I Quit Alcohol For 100 Days | This Is What Happened

I quit drinking for 100 days and this is what happened. What's going on guys, welcome to today's video. It's one I've been meaning to make for a while. Today I'm going to cover a few topics, all things alcohol. I'm going to talk about my history with drinking, I'm going to talk about the effects that I felt when I took a long time off drinking this year, 100 days if not more in total, February to May of this year, and how and why I returned to drinking, how drinking affects muscle gain and fat loss. We're gonna go in on it today, so appropriately, I have my mug today. We have the Ireland coffee mug, and that is also a huge thing. There is a big drinking culture in Ireland, which I'll speak about now. I had my first drink, I got drunk for the first time when I was 14 years old, possibly 13, and that is pretty common when you're in Ireland. You all go to a field, you get a bag of Dutch Gold, and Erftuberg as well is a nice cheap choice, and you just start drinking beers and you get wasted. You also, like a lot of people, start taking drugs at that age. I took like a pill at that age, which is crazy think back on 14-year-old Rob doing that in a field. And so it's a big culture in Ireland, and it starts very young, and it continues as you grow up. And even when I'm working with a lot of Irish clients, and UK as well is quite big, that when we're getting into the best shape possible when I'm coaching them, that the nights out, the weekends are often like the biggest issue when it comes to getting into shape you want to be in. But to go back to my history of drinking, I started drinking at 14 years old, and all through school, and especially all through college, I I would get blackout wasted. I'm not a particularly big guy, especially back then before I lifted, and I would get drunk so easily, and I would get blackout drunk, and I thought that it would just be normal. It kind of is normal in our society. I thought that it would just be normal to get blackout drunk on a night out. So pretty much like every night out I would go on in school or college, I would not remember the end of it, and I thought this was normal, and it is not normal whatsoever. And so when I was 22 and I started this YouTube channel, If you can go back and you know my story, that I basically had no job, I failed college, I had no connections to get a job, I didn't have any friends or family that could give me a job. All I had was the gym. And I said, if I'm going to take this seriously, one, I can't afford to keep drinking, and two, I'm going to really need to concentrate on this fitness thing. So of course, you all know the story. I started writing articles on Facebook and then slowly went on to YouTube. And here we are, we're still making videos 9 years later. So When I was 22 and starting out on YouTube, I drank pretty much next to nothing for 3 years, and this built the foundation of my success. Still a long way to go, but whatever you want to call it. And these were 3 amazing years. I saw such huge progress in my life and my personal life, my business life, my fitness training, and everything. And then in 2016-17, I saw a little bit of success. I said, hey, look, I can finally take my foot off the gas. I've worked so hard. I've got good systems in place and things are running themselves quite well. And so I returned to drinking, you know, I'd travel a little bit, I'd party, but I definitely stopped getting so blackout drunk completely the whole time. Still had a few nights where I would get super wasted, but not as much as when I was a teenager or in college. And now, so let's fast forward, I'm 31 now. So the last couple of years especially the last 2 years. I can count the amount of times I've got drunk. I've drank, I've had like a wine with dinner and stuff, but I've just— as I get older, it's just not serving me. And I find myself getting drunk, getting blackout wasted, far and few between, less and less. So I think there is kind of a natural progression there and kind of maturity that I hope other people see too. But that's what I've definitely noticed as well. And I'd have a few months here and there, like maybe like 2 to 3 months where I would go sober and I always felt my best, and then I kind of don't know why I would return to it. But this year, when I was competing— I obviously took a few years off competing— this year we went back to competing. The prep series is of course on this channel. I took February after Valentine's Day until right till after the competition, both competitions in May, sober, and it was the best part of my year so far. I absolutely loved it. I felt so clear. And so that was the most recent period that I've done sober. And I wanted to make this video like in June over the summer, but then I said I'm gonna wait and see how I am returning the drinking, and then I'm gonna make this video. And so now it's November, I've kind of got a good hindsight on the year. So the benefits I noticed in the most recent sober period was training— never a bad session, okay? If I go out on like Friday or Saturday, Saturday especially, you know, you come in on Sunday 1 AM and then you're like hungover on Monday and you're not 100% on Tuesday. Like, my training wouldn't I don't even get good until like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday if I'm having a big night on Saturday. So I noticed cutting it out, it's like— this goes for productivity as well— you get your 7 days of the week. It almost doubles your week. It is absolutely crazy. You feel like you're never in a rush. You've so much time. You have like your whole weekend to basically work on things. So it's like your to-do list is always get completed. Come Monday morning, you're like, ah, it's Monday, I can do anything. Compared to if you're lying in bed all day on Sunday and you— everyone's calling you on Monday morning, saying, hey, you know, email me back, get back to me on this. It's hectic. So I found it massively increased productivity, massively improved my training. You save so much calories when it comes to nutrition, and it reduced my anxiety so much as well. Because in my opinion, now there will be experts on anxiety and depression and all that, just my opinion, anxiety comes from knowing you've got loads to do and you're not doing it. So that reduced my anxiety massively as well. So they're the main benefits that I noticed. It is like I made in those 4 months, I made like a year's worth of progress, you know, in business and physique. It was absolutely crazy. Now, how to stop drinking, maybe not forever, but at least for a couple of months. This how I did it. If you want to stop a bad habit, you need to replace it with a good habit. So if you are used to going down to the pub on Saturday and being hungover on Sunday, you need to replace replace that with something else. So you like need to maybe go get some nice food on Saturday or go to the movies, or even better, if you book something for Sunday morning like a hike, a run, a walk, or even just some time to work on your business, something