Heal Your Gut, Mend Your Mind, and Improve Nutrition to Change Your Relationship with Alcohol. Embark on a transformative journey with “How to Eat to Change How You Drink,” and unlock the power of nutrition to revolutionize your relationship with alcohol. This groundbreaking guide offers a beacon of hope, illuminating a path to a healthier, more fulfilling life.
Dive deeper into the science of sobriety; continue reading to discover how you can reclaim control and vitality through the wisdom of “How to Eat to Change How You Drink.”
Table of Contents
Genres
Nonfiction, Health, Nutrition, Personal Development, Self-Help, Wellness, Recovery, Mindfulness, Lifestyle, Behavioral Science, Happiness
“How to Eat to Change How You Drink” by Brooke Scheller is a comprehensive guide that intertwines nutrition with the journey to sobriety. The book provides insights into how alcohol consumption affects the body’s nutritional status, leading to a range of health issues from fatigue to autoimmune diseases.
Scheller, a doctor of nutrition, shares her personal triumph over alcohol’s grip by leveraging food and integrative therapies. Readers are guided to identify their drinking patterns, understand the impact of alcohol on their well-being, and learn nutritional strategies to reduce cravings and repair health.
Review
Brooke Scheller’s “How to Eat to Change How You Drink” is a compelling and empathetic guide that stands out for its unique approach to addressing alcohol dependency through nutrition. The book is well-researched, combining personal experience with scientific evidence to offer a holistic path to reducing or eliminating alcohol consumption.
Scheller’s tone is both practical and compassionate, making the book accessible to a wide audience. It’s a valuable resource for anyone looking to improve their relationship with alcohol and achieve a healthier lifestyle.
Introduction: Eat your way to sobriety
How to Eat to Change What You Drink (2023) draws on cutting-edge science to reveal how food can help change your relationship with alcohol. With a comprehensive 30-day plan to optimize meal timing, food, and lifestyle changes, this guide teaches you how to eat yourself sober.
If you’ve chosen this summary, you’re probably thinking about your relationship with alcohol. Maybe you’re still able to rationalize your drinking habits, but a little voice has started whispering that it’s time to quit. Be prepared – this voice will only get louder!
Surely, you know the adage “You are what you eat.” As it turns out, alcohol consumption and nutrition are closely linked. Although drinking alcohol may seem like a harmless way to have fun with your friends or wind down after a hard day’s work, it can spiral out of control before you know it.
This summary offers a fresh solution to addressing your alcohol habit. It will equip you to take advantage of the link between alcohol consumption and nutrition, and you’ll learn to understand your drinking type, what alcohol does to your body and mind, and how to eat your way to freedom from cravings.
Why quit drinking
Could you live without alcohol? Perhaps there’s a part of you that feels your relationship with alcohol isn’t as happy as it used to be. Perhaps that part is questioning whether alcohol is holding you back from being your best self. You don’t need to be a scientist or a doctor to determine whether you have a harmful relationship with alcohol. If you listen to your deepest inner voice, you know the answer.
But being sober may seem like an equally scary option. There’s probably another part of you that’s worried that quitting drinking would turn you into a total bore. A part that believes alcohol is essential for having fun, being social, or de-stressing. No wonder! That’s how alcohol is sold to us by the media, advertisements, and even our friends.
But have you considered that alcohol is actually making your social life worse? Think about it – would you prefer to spend a night out glued to the bar, waiting for your next drink, or a night out actually connecting with your friends?
And don’t forget the hangover – the day after drinking, you probably feel sluggish and irritable. You’re more likely to spend the day on the couch than do the workout you planned on doing. Ask yourself whether drinking is keeping you from achieving your goals.
Then there’s the myth that alcohol helps you destress. After a hard day’s work, a glass of wine or two just seems so appealing! But the relaxing effect of alcohol only offers short-term relief. In the long term, alcohol worsens your physical and mental stress.
Not to mention all the other adverse health effects linked to drinking. Did you know there’s evidence linking even moderate drinking to increased cancer risk? Yes, there are some studies suggesting that a glass of wine has a certain protective effect from heart disease. But many of these studies were done in countries where people eat a very healthy Mediterranean diet of vegetables, fish, and whole grains.
The reality is that not drinking alcohol is healthier than drinking it. And you certainly don’t need alcohol to have a fun, social life. But changing a habit you’ve had for years is easier said than done.
You have to really reflect on why you felt you “needed” alcohol. Was it just for fun? To relieve stress? Or to cope with problems that haven’t been dealt with? Getting clear on your personal “why” is the first step.
Next, think about the person you want to become. How would drinking less allow you to better pursue your goals and live by your values? By constantly connecting your “why” to a vision for your best self, you make sobriety feel like an exciting challenge rather than a deprivation.
