Become A Better Drunk and Chocolate Connoisseur

I absolutely love Ben and Jerrys Half Baked ice cream. What I hate, is feeling sick after smashing the entire container.  How is there four servings in that tiny container?

Who hasn’t eaten an entire sleeve of Thin Mints? I feel like a such an ass when I tell a Girl Scout no, because I can’t trust myself with a box.

Most clients I work with manage giving up the Ben and Jerrys, pop tarts, bagels, pop, pretzels, and fast food. But there are two things most people won’t budge on.

Chocolate and booze!

Yes I know chocolate and wine both contain healthy flavonoids like resveratrol that act as antioxidants against free radicals. But let’s keep it real, we’re usually drinking more than that one healthy glass. When it comes to chocolate, most people are eating more sugar than chocolate.

So how do you integrate chocolate and booze into your healthy fitness life?

Chocolate martini anyone? Kidding. But seriously, I’ve been drunk and had chocolate straight from the fondue. I’m talking tongue to fondue, not my proudest moment.

The key is to Become A Better Drunk and Learn to Be A Chocolate Connoisseur.

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Become A Chocolate Connoisseur

Getting your chocolate fix without doing too much damage is easy.

It’s all about changing your palate. This works for almost EVERYONE. When a SMALL piece of 90% dark chocolate satisfies your sweet tooth you’ll really understand how much your palate can change.

1. Eat Real Chocolate

Only buy chocolate with the Cacao percentage listed on the package. Just because it says ‘dark’ doesn’t mean it is. Notice ‘Hershey Dark’ doesn’t have a percentage on it? That’s because it’s loaded with sugar and hardly any chocolate. Turn the label over and take a peak at the first ingredient, good chance it’s sugar!

2. Work Up The Cocoa Spectrum

A higher percentage of Cocoa has more antioxidants and less sugar!

Don’t go thinking you’re a bad ass and grab a 100% cocoa bar it will taste terrible, you won’t like it, and you will think this strategy sucks.

Start with a 50% or 60% cocoa bar: Work your way up. When you finish a bar (hopefully not all at once) try the next percentage up. If it’s too bitter, go back down. Try landing in the 70% to 90% cocoa content. You get your chocolate fix, without to much sugar!

The brand Lindt makes a good 90 percent bar, you can find it in most baking isles. Keeping it in the freezer makes it taste a bit sweeter.

Now if you’re sugar bombing yourself elsewhere else in your diet, darker chocolates won’t seem very sweet. But, if you cut the other sugar you’ll notice the complexity and layers of flavor dark chocolate has.

Look at you, you chocolate snob!

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Become A Better Drunk

If you’re waking up on your bathroom floor wondering “what the fuck happened last night,” how you got there, and why you have on one shoe but no pants, there’s a good chance alcohol is affecting your fitness goals. I’m not judging, I’ve been there too!

Thankfully your body comes with a built-in warning system called a hangover. It lets you know you were acting a fool last night.

Thanks to those antioxidants there’s probably no harm in your occasional glass or two of Merlot. Your liver might have something to say about you justifying a bottle of wine because it has the heart healthy antioxidant Reversitol.

So how do you balance the desire to paint the town red without chugging away your fitness gains?

1. Consider Temporarily Cutting Alcohol

I know no one wants to hear that, but hear me out. Cutting alcohol for a month can be a worthwhile challenge. If you can’t do it,  you might be more dependant on the sauce than you think.

If you’re thinking “ah no big deal I can do that,” there still might be some value in trying. Similar to pulling out processed foods and sugar from your diet and finding out “OMG strawberries are really sweet,” cutting alcohol for a month allows you to better it’s access it’s impact on your health and fitness goals.

Think of this as hitting the reset button. Added bonus, you’ll lower your tolerance and become a cheap date again!

2. Be Honest With Yourself And Your Goals. You Know Better

I’m always eager to share what’s worked for me and others. It’s amazing though when I get asked for six-pack advice by someone double fisting sugary margaritas at a bar. The only exercise that’s gonna help you in this scenario is a reverse curl. Slowly lower your arm down onto tbe table, open your hand, and release the cocktail!

Don’t put in an awesome workout, eat good all week, and fail to see results because your kicking back a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer each night.

Come on, you’re better than that.

3. Make The Best Drink Choice You Can

Mixers, sours, margaritas and other high sugar drinks send your blood sugar sky rocketing. Insulin responds sending you into “fat storage mode.” We all know what follows… A blood sugar crash.

Sure red wines offer antioxidants, but other good choices are spirits. Whiskey, Scotch, Cognac, Vodka, Gin.  Drink it straight up, on the rocks, or with some fresh limes.

Robb Wolf the author of the Paleo Solution has a solid approach to drinking.  He recommends his Nor Cal Margarita.

Robb’s Recipe:

• 2 shots of gold tequila (Can use other alcohol) Get the good stuff and help reduce the hangover.
• Juice of 1 whole lime
• Splash of soda water

“Drink one or two of these on an empty stomach early in your evening. Wrap up the night with some protein and fat, and you are set. You socialized, got your head change, and did not do too much damage to yourself. There is also some chemistry behind the recommendations. The lime juice blunts insulin release and the carbon dioxide bubbles in the soda act as what’s called a “non-polar solvent.” This actually extracts the alcohol from the drink and delivers it to your system faster.”

4. The Bigger Problem (Trust Me I’ve Been There)

Alcohol is only half the battle. It’s the aftermath that really gets ya. Who isn’t hungry after a night of drinking?

Heading home from the bar you have the cabby swing through Taco Bell. Unable to decide on a number four or six, you order a number ten. There’s no number ten, so you order a four and a six because that equals ten. You cookie monster them both!

The next day you wake up feeling like you’ve been run over by a truck and declare you are never drinking again. You assess the damage your inappropriate text messaging did, and you head to your couch where you’ll spend the day marathoning Family Guy.

To tired to cook, it’s take out again. Exercise? Not a chance. And down you go……

5. Prepare For Debauchery

• Get the good stuff. Reduce your hangover by sticking to quality booze. It’s hard to workout the next day if you’re hung over.
• Prepare a return meal before you leave so you can avoid the fast food drive through.
• Stock up for breakfast. Eggs are a good option, they’re easy to make in a “half crocked” state and contain cysteine the substance that breaks down the hang-over causing toxin acetaldehyde.

6. Make It Count

It better be a really good reason to feel horrible and spend the next day on the couch with a headache. Sure, if…. no wait, WHEN I get invited to a party at the Playboy mansion I guarantee I’ll drink more than I should. (A guy can dream right!)

If a friend has me over for game night, I can probably enjoy myself without to much booze.

Only you can decide what’s a good reason to hit it hard. Make sure it’s a good one.

Be honest with yourself, does your dogs birthday really justify keg-stands?