Before I get any angry comments about alcoholism: I am not saying “yay alcoholism!”

If you cannot drink in moderation, it is most likely a coping mechanism for deeper issues. (So let’s deal with the deeper issues!)

But this post is for people who are afraid of beer, wine, or liquor for the calories or weight gain. People who feel that their social life is hindered by not only fear of food- but fear of the evil calories of alcohol.

If you’re afraid of the bingeing or “overeating” you do during or after alcohol, that means you need to be eating more. If you binge or stuff your face every time you drink, it means your body is using your defenses being down as an opportunity to get in more calories.

Do not mistake this as a problem with alcohol. This has everything to do with you needing to eat more! In general!

While drinking, your best bet is to eat carbohydrates before and during and after.

And to drink beer.

Or drink wine. Or liquor.

Whatever you like.

If you drink to excess you will feel shitty. It will mess with your day. It will tax your liver. You will sleep poorly. I don’t recommend it for a million other reasons before weight.

Most alcoholics are skinny. Which is another point that goes to show: skinny is not everything. Skinny does not equal health and happiness.

Alcohol does not inherently lead to weight gain.

Alcohol is not a calorie concern. Don’t obsessed over drinking “skinny” and having two vodka diet cokes and snacking sparsely on edamame.

Eat. Drink a bit. Enjoy your friends. Laugh. Sleep well.

Drink a beer. Or two.

Fuck It.

Seriously. Stop. If you are addicted at all to exercising, stop. If you have any past of restrictive eating or imbalanced energy intake and expenditure, stop. Stop stop stop.

I know how addictive exercise can be to a disordered eating/body dysmorphic mind. I know. I also know that moving and weight bearing activity can feel AMAZING and is VERY good for you and life affirming. But not the way so many of us do it, and not if your body needs to heal and become nourished and fix your metabolism.

Seriously. Stop.

Your body can regulate its eating and burning and metabolism easier and faster without exercising.

And, if you want to sit for 2 weeks, or 2 months… or more, straight on your couch, so be it.

I promise you will want to move again, and then and only then, when you genuinely want to move- can you add in exercising again.

Exercise should not be one of those things that stresses you out or makes you feel bad (doing or not doing it).

Only when you leave it and realize that your life and body are fine without it, can you add it back in in a healthy and sustainable way.

NOTE: For anyone who is going to comment and say “BUT EXERCISE IS GOOD FOR YOU”. I know. Believe me I know. Just not the way disordered eaters and exercisers do it. Stopping is more beneficial in that case. For anyobne who is going to comment and say “BUT EXERCISING MAKES ME FEEL SO GOOD”. I believe you, if you are sure you are not addicted or using it to go into a deficit or to “burn off your food” obsessively, then fine! But you secretly know if skipping exercise stresses you out in an obsessive way. You know!

Healthy and sustainable and life affirming movement and activity is part of continuing to allow your body to be a Badass machine… but not in the beginning. And maybe not for a while.

You’ll know when to add it back in. You add it back in when its just a nice addition to your day, not a way to “repent” or obsessively feel like you are countering all the eating you are doing.

And check out my workbook if you haven’t already.

Fuck Diets. Fuck being skinny.

Controlling food is a microcosm of the bigger picture: The way we look at our whole lives. We tend to treat food the way we wish we could treat everything. We want to control it, we don’t trust it to work out, and we don’t trust ourselves to make the right decisions.

Eating can then become the one thing we think we actually can control: When everything else is impossible, “maybe I can at least stick to this diet this time. Maybe I can at least control my body.”

Trying to shrink away and control our body’s external appearance often represents our fear or shame over being seen. Being afraid to exist. Being afraid to be ok. Being afraid to be enough. Being afraid to take up space and be your own unique human being. Being afraid that the things we have to say, people won’t want to hear.

But we deserve to be alive. We don’t need to walk around in skeletal/jacked body armor in order to be worthy of love and peace and happiness and respect and food and nourishment and rest and ease and fulfillment.

Sometimes we believe that shrinking away and shielding ourselves through our attempts at perfection will strengthen us, but instead it weakens us. Because life doesn’t actually work that way. Hardening your heart doesn’t mean that no one will ever hurt you again. And hardening your body doesn’t mean that we going for our fullest potential. Denial is not the way to fulfillment. The world opens up to us and softens when we do the same to the world.

Action, love, nourishment, trust, and letting go are the keys to getting what we want. We want to be alive, to experience things and to connect to people and to allow our full potential, and controlling what you eat and what you look like does not have a place in that. You can still dress well, and look vibrant and beautiful and happy and free and glowing without doing a thing to control it.

Truth dagger: We cannot control anything. Not even our bodies. Our bodies exist as they will. Treating your body with love and respect will only do wonders for your body, but still, it cannot control any outcomes. In the end we know this. Health, and longevity, and extenuating circumstance are not fully in our control. So best to stop pretending we can.

Open up, and promise yourself to try to let go a little bit today. To actively trust the world to guide you and support you and show you. Actively trust your body to go through the process of recovery and nourishment and no control. Trusting will not lead you astray, and a little voice inside you knows that is unwaveringly true.

Don’t shrink away from your life. Don’t be afraid of existing and taking up space and being “imperfect”. That IS life. Life is about action, not control. Action takes your forward, control spins you in a pointless, fruitless circle.

Trust.

And fuck it.