PODCAST - why i didn’t drink on my birthday
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host Johnny Ha, an ultra runner endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a hundred K ultra. I prove them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
I spent my 21st birthday with dozens of friends that I made while studying abroad in London. I actually celebrated it in [00:01:00] downtown London, and even though the 21st birthday in the UK doesn't mean anything because everyone's drinking by the time they're 18 legally. Anyway, we went out and celebrated the classic 21st birthday.
I even wore a sombrero that said it was my 21st birthday and I was drinking all the shots, all the beers, all the wine, all the. Things. And yeah, of course I threw up and had the worst hangover the next day. Thank God I had all of my friends with me. Thank you so much. I appreciate you getting me home safe.
But now, almost 15 years later, I just turned 35 and this is my second year in a row, not drinking for my birthday. And today I'm gonna share with you the three reasons why I no longer drink. To celebrate my birthday, and then I'm gonna share with you what I did this year instead. Now, society has programmed us to drink on our birthdays because once you hit 21 years of age in the United States, or once you hit 18 years of age in Europe, and there's different drinking ages throughout the world, but once you hit a specific.
Year of age, you can drink [00:02:00] legally. So what do most of us end up doing? We end up drinking for that birthday. We celebrate the fact that it's no longer illegal for us to drink. That's what I did back in London, and that's what I continue to do every single year until the last couple of years. So it is society that is causing us to do this, but while this has become a societal norm, doesn't mean you have to live by society's rules.
Here's the first reason. Why I no longer drink on my birthday, alcohol drops my mood on my birthday. This may be the most significant reason in the moment why I don't drink on my birthday. I want to celebrate. I don't want to be depressed on the mood scale, uh, down here is depression. If you're listening to this as a podcast, I just drove the mood scale on the board.
Once again, depression's at the bottom. Joy is on the top. I wanna spend my birthday as close to joy as possible, not. In depression, and I wanna spend the first day of the next year of my life as close to joy as [00:03:00] possible, not in depression when I have alcohol in my system, even a little bit, and maybe you're different, but for me, even when I have a little bit half a beer, it drops my mood.
I need to do all sorts of things to bring myself up this scale towards joy. So I have to double down, triple down, quadruple down on things to bring my mood up if I put alcohol on my system. So this reason alone is enough for me to not want to drink on my birthday 'cause I wanna be happy. I wanna celebrate my birthday, I wanna have a good time.
I wanna do something good for my body on my birthday. Now if you wanna learn why alcohol actually causes a mood drop for us, I have other videos on my YouTube channel that you can check out. But basically the simplest concept is alcohol initially creates dopamine and then it creates a crash. So you may have a little bit of a high, but then you have a crash, and when you have the crash, that's when your blood sugar drops.
You start feeling really bad. At least that's what happens for me now, reason number two that I didn't drink alcohol this year for my birthday. It's something I actually. Figured out for the first time this year is [00:04:00] alcohol plus birthday food equals miserable. If you're like me, then on your birthday you give yourself leeway for your diet.
So that means I was eating a little bit of fast food. With Culvers, it means I was eating a lot of pie. My birthday's also sometimes on Thanksgiving and near Thanksgiving every single year. So I ate a lot of pie, a lot of whipped cream, a lot of. Food. Well, when you increase your caloric intake with food and then you also drink a bunch of alcohol, you're not gonna feel very good.
Remember on my birthday this year, which was just a couple days ago, I was already overeating and I said to myself. Thank God I'm not drinking alcohol, because if I was drinking alcohol, I'd be way too stuffed. And alcohol causes you to want and crave even more carbs and unhealthy food. This is why ever since that faithful night in London where I went out drinking and eating a bunch of bagels and all these other things.
I realized that whenever I would celebrate with food and drink, I would always over eat and [00:05:00] feel terrible by the end of the night because I had way too many calories in my system. This is something I'm just so grateful for because I was able to eat all this amazing birthday food and I felt good before bed.
I slept just fine. I was able to eat all this birthday food without my tummy hurting.
Hey, friend, I wanted to take a moment to ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to lose weight due to your asthma? If so, I get it. I used to run marathons and still kept gaining weight. It wasn't until I learned about the three pillars of healthy living that everything changed,
so I put together a healthy living guide that you can access absolutely free by clicking the link in [00:06:00] the description. This guide shares these amazing three pillars of healthy living that you can easily integrate into your life. To start losing weight and live healthier today. Click the link in the description or go to athlete with asthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy.
