Lessons from Dry January | Kettlebell Fat Blast

Welcome into the platform podcast Kettlebell fat blast edition. I am your host, Jordan Kuhnirite, founder and head coach of the Twin Cities Kettlebell Club. On these special episodes, I'm going to be telling you about my own personal journey to get into the best shape of my life and shit's about to get real. I'm going to take you along on this journey with me and tell you about the good, the bad, the ugly, and share the successes and struggles along the way. I'll talk about the frameworks and methods that I'm applying to accomplish this goal and the why behind them without the BS and fluff you see on social media every day. I'm excited and nervous to be kicking off these episodes and in episode number two, I'm going to get into my lessons from dry January. Some of my history with addictive, destructive, maladaptive behaviors in the past, why that matters and why I decided to take on a dry January and some of the lessons that I learned from it and as well as some of the strategies that I employed to successfully complete it. Hopefully, some lessons that can be pulled forward as I move forward and hopefully those strategies that you can employ in your own life as well around anything that you struggle with, whether it be alcohol or other substances or food. That's definitely a through line that can tie in elsewhere. If you're interested in following along on my journey, you can follow my special Instagram profile at kettlebell fat blast all one word. And as always, if you're appreciating the content that I'm putting out there, I would appreciate if you would support the show by supporting my affiliates and leaving a five star rating and review in your app of choice. Thank you so much for listening. Alright, welcome into another episode of the platform podcast. This one is a kettlebell fat blast podcast episode talking a little bit about dry January and how that went. So in case you missed my episode with Audrey Carlson, she is a licensed medical family therapist as well as an addiction counselor. She talked in late December about doing dry January and some tips for a successful dry January and how you could go about setting yourself up for a successful month off from drinking and why that might be important in some of the benefits of that. I took that on myself and I got into a lot of the reasons why in in previous episodes, but in case you missed those episodes, and this is the first time you're you're tuning in. I have had a history in my life of using substances to mask pain and hide from various things. I have a history of self destructive behavioral patterns. So, you know, starting out very young. You know, say, I think six sixth grade is the first time I can remember intentionally not eating intentionally making myself throw up intentionally using laxatives to go to the bathroom to try and keep my weight down. So I had a proclivity for eating disorder, disordered behavior, self destructive types of behaviors restrictive and and binging patterns, you know, so addictive type of addictive type of patterns. And those things when you have them, especially at such a young age are often things that that are with you for a while and things that sometimes take professional intervention to help you deal with, which is somewhat the case for me, though, I never I never got to the point where I needed like professional intervention for eating disorders, but I have had therapy. I've had, you know, those are things that we've talked about in therapy. You know, so, you know, and then, you know, into into high school, I probably went the other direction and probably started having body dysmorphia a little bit, which is basically the antithesis of anorexia or the other side, the other side of the spectrum of anorexia where an anorexia you believe that you're never thin enough. And even someone who is incredibly incredibly thin will still view themselves as not skinny enough to be attractive or to be what they, you know, what they want in the thinner they get the better they feel about themselves body dysmorphia is kind of the other side of that it's a it's a disorder it's a disorder pattern where you're never big enough muscular enough. And you you legitimately don't perceive your body in the same way that other people do and some muscularity and size and things are things that that can be pursued to a level that's that's unhealthy, you know, you see some some bodybuilders not all have this. You know, and in some, you know, have other disordered behaviors, but not all that is a misnomer that that is often out there that all that all bodybuilders have body dysmorphia now some of them are huge and they know that they're huge. But there are some that no matter how big they get they still don't they still don't perceive themselves as being huge or strong enough or big enough for muscular enough ripped enough, etc. So I kind of went that direction though it wasn't about being ripped it was just about being huge. You know, and then into college I, you know, transitioned more to binge pattern behaviors and binge drinking binge eating, you know, taking, taking pain medication that I was prescribed for back injury and then, you know, and then when they wouldn't refill my prescriptions buying them, you know, just from from a drug dealer. You know, getting getting bike it in which was fairly easy to do when you're on a college campus, but, you know, abusing, abusing painkillers, abusing muscle relaxants, abusing alcohol, abusing marijuana, all of those things kind of in combination, you