Week 2 of my “A month without booze” challenge was a lot more difficult than week 1 was. Week 1 I ate well, hit the gym and stayed in on the weekend, fairly simple! This week I didn’t get to the gym as much as I had wanted to (only 3 times) so I had to make up for it by to eating amazing all week (which I should be doing anyway!). I went out and bought myself a new Hamilton Beach Grill with Panini Press and it freakin’ ROCKS! I made some grilled chicken wraps on it, learning that I need to buy bigger tortillas next time to keep all of my veggies in it. I also used it to make some BBQ style chicken for my homemade BBQ chicken pita pizza which was probably in the top 2 pizza’s I’ve EVER HAD IN MY LIFE!!! (Made my own sauce using tomato paste, calorie wise BBQ sauce and garlic) then added BBQ chicken, green and red peppers, red onion, pineapple, hot peppers, avocado and light marble cheese, all on a 6” whole wheat pita and topped off with Frank’s Red Hot… AMAZING! I think I actually made supper at home every night this week for the first time in a years. It was challenging, but fantastic!
As this is called the “A month without booze” challenge, I guess I should talk about my fight with not having a drink. Wow, that makes me sound like an alcoholic! I swear I’m not, I just enjoy a good beer or glass of wine.
The hockey team I coach (the Bedford Blues Atom AAA team) made provincials this year and this past weekend we headed to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to play in them. The tournament started Thursday afternoon but I had to work and couldn’t head down until early Saturday morning (it’s a 4 ½ hr drive from Halifax to Sydney Mines) and I headed right to the rink. Before I left I made my own breakfast, brought snacks and made my own lunch for the road trip to Sydney Mines, Cape Breton and I was hoping I was going to be able to eat well while down there, but I was grossly mistaken! No matter where we went to eat it seems that all of the food that you get at any restaurant in Sydney Mines was either deep fried (I inquired about the “veggie basket” to find out the veggies were beer battered and deep fried) or covered in mayo (I ordered the “turkey burger” to have it come out as pulled turkey mixed with about a pound of mayo and covered in stove top stuffing and on a hamburger bun). From this I learned, when on a roadie, if you want to eat healthy, bring your own food in a cooler. Lesson learned!
When I headed out on the road, I went, knowing very well that hockey road trips and beer go hand in hand, especially when there’s poker with the hockey dads involved. This was going to be my first true test! At this point I was on day 13 without booze and was going strong but as soon as I got to the hotel one of the other coaches starts in with the “wanna beer Scott? Want a beer?”. Bastard! I resisted without much effort initially but when we went for our lovely meal and I saw what was put in front of me for food, I almost said “screw it, this weekend’s a loss” and ordered a beer, but I decided against it to try and save SOME of the weekend.
I lasted the whole day and into the evening, being taunted and tormented by some of the dads and of course my fellow coaches to have a drink, but I resisted every time I was offered one and was pretty proud of myself. We played poker and watched hockey later that night in the hotel bar and I was quite content to sit there and drink my water for 3 hours and take everyone’s money. I ended up winning the night and walking away with just over $100 and didn’t have a drop of booze. It seems that being sober has more benefits than I realized it did!
Our team ended up making the finals but losing 4-3 in Over Time… devastating!! The kids were pretty upset, and admittedly, so were we, but it was a great weekend regardless and I made it a few more days through my challenge learning a few more lessons on being prepared for road trips when wanting to eat healthy.
Stay tuned for the Week 3 update next week!
Read “A month without booze…“
Read “A month without booze: Week 1“
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