I Did Dry January and Lost 10 Pounds (And Other January Takeaways)

Decembers are filled with abundance. 

An abundance of festivities. 

An abundance of desserts. 

An abundance of days off from work. 

An abundance of wine.

As much as I love all of those abundances, by the end of the year, I’m over it. By New Year’s Eve, my body is screaming at me to stop overeating, overdrinking and staying up late and start losing those new extra pounds, getting to bed on time and getting back to normal routines. 

Around that time is also when I choose my one word resolution for the new year. This year, my word is Wholeness. In my quest for wholeness, I’m trying to make all the pieces of myself fit a little better together. 

That means, the piece of me that the scale tells me got a bit larger throughout the month of December needs to return to its normal size.

Enter Dry January. 

No alcohol for a month.

Total detox.

This was my second year completing Dry January (without cheating). Quite frankly, by the first of January, I was ready for an alcohol break anyway. And while I craved my weekend wine at 5 pm on the Friday of my first full week back at work, the 31 alcohol-free days actually did bring me all the benefits those articles and morning show segments promised.

I lost 10 pounds.

I slept better.

I woke up feeling ready to wake up.

I saved money.

I just felt better, like the December toxins had been released from my body and I started the new year, the new decade off with a clean slate.

Now that it’s February, I’m back to only drinking wine on the weekends, my usual alcohol consumption during most of the year. Because I don’t want to gain those 10 pounds back now that Dry January is over, I also incorporated new practices into my Body and Health pieces of my wholeness puzzle, including swimming and the Mediterranean diet. (Did you know the Mediterranean diet OKs red wine? So I switched from white to red.)

Dry January is something I plan to continue every year. (And dare I say, I’m considering a Sober October to prep for the next holiday season of abundance.)

My healthy January makes me optimistic for a healthy year ahead in some of the other parts of my life. Cheers to that!