that's worth it for you, something that you'd be like, I'd rather just do this on Sunday morning instead of do this on Saturday night. That is how you basically stay in, because if not, you're just going to be bored, you're going to be doing nothing, and you're not going to be using that time properly. So that's my best piece of advice, is how to stop. And it'll be very different. Like, maybe you're not a bodybuilder, you know, maybe there's just something like a side project or a hustle or like a dream business that you want to start, and you say, hey, on Sunday morning I could be doing that, you know, I could be doing that instead of like debilitating myself in bed. So when it comes to building muscle, when you drink, especially when you get quite blackout drunk, your testosterone tanks and you dehydrate yourself extremely, which is probably the worst thing you can do for your training performance. Recently there's a big trend online in the kind of podcast scene and in the fitness scene with electrolytes. Everyone's saying take electrolytes first thing in the morning, it's a game changer. Conor McGregor just did a tweet saying the first thing he does when he wakes up is electrolytes, electrolytes, electrolytes, electrolytes. Everyone is mad for electrolytes. I take them as well and I feel a huge benefit. Okay, staying hydrated is something that is kind of overlooked. When you get wasted, you are just doing the complete opposite of that. You are tanking your performance via dehydration. So testosterone goes down, performance goes down via dehydration, and you just— you're sick. You're poisoning yourself. You're putting something toxic into your body. Alcohol is a poison. So it's just all around a bad time. Now, when it comes to fat loss, so this is a bit of a complicated one because technically, if you drink and you're in a deficit, you will still lose weight or lose fat. Now that's where it kind of comes into things. But there is some research, and there's a lot of people online that say alcohol literally halts fat loss. It inhibits it because it wants to get the— digest the alcohol out of your system, so it stores the food that you're taking in as fat. Now, this may be true, but it also becomes wishy-washy, as when you're in a deficit, you know, you will still lose weight. But either way, it is just not good for fat loss. And the biggest one— this I can say with certainty— is If you are going out drinking, you're having a load of cocktails, you're drinking pints, pints of Guinness. Pints of Guinness are like, it's like, feels like you're drinking like a loaf of bread. You are using up so much calories that you can put towards food. So let's say on Saturday night you have 1,000 calories worth of alcohol, which is super easy to do, okay? 7 calories per gram of alcohol. Then you add that in with a sugary drink, okay? Delicious, I know, but easily 1,000 calories, probably more, to be honest. Imagine you had that 1,000 calories in the form of oats. And then you went to sleep, you would have a fucking pump on Sunday. You would be like, you would have probably set a PR because you got this like big refeed day. But instead of having a refeed, you're having like a poisonous substance that is going to take away from your training. So you're literally like, those calories instead of boosting you up here, this is calories from alcohol, you're like going down here. So there's a huge discrepancy into where you put your calories. And this is kind of where it comes back to, you know, calories in, calories out. Yes, but all calories are not equal. Imagine You're hitting your calories with like, instead of protein, you're just having alcohol. It's not going to be the same. So that is the biggest factor in terms of body composition, is where you put your calories and how it affects your performance. Now, with all this said, why did I go back to drinking? And so this kind of is something that, you know, I'm questioning now. I said, why did I go back? And well, for me, I love the summer. I don't like drinking too much in the winter when it's cold outside. I just like to sit in, you know, I can't wear a super skin-tight t-shirt to like flex my guns. So I'm like, what's the fucking point in going out, you know? I joke, but not really. So why did I go back drinking? I just love summer. I put in such hard work during the year with all the competitions and with my business. I said, hey, look, maybe I deserve to put my feet up. And this kind of brings me on to how I will approach drinking in the future. As I get older, I find myself drinking less and less. I get way worse hangovers. I find it affects my mental health much more than when I was a young lad. And now I'm going to set aside minimum 3 months or the odd month here and there to to just go completely sober and to not do it and just to save it for special occasions. I think most people would be more than okay if they reduce their drinking to once per month and don't get blackout, I think. And there's also a big difference to, you know, slamming shots of tequila versus having a red wine with dinner. You know, they're just night and day differences. So I think I will do the latter in the future and just do it in a social setting and go slow and enjoy things a little bit more. Gone are the days where I'm going to be downing drinks and falling all over the club and making a show of myself. So that is my experience with drinking. That is what I learned from these 100 days sober. That is what I learned this year, and that is my history of drinking and what I'm gonna do going forward. So I'm 31 now. Could I see myself going sober in the future? Definitely. Could I see myself doing more than 100 days? Definitely. I could do 6 months, no problem. And I think as I get a little bit older I'll probably drink less and less because I just don't have it in me anymore. So guys, let me know, especially if you're from Ireland like me, what your history was like with drinking, how it affects you. Have you ever done a month sober, 2 months, 3 months? Let me know in the comment section below. And if you also want some great further information on what drinking does to our body, the podcast that changed everything for me was the one from Andrew Huberman. It's a big— I think it's a couple hours long, and he goes in even more in on the exact science that drinking does to our body. So hope you enjoyed this video, guys. And just coming into the season, the holiday season, you know, just be careful out there, be safe, and think, you know, what do I really want for myself? Another thing with my productivity is if I drink, I cannot record for YouTube the following day. My face is like changed shape, it's not fresh, my eyes go all red, they go like droopy. The last thing you want to be when you're hungover, or even when you're really tired, is to be on camera. And YouTube is something that means a lot to me, and so I would prefer to make YouTube videos than to be hungover. Anyways guys, that's all from me today. Keep it real. Best of luck for the rest of the year. Let's finish off strong. Peace.