Unmasking Me - Life-Changing Lessons from a Year Without Alcohol

8:09AM Jul 26, 2023

Speakers:

Angela Foster

Keywords:

feel

days

alcohol

year

drink

medication

wine

struggled

journey

point

postnatal depression

started

thinking

pregnancy

episode

child

replace

high performance

work

glass

and thinking about it. I don't know if it's shame or what I feel but thinking about it, and how much he had to, to work sometimes as a young child to get me out of bed. I feel so bad about. And I knew that I needed to change, but I didn't know how to get out of that place.

You're listening to the high performance health podcast helping you optimise your health performance and longevity. My name is Angela Foster, and I'm a former corporate lawyer and high performance health coach. Each week, I bring new cutting edge bio hacks, inspiring insights and high performance habits to unlock optimal health performance and longevity. So excited that you've chosen to join me today.

Now let's dive in. I brands in today's podcast episode, it's a little solo episode for me, in response to many people asking me about my journey, giving up alcohol over the last 12 months, in fact, now a bit more than 12 months. And you might felt you've been waiting for this because when I posted on Instagram about doing this podcast, I was overwhelmed with the number of DMS that I had, asking me to share my journey, the lessons I learned how I did it, how I kind of resisted it, what I learned about myself and so many things. And that's just kind of set off this, I guess, sense of responsibility in me to deliver this episode in the right way and in a meaningful way that can help you create change in any area of your life that you're looking at, because I did learn a lot of lessons. And I'm going to share those today. But I think for me to share this properly, it also requires a little bit of vulnerability. And I think if I'm honest with myself, that's really the reason that I've been putting it off. So full disclosure, I had to kind of give myself a pep talk and listen to Brene Brown today. And thankfully, I think she gave me the courage listening to her TED Talk to talk about this on this episode. So before I get into why I gave up alcohol, and really what I've learned about the process of giving up alcohol, I think a good place to start is around what my relationship with alcohol was in the beginning. And that kind of takes me on a bit of a journey backwards through my journey with depression, and burnout and kind of how I had utilised alcohol in the past. And this is probably the scary bit for me. And maybe the reason that I'm now hesitant about drinking alcohol. Again, I don't know that I've really decided that I'm completely a teetotaler. But I think you'll understand as you go on this journey with me why that is proving a bit more of a trickier decision if you like. It's not straightforward. So let's track back to my journey. As those of you who've been longtime listeners of the podcast will know. I struggled with clinical depression for many years, it started out as postnatal depression, I'm going to be honest, I was actually really, really genuinely surprised that I was going to be someone who did did suffer with postnatal depression. I think as a teenager growing up, I'd struggled a lot with anxiety. And I'd had various kinds of hormonal symptoms that had affected my mood in the past alongside things like PCOS and endometriosis. But I was generally speaking a pretty upbeat person. And definitely someone who, you know, doesn't like to sit still who always wants to be achieving in life. And maybe that was part of the problem. But essentially, I did struggle after my first child with postnatal depression. I think at that point, even though it was pointed out to me, I refuse to accept it. And it wasn't really until I was in my pregnancy with my second child that I found myself googling what prenatal depression was. And did it even exist, because I realised that I was starting to slip. And it was kind of a private battle. At that point, I saw that prenatal depression was a thing. I hadn't really thought that maybe it was an overhang from my previous pregnancy. Both of my boys were very close together. They were born within 18 months of each other. But I sort of struggled through that pregnancy. And then it was after I had my second son, and that I really it really sort of took hold. And it took me I guess around eight months to admit him. I remember a maternity nurse saying to me that I needed to get some help. And she put me in touch with a therapist, and I basically just showed up to the appointment and told them I was absolutely fine. And there was nothing to worry about. And I was kind of busy hiding it. And it wasn't until my doctor pointed out to me when I was eight months pregnant and I said look, I just I can't get out of bed. There's something