, these days, we have had considerable wine inflation! I don’t mean in the price, as there are still many deals to be had at the supermarket; I mean in the number of units! I know, I know, I know, that the wine we tend to drink these days is stronger than the Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun that we used to drink 25 years ago, and I KNOW that my favourite wine is 13%, but I hadn’t quite realised quite how this equates to units per glass. At home I always drink from a small glass, which I know to be 125ml, which I imagined was probably around 1.4-1.5 units. I was rather shocked, then, to discover that just 2 glasses was 3.4 units according to “My Drinkaware”, and this was OVER the line on their chart of recommended intake! And I thought I was doing really well, having cut my consumption down to ONLY 2 small glasses! The only saving grace was that I wasn’t drinking on 4 days a week. That was, of course, until Christmas! I don’t just mean Christmas day and the couple of days around it, I mean the whole week before (well, I HAD broken up from work…) and the week or so afterwards… I continued to dutifully log my drinks on the website until the website started to give me warning messages that I was becoming “At Risk” because of my increased consumption! I found this REALLY scary, so I stopped logging my drinks until after Christmas! (Risk level is now showing as ‘Low’) :-)
Now I know that most of us are unaware of the number of units in a glass of wine – for years we were told that a small glass was 1 unit. However, these days, we have had considerable wine inflation! I don’t mean in the price, as there are still many deals to be had at the supermarket; I mean in the number of units! I know, I know, I know, that the wine we tend to drink these days is stronger than the Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun that we used to drink 25 years ago, and I KNOW that my favourite wine is 13%, but I hadn’t quite realised quite how this equates to units per glass. At home I always drink from a small glass, which I know to be 125ml, which I imagined was probably around 1.4-1.5 units. I was rather shocked, then, to discover that just 2 glasses was 3.4 units according to “My Drinkaware”, and this was OVER the line on their chart of recommended intake! And I thought I was doing really well, having cut my consumption down to ONLY 2 small glasses! The only saving grace was that I wasn’t drinking on 4 days a week. That was, of course, until Christmas! I don’t just mean Christmas day and the couple of days around it, I mean the whole week before (well, I HAD broken up from work…) and the week or so afterwards… I continued to dutifully log my drinks on the website until the website started to give me warning messages that I was becoming “At Risk” because of my increased consumption! I found this REALLY scary, so I stopped logging my drinks until after Christmas! (Risk level is now showing as ‘Low’) :-)
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
Wine
As someone who had become one of those middle-aged, middle-class wine drinkers that the government keep announcing are the scourge of the country, I had been aware for some considerable time that I needed to break the daily wine habit. I am not talking about a serious, roll around the floor slurring my words problem, just a tendency to open a bottle of wine after a stressful (or un-stressful) day, and having a glass or two. The week-ends were worse, when I started looking forward to 5 o’clock to justify opening the bottle and having 3 or 4 glasses during the evening. Whilst this was rather habitual behaviour, I didn’t feel it was addictive.
Rather than attempt to give up totally, either for a short or longer while, I decided that I would simply drink more consciously, and just have a small glass or 2 with my week-end meals. It was actually really easy to give up the mid-week drinks. When the little voice inside my head started saying “don’t you fancy a glass of wine?”, I quickly forced another thought inside my head. If it persisted, I forced an image of a glass of very warm and very sweet wine to come to mind, and the desire soon went (I like wine very dry and VERY chilled!).
It’s been well over two months, and I have been sticking to the plan pretty well. As I mentioned in my last post, apart from the week we were away on holiday, when I drank alcohol every day, I have managed to stick to no alcohol Mondays to Thursdays. The best thing is that it has stopped occurring to me to open a bottle of wine in the evening – in fact, there is an OPEN bottle of wine in the fridge, left over from the week-end and I am going to have to tip it away as it won’t taste very nice by the time Friday comes round.
I have read articles in the past about people giving up alcohol and feeling fitter and healthier, whilst looking 10 years younger. I am still waiting for this to happen! Perhaps it only works if you give up totally?
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