podcast - i like beer better without alcohol
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[00:00:00] Welcome to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host, Johnny Havey, 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 100K ultra, I proved 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.
Today on the show, I'm gonna share with you something I discovered after taking 14 months off from drinking. I discovered, along with experiencing more clarity, energy, motivation, productivity, and [00:01:00] overall, and overall health and wellbeing, because I cut alcohol out of my life for so long, I also discovered I like beer better without alcohol.
And I would have never have figured this out if I didn't try alcohol again. Well, today on the show, I'm gonna share with you the five reasons why I believe NA beer, non-alcoholic beer, is significantly better in every way than beer beer with alcohol in it. And we're gonna kick it off getting this out of the way.
NA beer tastes better than beer beer. And I know that you're probably out there, you don't believe me, but I got an athletic beer right here. It's a hazy IPA. And When I taste this, all I taste is IPA. All I taste is the flavor [00:02:00] of the beer. I invite you to think back to the first beer you ever had, or the first drink in general you ever had.
For me, the first drink I ever had was a sip of either a Corona or a Coors Light. I'm not sure which one it was, but I know that my dad handed me a glass and there was a little bit left that he had been drinking, and I tasted it, and it was disgusting. It was bitter, it was strong. I didn't know it at the time, but it tasted like a cleaner.
It tasted so strong. It tasted like cough syrup And I didn't realize this until having my first couple of drinks after taking four months off from drinking, that that's exactly what beer tastes like, what wine tastes like, what any of these alcoholic beverages taste like. Beer with alcohol tastes like beer plus cough syrup.
And it's really [00:03:00] fascinating because I also remember back when we didn't have all these options for NA beers. You really had, I think, O'Doul's, and some of the big beer manufacturers had, like, one option, had some sort of Coors. Maybe it was Coors Edge. Coors Edge is actually really good. Maybe Heineken had something, but Heineken 0.0 is phenomenal.
And I don't think Michelob had what they have today, but Michelob Zero, also great beer. But the problem about NA beer in the past was it tasted significantly worse than beer beer, because it literally just tasted like water. It tasted like watered-down beer. But now we have these amazing beers that you get the best of the beer.
You get the IPA without the alcohol, without the cough syrup taste. So yes, NA beers [00:04:00] taste better. And if you don't believe me, I invite you to take at least three months off from drinking, and then have a beer again for the first time. And during those three months of not drinking, maybe pick up some NA beers and see what you think.
Now that we got that out of the way, we can really focus on the actual benefits of NA beer. And the first one is significantly less calories, and I mean significantly. Yes, Michelob Ultra has under 100 calories. Yes, Miller Lite has under 100 calories. And you know all these different beer companies try and have these low-cal beers.
But guess what? This is a hazy IPA, and it has 70 calories. Do you know how many calories a hazy IPA typically has? We're talking 200 minimum, but sometimes all the way up to 300 to [00:05:00] 350 calories for one beer. This is a fifth of that. And this is pretty consistent across types of NA beer. If you compare a Coors Edge to a Coors Light, you're gonna see that the alcoholic version has at least three times the amount of calories than the NA version, and that's really because of the alcohol.
The alcohol adds these calories. It also metabolizes into sugar, which is really hard on our bodies. So Johnny, you're telling me that NA beer tastes better and it has less calories? Sign me up, right? Well, that's not even the best part. We're also talking, number three, no hangover, and for the most part, no impairment.
Now, I say for the most part because what you may find when you start drinking NA beer [00:06:00] as a substitute for beer-beer... Now, remember, if you are an alcoholic, you cannot drink NA beer, 'cause there are trace amounts of alcohol in it, and it can give you the placebo of feeling like you're drinking alcohol, which can be very detrimental to alcoholics.
But if you're not an alcoholic... So please talk to your healthcare professional. I have a disclaimer in the show notes and in the YouTube description, so check that out and always talk to a healthcare professional. Now, I can drink as many of these as I want, which crazy enough, I really only want to drink two or three or four of these at a time, which is very different from when you're drinking beer-beer.