Lastly, remember that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Take things one day at a time rather than worrying about “forever.” Before you know it, days will turn into weeks and months. But it all starts with your choice today.
Determining your drinking type
Why do so many people struggle to control their drinking even if they don’t consider themselves alcoholics? The truth is there’s a big gray area between social drinking and alcoholism where many find themselves trapped.
The current health guideline by the American National Health Service is not to exceed six units of alcohol – around six small glasses of light beer or wine – per week. That’s still quite a lot of alcohol! The Canadian health authorities recommend not exceeding two drinks a week. This standard is more in line with recent research on the harmful effects of alcohol.
If you drink more than that, it’s worth considering why and how you drink. In the “gray area” of alcohol use, people tend to fall into three different categories. Determining your drinking archetype can be an important first step to regaining control.
The social drinker is the classic “weekend warrior,” who indulges mostly at parties, dinners, sporting events, and other social situations. They don’t drink daily, so they think they don’t have a real problem – they just like to have fun sometimes! But their semi-frequent binge drinking can still cause harm and be tough to stop.
The stress drinker uses alcohol to “unwind” after work or when overwhelmed. The issue is that while drinking provides temporary relief, it actually exacerbates stress over time by spiking blood sugar and cortisol. This starts a vicious cycle making it harder to cope without alcohol.
The habitual drinker takes it further, drinking in social situations, to relieve stress, out of boredom, and just from sheer habit. They may have started out as a social or stress drinking. But with frequent alcohol use, their body and brain got more dependent, making cravings tougher to resist.
You may feel stuck in the “gray area” of drinking, but by understanding where you fit and addressing the root causes driving your cravings, you can find your path out.
The good news is that no matter which type you identify with, you can change your relationship with alcohol through a holistic approach. Since alcohol cravings are tied to blood sugar spikes and drops, adjusting your diet to keep your blood sugar stable can make a big difference. Getting proper nutrition along with more exercise, restful sleep, and stress-relieving practices can help restore balance.
Alcohol and nutrition
If you decide to become sober, therapy and counseling often seem like the first step. Both are great! Indeed, programs like Alcoholics Anonymous have helped thousands of people find their way to sobriety. But the mental and emotional side of alcohol use is only one part of the big picture.
In essence, alcohol is a nutrient. It profoundly impacts your physiology – from blood sugar to hormones to gut health. Understanding these connections creates opportunities for nutrition and lifestyle changes to support your healing.
Once consumed, alcohol travels through your digestive system into the bloodstream. From there, it reaches all your organs, finally ending up in your liver. Your liver uses enzymes to break down the alcohol, producing several toxic intermediate substances before the alcohol is finally discharged through your urine, stool, and breath. This overextended process can damage your liver over time.
Excess alcohol also triggers a cellular pathway called the microsomal ethanol oxidizing system that disturbs your hormones, increases oxidative damage, and expends energy. In short, metabolizing alcohol stresses multiple systems. Its metabolization also uses up your body’s resources of important vitamins and minerals, such as B vitamins, vitamin C, and iron.
But there’s also a link to blood sugar. Intriguingly, research reveals that 95 percent of alcoholics have low blood sugar. Alcohol dangerously dysregulates blood sugar levels. When your blood sugar drops, you may find you get alcohol cravings akin to sugar cravings that are hard to resist.
These blood sugar spikes and crashes also disrupt your hormone system. Your pancreas produces the hormones insulin to lower high blood sugar and glucagon to raise low blood sugar. But excessive drinking trains your body to depend on alcohol for regulating blood sugar. Consequently, the complex interplay between insulin, glucagon, and hormones like estrogen and cortisol falters. This has adverse effects on your metabolism and weight management.
Your gut health also suffers under the influence of alcohol. An emerging field of research explores the trillions of beneficial bacteria in your gut that appear to aid immunity, sleep, mood, and more. But alcohol can decimate healthy gut bacteria. It also damages the intestinal lining of your gut, allowing small particles and toxins to “leak” into your blood, creating inflammation.
Finally, alcohol affects your brain. The temporary mood boost you get from drinking is associated with the release of feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and γ-Aminobutyric acid, or GABA. But excessive drinking causes imbalances in these neurotransmitters, which correlate to mood disorders and alcohol cravings. And that’s not all. By depleting brain nutrients, excessive drinking can literally cause your brain to shrink.
Alcohol dependence forms a web ensnaring your physiology on many fronts. But this also gives you more room to experiment with health and lifestyle changes to overcome your addiction.