wrong with me. Can you check my iron levels? It's got to be something like this. That she said she would run the bloods but that's what she suspected. And then it was a process if I'm honest from there, because I did have that was in the summer. I had a big crash in the Christmas building up despite the fact that I had very reluctantly began medication. And I say reluctantly. Because I, I just struggled to accept that I had it in the first place. And I knew that I needed to work on myself. So I did take the medication purely really to put me in a frame of mind that enabled me to do that. But I think the whole acceptance thing was really where I was struggling. But I essentially kind of got to grips with it. And after I had my son, my doctor, I remember being quite hesitant about me having a third child. And it took about two years, for me to really come up with medication and Phil feel great again. And I thought at that point, I'm pretty invincible. I've got this figured out. And so I went into my third pregnancy very hopeful. And I did all the things I was told to do like hiring a night nanny to make sure that I wasn't super sleep deprived, and all these kinds of things that were designed really to protect me because poor sleep is a factor in postnatal depression. But unfortunately, despite me feeling very upbeat during that pregnancy, it hit me hard after I had my third child. And that was a slippery slope. And unfortunately, that it took a long time for me to regain my mood. So I had my daughter in 2012. It took me until the sort of towards the end of 2019, for me to be off all medication and feel completely healed. So it was kind of seven years. And during that phase in 2014, I was probably at my lowest ebb. And that's when I had pneumonia, and I was hospitalised fighting for my life. And that was a really defining moment, when I decided that I wanted to get wild for the sake of my children. So you might be thinking, what has this got to do with alcohol, I'm slowly going to get on to the alcohol thing. The thing was, I developed a strategy of how I could numb myself to the outside world. And I'd reached a point where normal antidepressant medication wasn't working. So I had been seeing a psychiatrist at the Priory hospital here in the UK. And he was prescribing a combination of antidepressant medication alongside anti psychotic medication. And that was really to help to stabilise my mood, and also to control for bipolar episodes, which I think for me was one of the hardest things that I struggled with, because those episodes meant that when I felt well, I felt more than Well, I felt like a superhero. Like Superman, I felt incredible. And each time that happened, I thought I had healed and that I had overcome it. And they were a sudden, as a kind of an infrequent it was just no kind of expectancy around when they would happen, they would just show up these episodes. And I would feel that I could do anything and everything. And I think that's probably one of the hardest things for my husband, watching me go through this. But the thing was, I learned over time is that every time one of those episodes occurred that high was what was preceding the biggest crash. And I really, when I would fall out, fall hard. And then I would have to pick myself up and try and get back on track. And I didn't feel the medication was stabilising me. And I was seeking a lot of therapy, I was really genuinely struggling to cope in my day to day life. And when I when I started the anti psychotic medication, the initial view was that I would just need a very small amount a small dose to kind of stabilise me. But then we kind of doubled the dose, and then we doubled it again. And then we added some more until we find found that right dose. And I initially felt so drugged up, we reduced it a little bit. But I just got to a point of coping. But still, I would even though you shouldn't do this full disclosure, you should never take antidepressant and anti psychotic medication. With alcohol. I would many evenings still pour myself a glass of wine have a couple of glass of wine because a couple of glasses of wine because I'd get to a point where there was just a level that I had to be at in order to fall asleep. Because one of the hardest things I found was actually sleep would just evade me completely. And on that medication I used to fall asleep quite quickly. But it would be very difficult on those hard days to get up in the morning when I felt depressed. It used to be so difficult. I remember just trying to get my my son to school was such a challenge just to get out of bed in the morning. And thinking about it. I don't know if it's shame or what I feel but thinking about it and how much he had to work sometimes as a young child to get me out of bed. I feel so bad about and I knew that I needed to change but I didn't know how to get out of that place.

