7 Things I Learned in a Year Without Alcohol

Wow, I can't believe I'm writing this right now. If you're reading this, it's because I did it. I've been without alcohol for a whole year. I'll never forget what that feels like.

I've had enough of having enough all the time. I've had enough of being the party girl. I've had enough of feeling miserable. I was tired of disappointing and embarrassing my friends and family. I decided I needed a big change. Drinking in moderation just wasn't the best option for me. It never worked. Enough was enough. I tried something I had never done before - I stopped drinking alcohol at all.

When I started my journey to sobriety, I didn't know how long I would last. Now I can't imagine going back to my old life. There are a lot of good things about my new life and no more bad things.

Sobriety: Before and after. On the left, a peak drinking time. On the right, a few weeks ago, almost one year sober.

I learned that in my year without alcohol:

1. My senses are sharpened 100-fold.

Wow, I'm much more receptive to all impressions. These include feelings, muscle aches, smells, hearing, sense of taste. My nose has become so sensitive to smells. I say PERMANENT "Here it smells like ___ " or: "Boah, that smells SO intense." My feelings are crazy, sometimes I think that's what it must feel like to be pregnant. I break into tears at little things, I am hurt quickly and sometimes I am so happy that I have the feeling to burst. I even care what people think of me now. "Who are you and what have you done with Kelley?" These strong feelings can sometimes be overwhelming, but I have never felt anything so wonderful.

2. I'm just beginning to understand who I really am.

I learned that there are things I thought I liked. But I don't really like her. And there are things I didn't even know I liked. I have learned to reconnect with my friends and family and to be myself in their company - without the help of alcohol. I learned to wake up in the morning without a hangover, have a coffee and go for a walk. And I learned that that's exactly what I want. I learned that this person fogged over with booze and blackouts wasn't me. I'm not defining myself by the stupid, embarrassing things I've done. I'm a real person who doesn't mix well with alcohol.

3. Alcohol was no fun for me anymore

I tried for years to control drinking and I failed. I'll stop today after two drinks, okay, after three, just on weekends. That never worked and I finally figured out why - I just can't drink alcohol. It started years ago as harmless fun among friends, but last year I realized it wasn't fun anymore. In fact, alcohol was the cause of every problem I ever had. Bad things happened to me when I had drunk and I should have wanted to stop earlier.

4. I have my life under control.

When I was drinking, my life was a mess and I was comfortable with it. I fought my way through the first frightening months of not drinking. And now being sober is normal for me. I'm so happy about it. Bad things used to happen to me and I always had the feeling that they were the end of the world. And that the only answer was alcohol. Now I feel better prepared. I can solve problems in a healthy way. Besides, less bad things have been happening since I stopped drinking. I live in the present now and I am grateful for every day.

I got so much weight because of drinking alcohol. Now, I currently doing some exercise habits to loss weights. I am grateful for the 2 weeks diet challenge.
You might want to check this out. It helps. Just go to this link: https://bit.ly/2Lo6HZA

5. I'm worth loving.

I'm sure I've sabotaged my romantic relationships for a long time. Why? It can take years to find out, but drinking has exacerbated this problem. It has supported, encouraged and justified bad decisions. Especially those who dealt with men. What I didn't realize until I stopped drinking was that I was able to have normal relationships. And that I actually deserve to be loved. I thought I deserved to be in a messed up relationship because I was messed up myself. Now I know how crazy that thought was. I am fortunate to have a loving, healthy relationship with a wonderful man who has shown me that I deserve all the love in the world and I am beginning to believe him.

6. Toxic people are like Toxic Habits.

This point is very important. When you stop drinking or doing drugs, you have to find other friends. I definitely had to and I realized how little I actually had in common with my old friends. My friends were very different from me, they had not the same goals and not the same views of life. It all felt pretended. When you make a big, life-changing decision like that to realize you have an alcohol problem, you find out who are true friends.

There are those friends who love you unconditionally, those who don't blink when you stop drinking and those who still offer you cocktails. I've met all of them. Getting rid of my toxic friendships along with my toxic habits just makes sense. And I'm learning not to feel bad about it.

7. I'm not perfect - and that's okay.

A bad habit like alcohol abuse can cause a lot of guilt, shame and remorse. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel all those things. Nevertheless, I notice that all these feelings that I have stunned for years are beautiful. I'm not just learning to let them. I learn to deal with them and to lead a healthy and successful life. I made mistakes and I'll never be perfect. Every day I have to make a decision not to beat myself up. I am still a long way from my goal and I have a long way behind me.

There are good days and bad days. Sometimes I think life isn't fair and I wish I could drink alcohol normally like any normal person. Most of the time I've accepted that my life is just like this. It's a bit like having five operations on your knee. Stopping drinking is proof of my stamina.

I never thought abstinence would be my choice for life, but now I couldn't imagine being the party girl again. I never dreamed I could live SO happy, fulfilled and healthy - without drugs and alcohol. I was always the girl who needed booze to have fun.

