{"id":15542,"date":"2011-03-29T09:51:20","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T16:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=15542"},"modified":"2011-03-29T09:51:20","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T16:51:20","slug":"wine-is-bottled-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=15542","title":{"rendered":"Wine is Bottled Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember on Christmas morning<\/a> when Michael and I woke up to no power in half our house (including the heat)?<\/p>\n

When I got home from work–feeling pretty good for a Monday–my mood quickly changed. First, the garage door wouldn’t open. “Huh. I guess I need a new battery.” I go inside and turn on the kitchen light, try to open the garage door from the inside–no power. Weird. Check the stove and microwave. They work but were reset. I guessed another power outage. Didn’t think much of it then I opened the fridge. The fridge was off. And had been all day.<\/p>\n

The $300+ in groceries we’d bought over the weekend had been going bad in a fridge that had no power. Thanks, PGE, for giving us a heads up! I called PGE. A computerized voice said:\u00a0 “Your wait time is approximately 16 minutes.”<\/span><\/em> UGH. Michael got home and we started to make dinner because the stove and oven did work. We were prepping the steaks while the sweet potatoes baked in the oven.<\/p>\n

Long story short, a guy came out from PGE, put a little do-dad in so we’d have power…except now there was NO power to the stove\/oven\/dryer. He didn’t seem to be too concerned about the hassle it was causing us either.<\/p>\n

We couldn’t prepare any food in our house so we left. Michael suggested Hopworks. I was in no mood to argue. We ordered BEER. They had a special beer that we’d never tried: Ace of Spades. A 9.75% IPA<\/a>. It was intimidating at first but I had a sip of Michael’s, loved it, and ordered my own.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt was a dark and rich amber, with a smooth after taste. It reminded us of Fred<\/a>. (I wondered if Marie <\/a>had ever had Fred.) For dinner I ordered the soup\/salad combo. The soup of the day was a creamy red pepper bisque.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt was both creamy and spicy. I liked it a lot. But once I saw it I wished it was tomato soup. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI got the small Pear and Walnut salad and added the tri-tip steak to it. It was perfect. The creamy vinaigrette went perfectly with the julienne pears, blue cheese and candied walnuts (what’s better than CANDY on a salad?!).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIt took me awhile to finish my one beer. It was strong and I’m a lightweight.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAlcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.\u201d – Frank Sinatra<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I haven’t always been a light weight. I wasn’t a big drinker but when I was obese it took a LOT to get me drunk. I didn’t realize it at the time. I’m trying to remember how much I’d have to drink to get a buzz but it was more than necessary, honestly.<\/p>\n

My drinks of choice were also very high in calories:<\/p>\n

White Russian (YUM!) – 360 calories<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cosmopolitan (Thanks SATC) – 215 calories<\/strong><\/p>\n

Strawberry Daiquiri (with whipped cream of course) – 250 calories<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I started to lose weight I stopped drinking all alcohol. It was a learning process for me to figure out WHICH calories were worth it to me. The liquid calories just weren’t. For two years I didn’t drink any alcohol and didn’t miss it. Once I reached goal weight and started incorporating things back into my diet (like pizza and ice cream on occasion) I started occasionally drinking alcohol again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI grew to love wine. I love the taste of wine, I love wine tasting excursions, I love pairing certain kinds of blends with food. In my opinion there’s nothing better than a good steak and a nice, bold glass of red wine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI also grew to appreciate beer. I was never been a beer drinker before I met Michael. I disliked most of them, I thought beer was Bud Light (gross). It’s a hard thing to dislike beer in Portland–home of breweries and beer snobs!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMichael enlightened me to good beer at the Brewfest. I was converted! I still prefer wine to beer, but I’ve grown to appreciate it.<\/p>\n

Now? I am a total lightweight. 100 pounds lighter I can barely drink 2 glasses of wine without getting drunk. Half a glass of a strong Cabernet and I’ve got a good buzz. It was a shocker when I first started drinking again. I thought my tolerance level was the same as it was when I was 250 pounds. I was soooo wrong.<\/p>\n

That first time I drank way too much I passed out, woke up with a horrible hangover and felt awful. I realized then and there that this was one more thing that changed with my weight loss. I hadn’t expected it but I quickly changed my habits to slowly sipping one drink as I figured out how my body had changed.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Did you notice a difference in your tolerance level when you lost weight? Are you a lightweight now?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember on Christmas morning when Michael and I woke up to no power in half our house (including the heat)? When I got home from work–feeling pretty good for a Monday–my mood quickly changed. First, the garage door wouldn’t open. “Huh. I guess I need a new battery.” I go inside and turn on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,35,55,315,104,154,171,194,195,196,214,2806,230,251,259,288,298,303,304,305],"tags":[8577,2897,2898,8585,423,8770,8662,2895,8690,8691,2896,993,8724,8758,8763,8764],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/wine2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15542"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15568,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15542\/revisions\/15568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}