And it was only through that experience at the hospital, the experience of kind of breaking myself, my brain and body, my mind and body being broken, that I could begin to heal that I lowered my expectation. I remember being with a therapist and her saying to me, Angela, you're doing too much. And I was like, How can I be doing too much like what is too much, I used to run multinational deals and projects as a corporate partner. And now, like getting out of bed, and getting my child to school is a feat in and of itself. And I didn't know what that meant. But what I did learn was the only way was to go inwards, and to really get a handle on my thoughts and begin to understand them, and to process them. And I'm obviously not a therapist, but that for me was the only way through. But I'd kind of been able to start doing that work. But I had reached this point where it was okay, if I had this shut off point at the end of the day, and I almost wasn't really fully dealing with myself. So if I could just pour a glass of wine and feel relaxed, I never drank very much. But just a glass or two of wine home in combination with that medication was definitely more than enough to send me off to sleep. And I in that way I could kind of just block out the world. If we fast forward to 2019, which is not long after I started the podcast, I managed to transition off all medication. And that was actually against the advice of my psychiatrist because he believed that I would be on it for life that I was at a real risk of those of that those sort of bipolar episodes I was having, developing into full bipolar if I came off the medication, but I fortunately had a very understanding GP, who said to me that we would do this together once. And if it worked amazing. And if it didn't, we would, I would have to get back onto medication. And each time I lowered one of the medications just by a tiny amount, I would experience symptoms of depression. So when I did this, I had first reached a point where I had stabilised my mood. But the thing is, when you on medication, what I learned is that when it's working, it's okay, and you can do the work. A great great, great content by Byron Katie, that also really helped me about doing the work and reframing my thoughts. But what I learned was that as you start to numb out the pain, you also numb out the joy. And so life had just become flat. I didn't feel that depressed. But I also didn't feel that joyous and happy. So I couldn't really be present fully to the magical moments in my life and enjoy them in the way that I would want to. And I look back at photos and I think Wow, just I feel like I missed so much in a way. And so I went when I felt ready, I wanted to come off the medication. And I did that successfully, where it wasn't without challenge. And it took almost a year to transition fully off those medications. And it's only really now that I feel I can talk about this because I feel like I want to help people from a place of scars rather than wounds. If I if if this in any way can help you to heal or to change anything really that you're looking to change personally. And so after I came off the medication, I would still utilise, I believe to a degree alcohol as a little bit of a crutch. If I'd had a bad day, I could pour a glass of wine. And I know that sounds terrible. And I can't even believe I'm kind of saying it out loud. Almost. It wasn't that I was going to drink the bottle. I was never that type of person. But it just took the edge off. But in doing that, you know what it did is it meant that I didn't need to look outside, I didn't need to look inside of me to find the solution. It kind of lied outside of me in a glass of wine because everything felt okay again. And it was that feeling that was just gnawing away at me. I felt like I hadn't fully become the person that I wanted to be as long as I was doing that. And that was really what made me take that decision to give up alcohol to see what it would be like it wasn't a daily thing, but I was drinking it often enough that I feel it was I don't know for crutches the right word, but it definitely gave me an out and maybe maybe you can identify with this when you're listening. So I decided to give it up. That was back on June 25 2020 do and just in my style. I decided to do it on a night that we were going out with a bunch of friends to a school ball and I was like if I can just not drink here then that will be fine. You might be thinking well that's a that's a more difficult time to do it. Actually for me it was easier when I was out with friends that was never the thing. I found it easier not to drink in that situation. I can be social Well, I'm distracted. And that was the key thing. It was the distraction. The times that I would want to have a glass of wine was still when I just wanted to distract myself from myself, or from what was going on. And so actually, it was so much harder. I know many of you messaged me and said, What did you do when you were out? How did you not drink when people saying, you know, have a drink? And how did you find that. And we can go into some of the mechanisms for that. But that wasn't what it was. For me. Actually, it wasn't about that. For me, it was much more when I was on my own. In the evening, it was like, if I just wanted to distract myself from any feelings, then alcohol felt like a good way to do that was an immediate kind of relaxing and mood booster. So by giving it up, I haven't been able to look outside of myself anymore, because I definitely haven't been taken any drugs. So that's been a journey on its own. And I feel a year on that I haven't necessarily identified I never planned first of all, I never plan to give up for a year. We can talk about how I did that in just a moment. It was a much shorter term project for me. But it evolved into a year and it's gone beyond a year. Now. The second thing is I definitely didn't design it to be a teetotaler. I just wanted to do it as an experiment. And part of it was me wanting to be a better coach me wanting to understand, how long would it take, you know, there's some really good research there will take 66 days for you to really create a new habit a minimum of 66 days, and that actually up to a year, how long would it take me to change a habit that I had. And when with that bit at the back of my brain, the reticular activation system, I believe is called Stop reminding me that it was a good idea that it was a nice thing to do with my husband, or that it was just a really good thing to do today, because I'd had a busy day and I could shut off. And I think part of what I learned, as you'll hear more is a bit of a workaholic, maybe from my days as a lawyer. So that bit was hard to shut off without having a glass of wine, which kind of put a natural stop gap between my working day and my evening. So when I started this, I didn't realise how much I was going to learn about myself, I wanted to see if I could do it, I'd done it multiple times, for 30 days, I'd done diet dry January, I'd done a dry July, I'd done all different times of the year. And I'd kind of carried it on for a few more days. But then, you know, after 4045 days, I'd sort of gone back because I hadn't decided that I was going to stop drinking for any length of time. So when I began this journey, this time, I decided I am going to stop drinking for 90 days, that was my target. And actually that felt like quite a big deal. In the summer, one of my favourite things to do would be to have a really nice glass of crisp white wine, or raise a in the sunshine relaxing with friends or with my husband, and I wasn't gonna be able to do that. So it was definitely I was going to be giving something up. And so it felt quite hard to do over the summer. But I was like hell, if I'm going to do it, let's just do it. Now. Fortunately, my husband came with me on this journey she I'm very grateful for. So it started off as 90 days. Now let's talk about the things that I've learned. And then I can kind of circle back on

