Alcohol, My Weakness No More

At my most fit I had given up alcohol. I also crawled under a rock and refused to leave my apartment for anything but work, the gym or a run in the park. It's a lot harder to live that lifestyle now. As my life and my friend's lives evolve from post college grads to dream achievers I have engagement parties and weddings, nights at the club to support blossoming DJ careers, Lakers games at the bar and liquor filled dinner parties on to attend.

My problem is that alcohol not only lowers my social inhibitions, it lowers my food inhibitions. Sure, on a normal day my self control can hold me back from that pastrami sandwich that beckons from the Hat but put a few vodka club sodas or gin & tonics in me and I'll eat anything that sounds remotely bad for me.

I feel that maintaining a healthy lifestyle has a lot to do with planning and control. In a sense, alcohol is the anti thesis of a healthy lifestyle, not counting the single glass of red wine that is supposed to be good for your heart.

Last night the fiance and I headed over to Joe's Sushi, one of my favorite sushi places. Not because of any exotic rolls or anything, in fact I dislike all that new fangled ginormous rolls they try to pawn off as sushi these days. Give me some salmon and uni sushi and a spicy tuna hand roll and I'm a happy girl. Anyway, Joe's is spectacular at the basics and for $24 the sushi chef in front of you will basically make you whatever you want, however much you want. Sure, some people would call that "all you can eat sushi," but that phrase brings to mind places like Todai and Hokkaido who have no business calling their rotten fish sushi in the first place.

That will be my last big meal for the next month. I'm attempting to shrink my stomach will 5-6 small meals consisting of no more than 200 calories at a time so that I can rev my metabolism all day. I actually only had an apple and one hard boiled egg all day in anticipation of the sushi gluttony at Joe's.

Here's my meal's damage:

2 pieces of salmon sushi - 120 calories
6 kumamoto oysters topped with roe - 57 calories
4 pieces of uni - 220 calories
1 alaska dynamite - 200 calories
4 pieces of a Philadelphia roll - 160 calories
4 pieces of a rainbow roll filled with spicy tuna - 210 calories
1 piece of unagi - 80 calories
2 side salads - 100 calories
1/3 a bottle of Kirin - 160 calories
Total last night of gluttony: 1307 calories

Looking back, the next time I go to have sushi I'm going to have a salad, 6 oysters and split a roll of spicy tuna with my honey. That'll put me at around 250 instead of that massive number. Portion control!

After the sushi we headed over to the bar to catch up with our newest couple friends K & K who were having dinner at a local pub. I have to pat myself on the back, despite the fact that the drinks were only $2.75 each, I only had a club soda on the rocks ;)

And the Lakers beat the Supersonics. Today was a good day.