And now I'm proof that you don't need him to enjoy life. I wake up every day and I'm relieved that I never have a hangover. I hope that my story will encourage other party girls (and boys) to turn off the drink and live the life they've always dreamed of. The best is yet to come.

Vegetable Smoothie Diet - How I lost 7.8 kilos in 1 Week.

What is the vegetable smoothie diet? At the beginning of 2015 I decided to do a cool experiment. Without knowing much about vegetable smoothies, I started working with this vegetable smoothie detox. The result was amazing. I lost 7.8 kilos* (which I actually didn't want at all), had a lot of energy and I kicked off my sugar addiction.

In this blog I share my experiences. I hope that this will inspire you to get started with vegetable smoothies as well.

Results may vary from individual to individual

Table of Contents

Why vegetable smoothies?

Lose weight with vegetable smoothies + my experiences
5 golden tips: stay slim after the vegetable smoothie diet
3 major advantages vegetable smoothies
Conclusion and tips

Why vegetable smoothies?

The figures do not lie. Many women are overweight, especially as they get older. And this is not surprising. If you look at what we Dutch are used to eating, our diet consists mainly of carbohydrates, meat and sugars.

We are struggling to get our recommended portion of vegetables. This figure is particularly shocking among children. Let me just look at the facts:

48% of all Dutch people suffer from obesity. This means that more than 7 million people are overweight.

Only 5% of the Dutch population eat enough vegetables.
The NOG is worse among children. Only 1% of all children in the Netherlands eat enough vegetables!

And if you now look honestly at yourself. Does this also apply to you? Do you eat enough vegetables? Or do you also eat a lot of meat, sugars and carbohydrates? And do you know what, this is not at all strange, because that is how we were raised...

But maybe you also suffer from the consequences:

You are not satisfied with your body, belly and buttocks?

You sometimes have little energy and find it difficult to get through the day? Poor skin maybe?
Or maybe you're not comfortable in your skin and have little self-confidence?

I know how you feel. Until about a year ago I lived from coffee, cigarettes, sugar (especially chocolate) and bread. The result was that I actually lived constantly from one kick to the next. Whether it was coffee, cigarettes, chocolate or alcohol/drugs, actually I was just addicted to everything.

I think that is something that many of us can recognise. And you know, we can't actually do anything about it. Because go shopping in the supermarket. See how much junk food there is on the shelves. Alcohol, sweets and soft drinks... And then also in the bonus at the Albert Heijn. 35% discount on an apple pie... Hopa, that's mine!

So the food industry has full control of us. Often without us noticing this for ourselves. We think we eat healthy food, but if you look carefully and are honest with yourself, this is often disappointing.

Ma's Tip: Read also my article about following a detox cure

Lose weight with smoothies + my experiences

So I lost 7.8 kilos with smoothies in a week. How? By only drinking vegetable smoothies for 7 days. Okay, and every now and then a cup of broth. This detox period was preceded by 3 days of reduction and 2 days of build-up. I'm sure you'll be interested to know exactly how I did this. My schedule was as follows:

1. Decrease period prior to the vegetable smoothie diet

Day 1: No meat, fish, eggs, cheese or meat products. No sweet or savoury snacks. No bread, rice and pasta.
Day 2: No caffeine and alcohol. No products fired in grease or oil.
Day 3: Go over to two meals and eat about half of what you usually eat. No dairy. Only eat fruit and vegetables.

2. Meal schedule during the smoothie diet

All the vegetable smoothies I drank during my detox period consisted of 700 ml of smoothie spread over 3 smoothies. I put the following ingredients in a blender mixed with 200 ml of yoghurt or water.

Day 1: sauerkraut smoothie. Bah Bah. This smoothie was really horrible. I almost had vomit tendencies while drinking him. Not really motivating, isn't it? I wouldn't recommend this smoothie to you.
Day 2: Vegetable cocktail smoothie, contains tomato, carrot, onion and beetroot. I also didn't like this smoothie very much. I wasn't fully aware yet of how to make really delicious vegetable smoothies. Luckily now 🙂
Day 3: mixed vegetable smoothie. These included celeriac, carrots and red beets. It was pretty okay.
Day 4: Red beet smoothie. Ingredients: red beetroot, yogurt, handful of blackberries and a glass of orange juice.
Day 5: Vegetable cocktail smoothie. See day 2.
Day 6: mixed vegetable smoothie. See day 3.
Day 7: Apple root smoothie. Ingredients: 1,5 apples and 5 large carrots and 200 ml yoghurt.



After 7 days of just drinking vegetable smoothies, you'll be really happy with it. I've never been so happy with a bite of solid food after 7 days. For me that was a bit of a banana. Can you eat everything again immediately after a vegetable smoothie detox? No, you have to rebuild slowly. Herewith my assembly schedule.