sort of project me and and where I've ended up and why I'm not drinking now. So when I started out it definitely at first I got plenty of reminders from my brain, particularly on a Saturday night, that it was a good idea, particularly if I was really, really stressed and busy. And I was looking to create just a small window of calm and sit down and relax and have a meal and put the day to bed, then it would kind of show up. I think that's partly because my husband and I had such a romantic relationship with wine. We'd visited vineyards for many years, you know, we'd stored wine, laid it down, invested in it, we would enjoy romantic dinners with wine, we'd have great conversation. So I had associated a really big benefit with it. Because I could enjoy a nice glass, it helps with digestion, we'd have great conversation. And so I think my brain was prompting me to that. It wasn't that it was going to necessarily drink it to access. So I had to kind of and I'll talk about the substitutes I used but that reminder went on. For I would say for me it wasn't interestingly, it wasn't dropped to 66 days, it was actually a bit less. It was the mid 50s days. But what I would say here is I wasn't creating a new habit. Well, maybe I was I was creating a new habit of not drinking. But what I hadn't really taken into account was what would happen if I hadn't actively replaced it. Now that probably sounds crazy as a coach because it's the first thing I would tell my clients is make sure when you're taking away something that you perceive as a kind of quote unquote bad habit that you replace it With a good habit or a positive habit should I say, and I didn't do that. So unfortunately, it quickly emerged into me working more, which wasn't great. So I didn't want to just be a workaholic, which is how I'd been as a lawyer. And you know, there, there's definitely that conditioning in me that to get ahead, if I just work harder. It'll, it'll all kind of come together. So I wanted to move away from that. So I started to replace it, I recognise that they're quite early on. And I would say to you, if there's something you're looking to give up, it could be alcohol, it could be something else, spend some time thinking about what you're going to replace it with. So in the time that you would do that activity, what can you do instead, that's positive. So for me to avoid turning into a bit of a workaholic, I replaced it with nature walks, that actually, interestingly gave me the same things I used to go with my husband and my dogs, we will go for evening walks, we would have great conversation, which you'll remember was one of the things that I enjoyed most about a glass of wine with him. And we will be out in nature, which helps with nitric oxide production helps with relaxation. And so I would come back actually feeling quite happy and fulfilled. Over time, as I sort of started to approach the 90 days initially, it was like, wow, you know, this is going to feel amazing, like, what are we going to do, we're going to celebrate with some really nice wine, but then the thing went away. And actually, when I got to 90 days, it felt easy to go to 100 days, because it was kind of like, well, 90 feels really good. But why don't we just do it for 100 100. Sounds cool. And so we decided to just go for another 10 days. And this is why I say to start small. I think if I had started with the pressure of I'm gonna go no ALC I'm gonna go alcohol free for a year, that would have felt overwhelming. And actually, when you create goals that are that big sometimes and you haven't broken them down into stages, it can actually be the biggest impediment to you achieving it. So I'm all a fan of big goals, but we want to break them down small. With this one for me, actually, it was very much let's just see how things go and go with the flow. So we went from 90 days to 100 days, when I got to 100 days. That was like, it would be cool to turn that into four months. Let's do 104 120 days. I realised by the way, that's not an exact number, because not every month has 30 days, but there are there abouts. And then that was sort of the late autumn. So it was kind of like well, actually, why don't we just go straight through for six months, that's going to be around Christmas. I hadn't really thought about the fact that it was actually Christmas Day at this point. I just thought this would be a good idea. But then as we got nearer to Christmas, we had a discussion, shall we open something really, really nice, what should we have on Christmas Day. And then I realised that we weren't going to be doing our usual thing on Christmas Eve of actually opening up some champagne, because that was going to be the day before. And I didn't want to drink it the