Diet: Project Fail

This is from the Telegraph:

 

'Drunkorexia slimmers skip meals for alcohol'

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor

Last Updated: 2:42am GMT 18/03/2008

Women are increasingly skipping meals in order to "spend" their daily calories on drink in a phenomenon known as "drunkorexia".

Gram for gram alcohol has more calories
than carbohydrate or protein

With pressure on young women to drink but also remain slim, many are now swapping dinner for a large glass or two of wine.

Slimming clubs where food items are given points and dieters have to stick to a daily limit may encourage the practice, according to experts.

They said the habit, widespread in America, is becoming more common in Britain.

Prof Janet Treasure, the head of the eating disorder unit at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, said the practice was very dangerous as it was effectively combining binge drinking and disordered eating patterns.

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"They get fully hooked, it is an extremely noxious thing. It is more common with bulimia than anorexia but you get the combination of empty calories with no nutritional value and the risky behaviour that goes with being drunk."

Gram for gram alcohol has more calories than carbohydrate or protein and a small 150ml glass of white wine can contain 150 to 170 calories.

This would mean a large pub glass of wine which is commonly 250ml would hold as many calories as an average light lunch.

A shot of vodka with a low calorie tonic mixer is a more modest 100 calories while some beer can be a gut-busting 250 calories a pint.

Susan Price, the spokesman for the British Dietetic Association, said missing meals in order to drink more was not an appropriate way to lose weight or remain a healthy weight.

"You are more likely to be binge drinking. What you should do is eat a healthy balanced diet and choose low calorie mixers and non-alcohol low calorie soft drinks."

 

Awesome. Does this mean there's a support group? I'd love to attend some of the meetings. You decided to skip some meals because you strictly budgeted your caloric intake to include nothing but cocktails? Awesome. I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. Your rationalization skills are on par with my own. Let me raise a glass to all the drunk but soon to be skinny chicks! The article doesn't indicate if this behavior is perfect or not. In a perfect scenario, the women skip a meal, have some cocktails, then seek out sexorcise.

Diet: Day 10

For the most part, I'm hanging in there. Breakfast is easy, in that I enjoy the coffee and the fruit. While the idea of bacon, toast and jam, grits, omelettes, hash browns, ham, and a tall café con leche sounds like something I'd be interested in, I really don't have the time for all that. My weekday breakfasts suit me just fine. Lunch, however, is a little more troubling. My M-F lunch consists of escaping from work and hanging out at a restaurant for the better part of an hour. Since the beginning of the diet, I mostly sit at my desk eating celery and carrots. This makes the work day seem much longer, and infinitely more miserable. Yesterday's lunch was running errands and walking around the park, just to change up the routine.

Dinner hasn't been too bad. For one thing, I've been substituting alcohol for food. While the nutrition in a few whiskey and Diet Cokes doesn't quite measure up to a pile of catabolic foods, the drinks seem to make me a bit happier. Last night I didn't want either. I ate a few handfuls of Fiery Habanero Doritos along with about four ounces of spaghetti sauce with sausage chunks.

The shedding of the extra weight was supposed to make me feel better. Not having a spare tire around my waist was supposed to make me happier. Getting to that point is making me feel depressed. I have little doubts that what's missing is the exercise component. My sedentary lifestyle needs to change a bit. Diet alone may shed some pounds, but it's not a long term solution.

Diet: Day 6

Went to bed on Thursday night at about 8pm, so my batteries were fully charged for Friday. Sleep is an interesting diet strategy. While I'm busy sawing logs, there's little opportunity to stuff my face with pizza. Maybe I should aim for 12 hours of sleep every night.

Friday's breakfast consisted of fruit salad (blueberries, mango, strawberries) and Friday's lunch was my usual rabbit mix of celery, carrots and radishes. Friday supper was a slice of hickory smoked turkey (note: hickory is a bit too strong for the delicate flavor of turkey) and two slices of salami. I realize the cold cuts aren't exactly diet food, but that meat was the only solid food eaten on Friday night.

I brought home bags of citrus from work, so the juicing process started around 8 PM, and drank quite a few grapefruit and vodka cocktails.

The ratio I like for this drink is the juice of one small grapefruit, one shot of vodka, three ice cubes, and two shakes of salt. Stir. I serve the cocktails in Old Fashioned glasses, and one would be amazed at the rate of consumption by the average guest.

Let's see what I was ingesting.

Vodka- 1 oz. - 60 calories
Grapefruit Juice - 6 oz. - 72 calories

That's around 130 calories per drink, and I tossed back 6 or 7, so most likely I drank around 500 calories. Maybe the alcohol isn't such a good idea. On the other hand, I stayed up until around 2 am, so I'm sure I burned more calories while entertaining I would from sleeping. Yes, the power of rationalization.

Before bed I popped two Phillips tablets. As of this morning I can report the good news. Gentle. Overnight. Relief.

 
The woman in the video is gobbling down the tablets like Altoids, but I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you would enjoy having a bathroom emergency while out to the movies. I looked into how the Milk of Magnesia works.

"Milk of magnesia is a saline type laxative. This means that the magnesia acts to pull a salt or saline solution into the intestines from the blood. This excessive fluid then provides a flushing or laxative action within the intestines."

So while the tablets won't give you explosive diarrhea or anything, your large intestine filled with water usually requires some corrective action on your part. There's no way I'd take three of those on a date.

Breakfast this morning was a piece of bacon. Once again, I know it's not a diet food, but it was good for the soul. I also drank a few cups of coffee with just a touch of the fat free International Delight French Vanilla creamer. One tablespoon of that stuff contains 30 calories combined with all sorts of unnatural gums and chemicals. Mmmmm.