Coffee and Booze
So you've made that resolution to lose some weight. Good for you. Here's a simple way to maintain a consistent daily deficit of 100 to 300 calories (or more) before you even lace up your gym shoes.
Give up coffee and alcohol.
Coffee (as most consume it) is usually full of stuff you don't want: tons of added sugar. Flavorings. Fancy extras like whipped cream.
And while coffee has no calories if you drink it black, alcohol is full of calories. (Mostly dreaded carbs.) So: if you 'go Mormon' that will make a significant change.
Many people simply aren't conscious of how much caffeine they load themselves up in the daytime, and how much grog they need to wind down in the evening. I recommend you try taking one weekend day to cut both out, cold. That's your body, which you inhabit, in its natural state. You live there. You should be able to handle a day without these extras. That's where you will be, if there's a crisis of some sort.
I did not drink coffee regularly until I was 30, then got sucked into the sugary world of store-bought coffees. A 'venti' frappe from Starbucks? You might as well get a chocolate shake and just tip a cup of hot coffee in.
In Southeast Asia it was harder to get fancy coffees, but there was plenty of cream and sugar, and now we are largely at parity for caffeinated wizardry. I began making my own frappes using zero-calorie sweetener. After a few months I thought: 'I can make one of these any day, why don't I try it black.'
So now I'm largely making my own cold-brew coffee and drinking it black. An occasional dollop of almond milk. I go light on coffee overall because it can affect your sleep. And I've got a minor history of Ulcerative Colitis – I'm not keen to have big doses of something that pushes your body to poop.
Side note: I did get some caffeine content from caffeinated drinks. Again, one or two of them per day can really add up given the sugar in them. Switch to diet drinks or better yet, tea.
For alcohol: most of my friends can't seem to handle the evening without a 'sundowner' in their hand. Try this: get any app that scans barcodes for calorie counts. Scan your usual tipple of choice.
That's right. There's a reason they call beer 'liquid bread'. Or why a wine cooler should be viewed with the same apprehension as a piece of chocolate cake.
You can save tons of calories by simply not drinking. Fortunately it's never been a big habit for me largely due to how my family viewed it. I have a drink maybe once a month, almost invariably with friends. If for some reason I had to leave booze behind I wouldn't shed a tear. It's simply not a huge part of my life.
But for some people it's massive, due to the lifestyle they've chosen or had sold to them. Look at the aisle in the supermarket with alcohol. It's the most heavily-marketed item in there usually. It's got to be marketed because people have to overcome their natural instincts.
When I was given a beer as a child, I instinctively spit it out. You have to be acculturated to like alcohol. (Though it's not super hard.) Again, I had good fortune as an impressionable youth. As a disc jockey I had to be sober. After unloading a truck full of records and speakers at 3am, a drink seemed rather pointless when I could go directly to bed.
Here in Cambodia (and in the broader art community I'm familiar with) I know tons of people with drinking issues. Often they post on social media about how they are proud to be sober for months or years. I cheer them on.
If you want to court danger, I would suggest you don't do it via drink. There are plenty of other worthwhile challenges for you to take up in this day and age. Save your strength.
I tend to drink my coffee black these days and when I do have a drink? It's usually a fancy stout. Both of these are bitter. In the morning: Aaah yes I'm having my coffee now. When I have a drink: Damn that's bitter. I guess I know when I'm having it, and unlike sweet drinks, they are hard to chug down.
So there you have it: a way to lose weight by simply NOT doing something. The biggest challenge is really changing habits and behaviors that are familiar and comfortable to you.