day before because we've made this commitment now to go for six months. So having not broken it on Christmas Day, which was always a bit of a kind of mini celebration with the kids, as they open up their Christmas Eve boxes. And the excitement's really building and was sitting by the fire would have a glass of champagne. So I wasn't having that. And we knew that in January probably weren't going to want drink ready. So we decided that it didn't feel right to break it on Christmas Day. And it was from there that we set this big goal, and this one did feel a lot bigger. Because we were doubling it, we decided that we would go for a year. And that's when the decision was made. Now it felt long, when I got to February. That's when it started to feel long. January was you know, just an undertone in January. But February it started to feel a bit longer. So that was the time I guess we went through obviously all birthdays, we went on holiday, we did various different things were normally or would have had a glass of wine and we weren't. And then we got to the year. Now, this is the interesting part. Because by the time I got to a year, I feel like I had changed as a person somewhat. And that's where if we circle back to the beginning, it was no longer looking outside of myself. I was no longer looking outside of myself to solve or really it wasn't to solve, to numb a problem or other. And so whether it was stress, whether it was anxiety, whether it was poor sleep, whatever it was, whether it's dealing with a setback, whether it was celebrating, okay, because let's let's not just look at the negatives, whether it was celebrating something like a birthday and occasion in fact, celebrating the day that I'd got to 12 months. I wasn't gonna do that anymore with alcohol. So I wasn't looking outside of myself. And that has been probably the most transformational part of this journey for me. Because I now feel more connected with myself more one with myself, and definitely more connected with my goal and my mission to how women perform at the highest level. And I've been more consistent over that time, I've woken up 100% with more energy, absolutely more energy. And interestingly, I thought for many years that that piece of me that struggled with depression, that piece of me that would still wake up in that funk in the morning, that was still going on. And that that was just always there, right? I liken that depression thing that when you got over it, or you're getting over it, you've got to create new thought processes, or that's what I found. And so I compare it to a kind of cornfield. And if you think of a cornfield that has really long grass in it, and then there's lots of walkers that have worn it down, and they've trodden on the path. And that's the easy one that we all choose. That's that mud path that you go down. And it's kind of all grown up around you. I think, from a neurological perspective, that's where my brain just used to slip, it was just kind of wired a little bit to that depression in the morning. And so I'd had to work really hard during my days to let the grass grow off in that area, and to forge a new path. And that can feel really lonely at times. But I recognise the strength that the more I trod that path, the more the grass got worn down in that area, and the easier it felt to go. But I still had this sort of slipstream that I could fall into. And it felt like it could kind of draw me in sometimes, this sort of dark force almost. And I just thought that was going to be the thing that my psychiatrist has said that, you know, it was a lifelong thing, and I was just gonna have to deal with it. And actually, what I found is, after six months have absolutely no alcohol and no looking outside of myself, that seems to have for the time being. And I say this with trepidation. That seems to be, it feels like the grass has grown. Let's believe that that feel like the grass has grown. And that I can be more stable, and more predictable, with my mood and with the way that I feel. And that obviously has had a hugely positive impact in my relationship with my children. And in my relationship with myself and my husband, God bless him who has stayed with me through thick and thin and through this journey has made me a little bit more crazy, I'm going to be the first to admit that and even he says that, but maybe that's the thing he loves about me, I definitely need to work out every morning. Still. Not I don't have to work out hard. Some days, it's going to be mobility and stretching. But I need to move my body every morning, let's put it that way. And that does still help me with my mood. But the great thing is that every morning, I wake up like a kid again, with high energy. And I feel like