know, especially in college, especially late in college when I did legitimately have a back injury, but anyways, so I have a history of problems with substances in general, and especially towards binge and shame are my main are my main patterns, anorexia was never my favorite thing because, you know, why deny yourself something that you really truly enjoy and you can just like over indulge on it and then throw it up. So that's, you know, that was the logic behind, you know, going more in the bulimic binge pattern than doing the anorexia thing, not that there was necessarily a logic behind it, but really just that's my personality, you know, too much is always better than, you know, not enough. So, you know, as I, as I've worked through a lot of these these struggles, you know, in my, in my adult life, you know, I, I largely left problematic drinking behind me, you know, and I, I definitely kicked, I definitely kicked any painkiller abuse, you know, relatively early. You know, I had, I had some some good people around me, you know, who loved me who told me I was, I was screwing things up, you know, not going to class and, you know, et cetera, my senior year college, so I mostly kicked, I mostly kicked that habit, you know, shortly, shortly after, shortly after my back injury finally started healing, but yeah, the binge drinking and smoking weed and those types of things. You know, took a lot longer, but into my, you know, into my mid 20s, and into my later 20s, I mostly got my drinking under control, especially when I decided to get healthy and lose weight and got really got into health and fitness and was a personal trainer, you know, I was not drinking very much. There was actually a period of time I took, like, almost a year off from drinking basically at all, I would very rarely drink, you know, and, and that was, and that was important for what I was trying to do for as far as losing weight and, you know, getting healthier. So, I didn't drink very much or hardly ever, but, you know, into my, into my 30s and, and, and now, you know, I'm 37 now, I, I still have some issues with alcohol and, and how it crops up and for me, it's, it's kind of, it can be kind of a slippery slope. And, and that's really what I realized during the pandemic is that for me, it really became a thing that filled the gaps, you know, and what I mean by that is I didn't have my usual routine, I didn't have my, I didn't have my daily commute, I didn't have the structure in my life that helped kind of anchor me to a routine. I couldn't go see people, I didn't have my community, I couldn't go see my friends, and, and a lot of those things, so I found myself during the pandemic, drinking a lot more than I should, particularly with frequency was really kind of how it started, you know, kind of started as like a drink a day, every day, though, that was a thing like having a drink or to every day. And, and then, and then it was a drink after work or after I worked out, and then, but on Saturday night or Friday night, you know, going into the weekend, I would drink several drinks, because I didn't have to work the next day, or I didn't have to be up early for meetings, right, you know, so, so then it would be, you know, several drinks, and then it would be. It would be, you know, many, many drinks, you know, like six, seven, eight drinks in a city, you know, getting, getting drunk by myself, which is not a good thing, you know, and so I realized that that I was backsliding into into a, into a bad, into a bad pattern. And then, you know, the cumulative number of drinks for the week might, you know, was progressively creeping up, even though I was like maybe only getting drunk and not even like super drunk, but like getting drunk enough that I would be, be buzzed and have maybe wake up with a, with a slight headache in the morning, you know, a slight hangover. But I was also growing a tolerance, which is, you know, as we learned from Audrey, you know, one of the signs that you, you are, you know, trending towards problematic drinking, right, when you're, when you're, you need more and more to get the same effect and you're, you're intentionally drinking more to get the, if the desired effect, you know, you know, so it was trending the wrong direction and what had been, you know, drink a day became two drinks a day plus, you know, a binge on, on a weekend or, you know, et cetera, you know, so those, those types of patterns can, can really become problematic and I'm happy that now I have a level of awareness when I see those things happening that I can kind of press pause and take a time out or realize I at least am observational enough about it and recognize the patterns and realize that things are going the wrong direction. Sometimes it takes a little while and it gets worse than it should, maybe before, before I recognize it, but it's, I'm getting better and better about it and the more times that I take time to look into why it is I am the way I am, the better and better, I get about it. So, this, this dry January, which is not something that I've participated in very often in my life, honestly, it was never something that I felt particularly necessary, it was just something, like if I decided to quit drinking, I just quit drinking for a period of time, I didn't, I didn't have an arbitrary reason or, you know, do it, you know, but this was, this was intentional, it was a, it was a chance for me to step back in these unique circumstances that is COVID quarantining at home, you know, or sheltering in place, staying at home, you know, put me