Now let's get back to the rest of the show.
And reason number three is really a catchall reason, so that this video doesn't go on forever is alcohol makes me not at my best. What does this mean? This means that my HRV drops, I have a whole video about HRV, also known as heart rate variability.
My endurance decreases. This means that I'm not at my best working out. I love working out. I wanna work out on my birthday. I wanna work out the day after my [00:07:00] birthday. I wanna work out the day after, the day after my birthday. If I drink it really? It. It decreases that worst decision making on my birthday and for a couple days after.
Less motivation to do things, do fun things, can't just get in the car and be dd for my friends. I can't just get in the car and go support my fiance, my family, anyone who needs me. I can't show up for anyone who needs me. I wanna be at my best on my birthday and whatever causes me not to be, I don't want it.
To be a part of my birthday. So, Johnny, you didn't drink. What did you do instead of celebrate your birthday? Well, for years I've had this vision of like, what would the opposite be of drinking on my birthday, of celebrating with alcohol on my birthday? What would the opposite be? Well, this year I experienced the exact opposite and my fiance empowered this to happen.
She planned a trip with a couple of my best friends that empowered exactly what I'm gonna share with you right now. It empowered me to have a rejuvenating birthday. The opposite of putting alcohol in my system and not being at my best is to do [00:08:00] activities that make me at my best. So I actually kicked off my birthday with a five mile run with my dog, which is like one of my favorite things to do every single day.
So why wouldn't I do it with my dog on my birthday? I love working out, so I kicked the day off with working out, and I also gotta spend time with my family and friends. Now, this is something I've always done on my birthday and with or without alcohol. I think we all want to do this on our birthday, spend time with our family and friends.
Well, I did this without alcohol and it was even deeper connections, deeper time together. We actually remember the time we spent together instead of recounting, oh my God, I don't remember a thing, I'm so hung over. You know those times. I remember that I definitely had that time after my 21st birthday in London and after London for the next five to 10 years.
Next thing is we went to a cabin in the woods. I love the outdoors, I love the mountains, and that's what we did. We went to a cabin in the woods that had a hot tub. I love hot tub. I spent a lot of time in the hot tub with my fiance, with my friends, and by myself throughout my birthday and birthday [00:09:00] weekend, and it was on a river and with.
A hot tub. This is like my dream way to spend my birthday, is doing something that's rejuvenating like that. We saw wild turkeys, seven wild turkeys walking by the hot tub. We saw elk and deer walking around near our cabin. This was an amazing way to spend my birthday. Next thing is, I already told you this, but I ate my favorite foods.
And I ate them guilt free because I wasn't adding 300 calories of beer on top of my favorite foods. I also played board games, played my favorite board games with friends, and this is one of my favorite things to do in general, just playing games and we spent the time doing it. Don't need to do anything necessarily special for your birthday.
You just gotta do what you want to do for your birthday. What do you enjoy doing? That's what you should be doing Also. You know me. I like drinking sparkling water, so I drank sparkling water.[00:10:00]
And a beer and kombucha. This is how I celebrate with the drink. Remember other episodes and videos on my channel I share about how you need to replace the ritual. So if you're used to the ritual of celebrating your birthday with a drink, you should celebrate your birthday with a drink, just a non-alcoholic drink.
Maybe have some tea, maybe have one of these things. Maybe check out the video where I talk about the best substitutions for alcohol that you can integrate into your life. And the last one that I think all of us actually want when we're on vacation, we're celebrating our birthday, whatever is, I slept for eight to 10 hours a night.
This was amazing. I actually felt rejuvenated after the weekend because I slept eight to 10 hours a night. Now, if you want to take your health to the next level. I have my three Pillars of Healthy Living Guide. It is linked in description below if you're watching this on YouTube, and it's linked in the show [00:11:00] notes.
If you're listening to this as a podcast, you can also go to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living guide to grab your free copy. Today. You'll be able to read and start integrating this guide into your life in just a couple of minutes. The three Pillars of Healthy Living Being Movement. Tracking and accountability.
Now I'm excited to hear how you spend your next birthday. What things do you do instead of drinking? Leave a comment below telling me what you do, and I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. It is about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals, and if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with [00:12:00] others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible.