the grass is growing on that section. And it's getting longer and thicker. And it's harder for me to traverse that route. And that's probably been the biggest benefit that I can speak of. But I recognise that I'm still a work in progress. We're all still learning and growing. We're all on this journey together. I hope that today by sharing what my journey and what I've learned on this in the last 12 months, that it may help you in some small way or someone that you know, and if it does, can I ask you to share it so that we can help to empower more women? I am obviously not a psychologist, I'm just sharing the things that have worked for me. But let's kind of round this off with habit formation. So what have we learned? The thing is to start small, I would say I didn't put a massive goal on me. I didn't say I'm going to do this for a year. As you know, I started with 90 days. Originally, I've done it multiple times with 30 days. And then I did 90 days and then it went into 100 and then 120 and then we got to six months, and then it went on from there. So start small. The other thing is know your why why are you doing this, like whatever goal you are looking to achieve. Understand your why? Because it's the if the why is big enough, it's said that your bear anyhow. And if you know why you're doing it, your your mind will help you. It will help you to see the non alcoholic alternatives in this situation. But let's say you were trying to lose weight or eat more healthily or something like that. It's going to show you different things. It's going to show you the healthy choices instead of you having to use willpower to resist the ones that you feel you shouldn't be having. And willpower is an expendable resource. And a really unfortunately, it runs very low at the end of the day. And that's when we are most vulnerable to not carry through on our intention that we made that morning. So having a big why of why do you want to achieve this is the best thing. Starting small, celebrating the wins. And as Ed my lat says, just thinking that you're going to do it one more day. Just one more day. That's what I did. It was just, I'm gonna give up alcohol for one more day. And I'm gonna see how it goes. So that's what I say. The other thing is, if you are getting rid of a habit maybe for you, you just indulge in things you feel like shouldn't be eating in front of Netflix in the evening, replace it with something else find something to actively replace it with. Otherwise, it can be replaced very easily, the universe abhors a vacuum with something that is potentially equally destructive. So try to embrace it, replace it with an empowering and positive habit. As far as alcohol goes, and your friends asking me this was a question I was asked on Instagram. What did you do when you feel pressure when you're going out? I mean, it's funny, isn't it? Having been fully sober for a year and not drank in those situations when we're out? I'm quite surprised by how much I must have also been repeating myself in conversation when we've had a few drinks, but what I would say is you can still have fun, and you don't have to, if you if your friends love you, and they support you in what you want to do, they will still go out with you and have have just the same good time. Without you drinking, I firmly, firmly believe that. And I've seen that. And actually, you know what, sometimes I go out with friends who normally would have a drink, and they're like, let's just try the non alcoholic menu together. And there are so many varieties, a lot of them I don't really like, but there have been some really good ones. And there are some great non alcoholic gins, for example, that you can make a nice gin and tonic with non alcoholic wine. I'm going to say don't go there. My husband and I tried that. Maybe we're a bit of wine snobs. It just, you know what it tastes like? Is that thing. My mom used to get me as a kid schouler, which I think is like the grape, fizzy grape juice. And it tastes really sugary as probably not good for you. Yeah, I haven't found a great non alcoholic wine. non alcoholic beer is