in a little bit of a pressure cooker, like it did for all of us and gave me the opportunity to really look at some of the triggers and some of the things that that are that have led me down this path and why I felt it necessary to do this because it was suboptimal what I was doing and it was taking me away from the goals, the stated goals that I had and I wasn't living congruently with what I wanted to be doing with my team, with my, you know, with my athletes that I coach with my nutrition clients, right, so I felt like it was important, you know, to, again, refer back to like the imposter syndrome thing, you know, the drinking patterns made me feel more like a fraud because I was living incongruously with what I was telling people, you know, as far as sustainable, healthy lifestyles is really what my coaching is about and drinking as much and as frequently as I am or was was not a sustainable healthy lifestyles, so the more I did that, the less the more like a fraud I felt, the more like an imposter I felt and that was not helpful. So I was beginning to feel like I was living incongruently with what I was telling people, so that was a case of imposter syndrome being legitimate because I was doing a behavior that was definitely not in line with the identity that I was putting forward to the world, so it was, you know, that cognitive dissonance was, was giving me some legitimate feedback that it was time for me to look at myself and look at what I was doing and take some time. So that's why I reached out to Audrey and got her help, you know, privately first and then asked her to come on to the podcast. You know, she wasn't treating me in a professional capacity she just gave me some advice and pointed me to some resources. I got other professional help outside of Audrey because that's a relationship that I don't want to cross those boundaries so we didn't do that, but she has been a great support to me as a friend and as a teammate. So, thank you Audrey I very much appreciate you I want to recognize that that's important, you know, but I also want to call out that you know I didn't I didn't hire her for that you know I reached out to other resources that I had for that so. But anyways, so you know into dry January I can say that I did I did successfully complete my intentional dry January. Though I did not go all the way to January 31 January 30 was a Saturday and a Saturday night and I had gotten a really good deal on some on some Chilean sea bass. And I when I purchased the sea bass I decided okay whenever I cook this I am going to have a nice glass of wine with this sea bass because sea bass is not cheap. And it's kind of a decadent thing for me I don't get to eat it often and I have to cook it when my wife generally isn't in the house because she doesn't like the smell of fish. So I had to wait until she was going to be at work. And so it just so happened that she worked that weekend and I was able to I was able to cook it that Saturday and and I had a nice glass of chardonnay with it. I had to go out and buy a special bottle I just drank a glass of box chardonnay black box chardonnay that my wife had in the fridge. But it went well with the meal it was a planned thing which was one of the things that that we had talked about that Audrey and I had talked about on the podcast like plant if you're if you're going to start drinking or you know you're going to take a moderation approach one of the approaches is to plan your drinking and to. Only drink when it's planned and to that limits your the amount that you're going to drink and so I had one glass of wine with my fish as the planned and to my dry January it was excellent. And I got to really kind of savor the flavor of the wine which was great and savor the food and enjoy the experience and they are kind of complimentary for me because I have some background in that. That was really important to me that I that I kind of ended it on my terms and I didn't feel it was important to make the arbitrary deadline of you know all the way through January 31st it was just more important to me that I ended it on my terms and could show myself that I can have a moderation approach successfully and reinforce that pattern which was great and I did that. So but it's also important that you know I reflected back on what were the lessons that I learned what did I learn about myself maybe these are some things that can that can help other people you know so you know as I journaled and kind of paid attention to what my what my triggers are like a lot of people stress is it is a trigger for me. And you know boredom is also a trigger for me which is a big part of the reason I think that during the pandemic when there weren't as many social activities there weren't things going on as much I didn't have to take the kids to. Hockey practice you know things like that like there weren't as many social commitments. You know and then with my wife being in graduate school and working in the in the ER evenings sometimes you know there's a lot of there's a lot of nights alone at home with not a lot to do and I'm not a huge TV watcher so there wasn't a ton for me to do and so boredom was sometimes a reason why I would have. Why I would have a drink and one of my good friends from college actually started a podcast during quarantine that was about bourbons and spirits and he and a friend were reviewing different bourbons and early early on in quarantine you know that was one of the ways that I could kind of connect was to get the same bottle of bourbon and drink the same bourbon