Your 30-day nutrition challenge
Now comes the action part. Because alcohol is a nutrient that interacts with the other nutrients you consume and affects blood sugar, what you eat could make all the difference in your sobriety. This 30-day nutrition challenge is designed to curb alcohol cravings and support your body’s recovery from the damage done by alcohol.
You’ll need to adjust your eating habits in four key areas: meal timing, macronutrients, functional foods, and foods to avoid.
First, let’s talk about meal timing. To avoid blood sugar drops that can spike alcohol cravings, eat every three to four hours. This could mean five small meals in a day, or three regular meals and two snacks. Have breakfast within an hour of waking, a mid-afternoon snack between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m. when blood sugar falls, and finish eating three hours before bedtime.
Next, balance your macronutrients. Fill up on protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats. Protein is essential for taming urges – pack in 15 to 25 grams per meal and 10 to 15 grams for snacks. Add in complex carbs like fruits, veggies, and whole grains for sustained energy and fiber. Make sure to incorporate good fats like avocado and olive oil.
Third, eat functional foods that confer specific benefits for reducing drinking. For example, cinnamon is known to balance blood sugar, fermented foods like kimchi aid your gut health, and beets support your liver. Add these positive foods to as many meals as you can.
Finally, know what foods to stay clear of, such as highly processed food. Opt for whole, minimal processed foods like fresh fruit and veggies, fish and lean meat, and whole grains whenever possible. You don’t need to cut out sugar completely – it might even help you with alcohol cravings – but be mindful of its effect on blood sugar. Pairing sweets with a protein source can reduce the blood sugar spike.
Here’s an example of what you could eat in a day on this dietary plan. Imagine starting your day with eggs, spinach, and whole-grain toast washed down by coffee. Have an apple with almond butter as a morning snack. Lunch could be a green salad with salmon. As an afternoon snack, you could have red bell peppers and hummus. Finally, roast salmon with broccoli and sweet potatoes for dinner. Not too bad, right?
But hold up! Before starting this challenge, make sure you have a clear goal in mind. Beyond concrete goals like reducing drinking frequency, clarify how you want to feel after this – perhaps less irritable with your spouse, or more energized for your job.
With determination and the right eating strategy, you can make it through those critical first 30 days alcohol-free.
Lifestyle changes
Beyond your diet, lifestyle changes can help make all the difference in sticking to your sobriety. The most important factors to consider are movement, sleep, meditation, and community. Along with counseling and nutrition changes, these pillars enable “functional sobriety” – true healing to the roots of addiction.
First up, exercise. Countless studies demonstrate that physical activity enhances mood and cognition. But there are also several that suggest a concrete link between physical activity and maintaining sobriety. Make sure you pick activities you enjoy rather than seeing workouts as a punishment for “bad” behavior. Go for walks, take a dance class, or ride your bike. Pick what’s right for you!
Next, prioritize sleep. Proper rest fortifies physical and mental health. It also impacts your nutrition choices the next day, affecting sugar and alcohol cravings. Maintain a regular sleep-wake cycle, ditch screens before bed, optimize your sleep environment, and avoid late-day caffeine.
Meditation, mindfulness, and other spiritual practices have also been shown to benefit sobriety. If you’ve never tried anything like that, start with box breathing: Inhale for a count of four, hold for four, exhale for four, and hold for four. Repeat, focusing on calming your body and observing your breath.
Finally, connect with supportive communities, on and offline. Human bonds foster healing. There’s evidence that programs like Alcoholics Anonymous succeed in large part through their emphasis on community. If AA isn’t for you, research other recovery meetings, or seek out sober friends.
By supporting your body and mind in these ways, you’ll forget counting the days since your last drink and find sustainable wellness. Be patient and believe in yourself. Stay focused on the person you want to become and let that vision guide your actions each day. The path is certainly not without challenges, but the destination makes it all worthwhile. You will get there!
Conclusion
Sobriety is best approached holistically.
You don’t need to label yourself a full-blown alcoholic to rethink your relationship with alcohol. Determining whether you’re a social, stress, or habitual drinker can help you understand your drinking habits.
Another key revelation is that alcohol cravings connect to blood sugar spikes and drops. So nutrition and lifestyle changes offer a fresh solution for addressing harmful alcohol habits and their root cause. Adjusting your diet to stabilize blood sugar can curb urges.
A 30-day nutrition challenge tackling meal timing, macros, functional foods, and foods to avoid can support your body’s recovery. Complementary lifestyle pillars like exercise, sleep, meditation, and community provide additional tools to achieve “functional sobriety” – healing addiction’s root causes holistically.
With self-awareness, proper nutrition, and lifestyle changes, you can break free of alcohol’s grip and create sustainable wellness on your journey of growth.
About the Author
Brooke Scheller