surprisingly tasty and refreshing. I'm not saying it's good for you. But it kind of tastes a lot like real beer, if that's your thing. But there's some nice non alcoholic gins and tonics and sometimes just tonic water with a really nice, you know, whole bunch of ice and a squeeze of lime in it is actually really refreshing as well. But you know what the key thing is, you don't need to look outside of yourself because you can be fully present to each moment, and really enjoy it. And that's what I found. So that kind of concludes this episode. That was my journey. Will I go back to it? That was the other question I was asked. I don't know, I genuinely don't know. And the reason I say I don't know is I feel like I've changed and evolved as a person. And I now associate a little bit of alcohol with that part of me that I've left behind that did struggle with my mental health. So that might be one area that I'm a little bit. I've got some trepidation. The other thing is, the other thing is that I also carry the APO e4 gene, which is the one that kind of predisposes you to Alzheimer's, been looking a lot into this recently, Dr. Rhonda, Patrick has some incredible resources in this regard. And it seems that if you carry that gene, no amount of alcohol is safe. And let's face it, goodness knows how much damage I've done to my brain already with a cocktail of drugs and alcohol. So for the time being, I'm going to say, I'm not going to be drinking. So I do see myself as a non drinker. And that brings me to the final point. Maybe not a non drinker forever, but for now I'm going to be a non drinker. It could change so watch this space. But those are my reasons why it brings me to the final point, which is when you are trying to create something new. Yes, you do need to have a good day a big why. But you also need to create an identity. And I'm gonna be honest, I think this is exactly why extreme diets and things are so successful in the short term is because you just create an identity as the person that does that. Let's say that you want to go on the ketogenic diet, you just decide, I'm keto. And you're telling yourself multiple times a day that you're keto, which means that your brain is not trying to show you all the carbohydrates that you could eat and all the sugary food, because it doesn't fit with your identity. And that's a really important point because we behave and we adopt the habits of our identity. You can put a superhero outfit on a young child, just like Superman in the phone box, they will turn into that superhero for the time being and they'll start shooting webs if you put a Spider Man costume without you even asking them to. So what I would say to you is create an identity sometimes that little bit of all or nothing approach like being a non drinker is easier. But ultimately, it's going to be about finding what's right for you. And if we can help you do that we would love to do it we have just opened, our Facebook group is completely free to join for high performance health, because I want to be more connected with my community and get to know you all better. So if you want to come in and join us, I'm in there every week live, doing coaching, connecting with everyone. Then we will put a link to hyperlink to the high performance health Facebook group in the top link in the show notes below this episode or you can just look for high performance health on Facebook, and come over and join us. I'd love to see you in there. But that kind of concludes this this week's episode. Hopefully I've not rambled on too much. And if this has been helpful for you, then please share it with someone else that you think it may help. Thanks again for listening and I'll catch up with you see. If you enjoy this podcast, visit female bio hacker.com and be part of a special community of women looking to optimise their mind, body and spirit. If you're tired of sifting through countless websites and books to find the answers to your questions about nutrition, fitness, hormones, mindset, spirituality, and biohacking the search is over. 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