and. appreciate the same bourbon and you know so it was kind of a thing that I would do out of boredom and that was usually not a terrible terrible problem but you know when you start drinking because your board it can become problematic and then it was a way for me that I was kind of also I realized that I was seeking. Social connection so I was I was looking for you know I would love to be able to get together with with my friends and enjoy a bourbon with them you know that's a different experience that's a social experience and what I realize very very late. You know but but during this this process of dry January what I realized is what I miss more than anything about those those experiences is the the shared experience of of having a drink with with friends I miss the social component I do like the alcohol and I do like appreciating wine with with other people who are wine aficionados I appreciate having a beer with people who are beerficionados I appreciate having a bourbon with people who are bourbon aficionados because it's a shared experience where you talk about the you talk about what you like about the beer the wine the bourbon whatever and you you know it's a it's a shared sent you know sensory experience I almost said sensual which would sound weird you know but I guess it is sensual but not in not in a sexual way but a shared sensory experience with friends right and it kind of gives you a shared context to to enjoy that that situation. So I really really like that that's one of the things I liked about being a bartender is I would get to make a drink for somebody and get to see their reaction it's like being a chef right you make a dish for someone you get to see them eat it and see their enjoyment to talk to them about it right I love that about being a bartender you know making recommendations that were good recommendations I love doing those things. So I've really come to realize that loneliness is a big trigger for me for just substances in general not wanting to feel alone that can be food that can be alcohol right just that's a big trigger for me not wanting to feel alone and feeling alone makes me want to turn to substances to feel better and that's not that's not helpful because what I realized again probably much later than I probably should have is that when I drink by myself I enjoy like the first drink or two but once I get to the point of where it's starting to make me intoxicated or I'm starting you know I'm starting to get a buzz which is usually for me drink three I'm a bigger guy so it usually takes me a little bit longer you know but like drink three drink four then I'm then I'm I'm not enjoying it the loneliness is not improving because I'm drinking by myself oh weird but you know a depressant like alcohol actually makes that loneliness works it really not something that should be shocking you know and logically it's not but for me it was kind of a big revelation that I was I was trying to simulate the experience of drinking with friends by drinking by myself which is really not really not a good plan so I've I've come to realize that that drinking by myself is is a big is a big problem you know so I don't want to drink by myself but realizing that that it actually makes me miss my friends more helps me understand the why I like it and I now I don't feel guilty about enjoying it kind of normalized for me that oh maybe it's not I don't have a problem with you know with moderation because I have a problem with alcohol I have a problem with missing my friends that's the problem so oh what do I need to do to fix that I need to connect with my friends more I don't need to drink more I need to connect with my friends more so I've made it a point of trying to schedule regular calls with my friends and you know see people that I miss and tell them that I miss them and make it a point to try and have more regular contact with people right connection is the antithesis of addiction is something that I've read recently as I've been reading about this so connection to others and connection to community is one of the best antidotes to addictive behavior and addiction so it is something for me that was that was important to realize and maybe you know for other people it's a relatively obvious thing but for me it was like a big epiphany to realize that what I actually miss was connection to my friends and I was trying to fake it by drinking by myself and you know anyways so I've kind of stopped doing that and tried to replace it more with connection and you know and another big one for me was like flavor seeking you know realizing that it's kind of just a habitual thing right but you know at the end of the day you like the taste of a beer or you like the taste of a bourbon and your body kind of associates it with unwinding and destressing but there's also a part of it that is just like I like things that taste like something I like flavor I'm a you know I'm a foodie I like good food I cook I'm you know I'm a bartender I like making drinks I know about these things and what they all have in common is flavor so flavor seeking is definitely part of that and that's like part of the reason sometimes people eat food even when they're not hungry you know is they're just they just are seeking flavor they're seeking sensory input they're seeking stimulation you know and I'm definitely one of those people like if there's food in front of me that I know is good and I like it even if I'm full a lot of times I will continue eating it so that's why I have to make a point to remove it from my to remove it from