Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Today in Self-Denial News

You know all about Sober January, right? Let's see, I wrote about it in January 2010. It's just like what it sounds like: no booze in January. Kind of a chance to dry out for a bit and get some stuff done and also save some money. You would not BELIEVE how much money you save.

I only made it 9 days in 2009.

Actually, I already know there's a built-in break this year. The Wife had already made plans to attend a "cider tasting" (i.e., alcoholic cider, duh) this Saturday, so in support of her struggle, I might have a couple of drinks on Saturday too. Then we're back on it! I know, that's cheating. MYOB.

Just to make this even more unpleasant, we're also on severe diet restrictions for a while! We're doing a modified "Paleo" diet, which is basically just meat and vegetables and a little bit of fruit. No dairy. No sugar. No wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, brown rice, soy, peanuts, kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans and black eyed peas. It's basically supposed to mimic the way our distant ancestors ate, so I'm planning to get the guys together and see if we can run a wooly mammoth off a cliff and then feast on its entrails.

But wait! The Wife is a semi-lapsed Catholic and even no drinking + Paleo isn't enough self-punishment for her, so she's taking up self-flagellation! Not really. She's actually doing a Juice Fast for the next 3 days. Then she'll have to think of some other way to punish herself.

Maybe we'll rent "Jack and Jill." That should take care of self-punishment for a year or so, easy.

5 comments:

GG said...

Sorry to break it to you, but our ancestors ate mostly whole grains and vegetables, and very little meat. Turns out it's a lot more difficult to get your hands on when you can't just go to Phat Philly and order a cheesesteak.

Laura said...

Oh man, TEARS in my eyes that I didn't hear about the cider tasty earlier. Even though I've been drinking our homemade spanish style cider and eating cheese for a solid 2 weeks, I still would be down for this tasty. (Disclaimer: no typo there, that's my official term for all wine/cider/beer related tasty's. Booze has nothing to do with that at all.)

Alissa said...

NO NAVY BEANS how will you live

Anonymous said...

'To a botanist, he said, there’s no such thing as a “vegetable.” The word has no scientific meaning.'

'Suddenly all vegetables, not just the zucchini, are pornographic: We know ‘em when we see ’em. I asked a spokesperson for the Food and Nutrition Service, the USDA body that oversees the school-lunch program, how they defined a vegetable. “When it comes to defining foods, we hew to the FDA’s standards.” But Janet McDonald, an FDA spokeswoman, told me that such fundamentals were out of FDA purview: “We don’t have a definition of vegetables. Probably it’s under the USDA.”'

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2011/11/pizza_ruling_in_congress_what_is_a_vegetable_really_.html

Tamagosan said...

As long as the Paleos drank espresso, I'd be fine.

I'm doing Dry Djanuary, which is rewarding (saving money, yay! no hangovers, yay! seeing and remembering what my friends are like when they're partying, yay!) and super boring (turning down my bro's freshly-brewed mirror pond clone that smells amazing, lame! explaining to people that it's just a thing I'm doing, lame! actually not drinking, lame!)...

I'm convinced my dog things every walk is a chance to hunt wooly mammoth and feast on its entrails, so let me know if y'all need a mascot. I don't have the heart to break it to him that seeking out human feces along the Bernal Cut is not the same...