3. Quietly build up after the vegetable smoothie detox
After the diet, I used the following scheme for the build-up period:

Day 1: A piece of fruit for breakfast. Small bowl of oatmeal for lunch. In between I ate some fresh vegetables or a rice cake.
Day 2: Oatmeal and a piece of fruit for breakfast. For lunch you can use a maximum of 2 crackers or rice cakes. For dinner you can eat stir-fried vegetables and some raw vegetables. Fruit or a rice wafer in between.
Day 3: Same as day 2, only now you can use a piece of fish or tofu for dinner.
In total the vegetable smoothie diet takes 13 days, including 3 days to dismantle and 3 days to build up. After that you can eat everything again. But this is precisely where the secret (and danger) of green smoothies lies. If, after this detox, you were to change your diet once and for all. Then you can really get a healthy and slim bikini body. Forever! Read on for more information about how you can achieve this.

5 Golden tips: stay slim after the vegetable smoothie diet

Let me be very honest with you. You can easily lose between 5 and 10 kilos in a week with this diet. But as the word diet already suggests. If you just pick up your old diet again after your diet, then those pounds will be back in no time.

In order to be able to lose weight permanently with smoothies, you will have to change your diet permanently. I'll give you 5 golden tips to start with right now:

1. Homage, you're kicked out of your sugar addiction: keep it this way

Because you've eaten almost no sugars for 13 days, your sugar addiction will be gone. It is utopian to keep it that way, as we all know. So every now and then some tasty foods (sugars, junk food) are allowed. As long as you have a balance. So no whole pack of cookies, whole bar of chocolate or that whole bag of chips. No more! You are not like that at all. You don't need it and it's just dirty.

2. Replace junk food for healthy snacks

After your smoothie detox, you'll make sure you don't bring in any more chips, biscuits and other junk foods. If you eat it, do it outdoors. For example, at a party. But junk food is no longer welcome at home. Instead, from now on you will eat tasty roots, nuts or drink a green smoohtie of course...

3. Replace 1 meal a day for a vegetable smoothie

We are very used to eating 3 times a day. Did you know that this is not necessary at all? I know quite a few successful people, who prefer 1 meal a day. But the danger is that you will snack a lot. That is why I am not in favour of one meal a day. But what you can do from now on is replace 1 meal a day for a well-filled vegetable smoothie.

4. Move, dance, stretch, stretch or do exercises

Maybe you've heard it before. Sport has no effect on weight loss! So you don't necessarily have to play sports to be able to lose weight. But, what is super important is movement. For two reasons. The first is burning calories. Quite simply, whatever you eat must also be burned. You do this by moving.

The second reason is that standstill is a step backwards. Or even worse. Standing still means dying. Also in order to prevent all kinds of annoying diseases, certain exercises (for example jumping) are very important. I will not go into this in more detail now, because it is a bit off-topic. But remember that you have to move.

5. Eat enough healthy carbohydrates, healthy fats and proteins

For good fat burning and proper hormonal management, it is extremely important to eat enough healthy food. This is what you recommend:

Slow carbohydrates: 35% of your total daily food consists of slow carbohydrates such as brown rice, quinoa, oatmeal and fruit. Healthy fats: 30% of your total daily diet consists of healthy fats that are in meat, fish, avocados and nuts. Proteins: make sure that 35% of your food per day consists of proteins that are in meat, fish, eggs and dairy products.

3 major advantages vegetable smoothies

Vegetable smoothies have other advantages than just losing weight. I will now discuss three of them with you.

1. More energy and flow

I kept a diary when I followed my own vegetable smoothie diet. And now I'd like to give you a few quotations from my diary:

"I am sharp and often feel a wonderful tingling on my skin. The feeling of goosebumps, you know it well. However, I am cold all the time. Thick sweater and the heating nice and high so".

"Once I get home, I get to work. I notice that I am very sharp and the work is really going well. I'm in flow".

So if you sometimes experience fatigue or depression, chances are it's because of your diet. With a green smoothie detox you can change this. So do you want to experience more energy? And feel like you're in flow again? Start today with vegetable smoothies.

2. Daily portion of fruit and vegetables

It is very easy. Throw 200-300 grams of vegetables and 2 pieces of fruit into a blender. Add your favourite ingredients and blend everything into a smooth whole. Hopa, you have your recommended amount of fruit and vegetables inside for today back in.

It's really that simple, all you need is a blender. And what do you know? If you take a little notice of the season, green smoothies are still cheap too.

What more could you want?

Ma's Tip: Chew your smoothie! This will allow you to better absorb the fibers that are in fruit and vegetables. This is an important extra bonus tip that you now just have to grab 🙂

3. Beautiful and young skin

Vitamins and minerals from green smoothies have a rejuvenating effect on your skin. All you have to do is drink green smoothies and you're going to look younger.

Unfortunately you have read above that almost nobody in our country gets enough fruit and vegetables. Maybe this also applies to you? Then I would like to ask you to take a picture of your face before you start the vegetable smoothie diet and one after 6 months. You will see the difference. Green smoothies make you younger.

Conclusion and Tips

These were my experiences and tips for following a vegetable smoothie diet. I hope that I've inspired you to start drinking green smoothies as well.

I'm also very curious about your experiences with detoxes and dropping off with smoothies!