my plate or you know remove it from the table if I'm no longer hungry so a big thing for me has actually been drinking sparkling water flavored sparkling water I have you know it was comical you know you know I loaded up my cart with 678 different things of like bubbly sparkling water in different flavors I had the colors of the rainbow in our in our fridge and in our store you know in our pantry ready ready to throw a new case in the fridge when the previous one was gone so but just realizing that I like flavor and replacing it with a better option you know I like the fizz I like the flavor of the water and it gives me something that doesn't have any calories I'm still just drinking water but it's got a little bit of flavor it's got a little bit of fizz that was a big thing for me you know so so a lot of just small things small replacements but realizing you know when I'm bored find something to do that that so that you're not bored weird when you're stressed out do stress management techniques take a walk meditate journaling has been really big for me I was I was journaling you know about my feelings and about my triggers now I've been doing a lot more focused effort around my personal development and my business focus you know what I need to do at work during my day job what I want to do with my clients what I want to do with my you know with my business for the Twin Cities Cadillac Club deciding I was going to do a competition October 9th you know hosting the competition here in the Twin Cities you know starting to work on on other projects you know so a lot of those things when you're when you're bored find other things to do when you're stressed do stress management techniques techniques when you're lonely call someone that you love and tell them that you miss them tell them that you love them talk to them see what's going on. You know in their life you know super simple it would seem but how many of us actually do it like make time and one thing I've I've found helpful is to actually schedule time and say like hey can we have a regular call like I'm going to call you every two weeks right I'm going to call you on the weekend right you know it can be helpful so Those are just some of the things that that I've learned in you know I really think it was I really think it was useful there's a lot of lessons that that translate you know from for you know for me it's alcohol I've largely done so I've done a lot of work with food already and it was I didn't realize that I needed to do work with alcohol to I probably should have realized that you know I dealt with you know the painkiller thing. I then I dealt with alcohol now and I'm sorry then I dealt with food now and now I needed to deal with alcohol you know so just keep knocking things off but you know of course the triggers are mostly the same it's mostly the same stuff and it's just a matter of figuring those things out and finding healthy substitutions or other things so it's going to be interesting to see I'm going to I'm going to try and take these lessons learned and I'm going to attempt to do a moderation approach again you know now with with better clarity around what my triggers are and with better you know structures in place and in knowing what it is I need to do and what I don't want to do I'm going to start doing more I'm going to start doing more of those things but so my approach is my plan to approach is moderation and having planned drinks you know once once twice a week. Within you know very reasonable confines. But if that becomes difficult or if I find myself slipping back sliding then then the approach might just be to eliminate it again you know what it was nice to confirm that I can do that without without without much problem. approach might just be to eliminate it. Again, you know, well, it was nice to confirm that I can do that without without without much problem. I didn't I didn't have a ton of cravings. I had some I had some triggers, especially early on. But After about a week, it was it was mostly no big deal. So even even if I stopped by the liquor store to get wine for my wife, I was fine. But Anyways, that's my dry January story and some of the things I've learned and hopefully some some things that will be helpful helpful for other people. You know, talk to me about it non-social media or you know, text me, email me, Twinsidys, kettlebell, club at Gmail. I want to hear other people's other people's struggles insights successes, especially please tell me about the successes. I you know, I do want to if you if you have struggles, I do want to hear about those two, but especially the successes. If you rock to your dry January, if I can own that shit, I want to hear about it because I think we all need we all need to amplify some more positivity right now. So I hope I hope things are going well for you and you know, hit me up and we'll be back with another episode in the future. And more interviews are coming. So I've got some interviews on the docket that I'm that I'm super excited about. So I look forward to getting them out there. Thank y'all. And until next time. Stay well, grow or die. Talk to you later. Thanks for listening to this episode of the platform podcast. I'm Jordan Kunde-Wright. If you have a question, please email me at Twinsidys kettlebell club at Gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Twinsidys kettlebell club on Twitter at TCKB club online at Twinsidys kettlebell club.com. And please help us grow our reach and give us a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts until next time.