Happy New Year fellow Berserkers !
After celebrating the Holidays with wine and song, I wonder if wine consumption dips during the winter. I know in Wisconsin they drink a lot of heavy cognac concoctions during the winter. What are you imbibing during the winter post -holiday season?
Cheers,
Theopatra
Easy for me. Nothing. I do ‘Dry January’ after a very wet Nov-Dec!
I get back to the deeper reds, Zins, Petite Syrah, Syrah-Grenache-Mouverdre blends. Also beer which I only drink in winter.
We’re dry for at least January, as usual, but when we’re drinking, it’s pretty much the same as far as wine goes. The same food still calls for the same sort of wine. We do tend to have more Manhattans and fewer spritzes, though, when it comes to cocktails.
im never quite sure what the reason for dry january being such a thing is. just the overdrinking that people do during the holidays? i feel like most of us also believe that wine (at least red wine) has some solid health benefits, so dry january seems to fly in the face of that
I’ll bite. Because the Holiday Season is a whole lot of fun (say mid-Nov through the end of Dec) and you need to get rid of that ‘fun’ or it can compound over a bunch of years and you wind up really fat. For me, I’m in balance through most of the year, and by cutting out carbs and alcohol in Jan and maybe part of Feb, I can indulge (overindulge) during the Holiday Season without a thought or any guilt. I’m pushing 60 and I weigh less now than I did 30 years ago.
And while I’m sure 1 glass of red wine has health benefits, for me, I’ve never had 1 glass of wine. If I have 1, I’ll have 3. Maybe 4. So better to have zero.
For starters, I don’t think of myself as “overdrinking” during the holidays, with all the negative connotations that implies. But those couple of months do in aggregate skew to the more indulgent side.
I’m in much the same camp as Peter. I’ve been in the same 10 pound range my entire adult life, and I live a healthy lifestyle. But after a yearly Asia trip in the fall and then the holidays, I usually end the year at the top of that range, and like getting down again. A ketogenic diet works extremely well for me. Though wine in small quantities is possible on keto, I would prefer to have none at all than always be limited - if something is delicious, I’m going to want more than just a small glass! Plus, when your body is processing alcohol, it isn’t burning fat, which defeats the purpose of a diet formulated to maximize fat oxidation. I want the best fat burn I can get for my time and effort. Alcohol gets in the way of that. Finally, going without wine helps me “get into” the diet mentally. The possible health benefits of red wine are not so significant that giving it up for a couple of months is going to make me less healthy, especially when those two months are spent eating incredibly healthfully.
I absolutely believe wine can be a part of a healthy lifestyle. We drink moderately and responsibly with dinner nearly every day, from March on-wards. But I enjoy the January reset, both physically and mentally.
100% agree with this. 1 ‘regular sized’ glass does nothing for me, other than make me want more. Easier to turn the switch to off vs turn the dimmer down to low.