You kind of keep going and going and going even though you're having way more calories. We're having less calories, and I don't want as many of these. One is usually good enough for me. But if I'm getting a little crazy, like 4th of [00:07:00] July or whatever, then I might be having two, three, or four of these. And guess what?
I have no hangover, baby, no hangover, and for the most part, no impairment. So why, for the most part, do I say no impairment? Well, because your body, depending on how you react when you drink beer or drink alcohol and all these things, when you start drinking NA beer, you may look at this as a pro for NA beer as well.
When you start drinking NA beer, you may have something called the placebo effect. 'Cause what happens is you're going through the motion of opening the beer drinking the beer, smelling the beer, tasting the beer, and there's even a little bit less than half a percent of alcohol in some NA beers. Other NA beers, they say 0.0%.
But you're going through the motions of what you may have done [00:08:00] over and over and over throughout your life drinking beer. What this creates is a placebo effect in our brains, making us feel some of the effects that you may feel when you're drinking. That's why I say no impairment for the most part. But you may just because of the placebo effect have a little bit of impairment.
It's not real impairment. What I really mean here is I can technically drink one of these at lunch and do a bunch of work after lunch, work out after lunch, and have no impairment. The, this would just be like drinking a coffee or drinking a sparkling water or drinking a kombucha. It doesn't ruin the rest of your day.
It doesn't create the brain fog and the lack of motivation and productivity that beer creates for the rest of your day. I will say that the longer you take off from [00:09:00] drinking and the longer that you drink NA beer, the placebo effect decreases After taking 14 months off, by the end of the 14 months, I had zero placebo effect.
Since then, I did drink a couple of times, you know, a couple of beers here, a couple of beers there, went to a wedding, and then I took another 10 months off. Well, the beginning of that new 10 months, I felt the placebo effect again. But then by the end of the 10 months, didn't feel it. I then decided to take a month off from taking time off, drank a couple of weekends, then again, a couple of beers here, a couple of beers there, and now I'm two weeks into not drinking again, and I feel the placebo effect of the NA beer.
So it really is this neurological thing in our brains that creates the placebo effect, and it's based on recency. It's based on having the actual effect of the alcohol in our bodies more recently, and the farther you get away from that, the less of a placebo effect [00:10:00] you get. Now, an interesting thing about NA beer is that it can actually help you figure out if you have a beer allergy, because you may have, for years, blamed alcohol for feeling bad after drinking a beer.
Well, if you drink an NA beer and you have the same issues that you were having when you were drinking alcohol, you may figure out that you're allergic to barley, you're allergic to hops, you're allergic to wheat. You may be allergic to something that's actually in beer. This is another benefit of at least trying NA beer, is if you still feel terrible after drinking an NA beer, you may have an allergy to beer in the first place.
So stop drinking beer. But if you feel great after drinking NA beer like I do, then there are some other amazing benefits. And really, it comes down to things as simple as no regrets. You know how when you [00:11:00] start drinking, and you may not even have to drink very much, one or two drinks, and you may start doing things that you don't usually do.
You may start being unproductive, and you regret that. Well, when you drink NA beer or any NA beverage of choice, let's say you're allergic to beer, well, you get to enjoy and not regret anything. This is a huge benefit of drinking NA products. It doesn't impact my training and Recovery. This is huge. Why I even decided to stop drinking in the first place, or going through these extended amounts of times of not drinking, is I wanted to challenge myself to see how good of an athlete I could be.
So I signed up for some ultra races, and my first 50-mile race, I told myself, "I'm gonna cut alcohol out for at least three to four months before the race." So that's what I did, and I was able to finish my 50-mile race. Well, from there, I decided I would do it again for my [00:12:00] 100-kilometer race the following year, and I took even more time off, I think four to six months this time, and I won the race.
And I had so much success from cutting alcohol out that I just kept it out of my life for 14 months, and I saw how productive I could be, not just as an athlete, but as a human. And now, this is what drives me to not drink and to instead drink NA beer when I want a beer and drink sparkling water every single day.
I know that I perform better as an athlete without alcohol. I know that I recover better as an athlete without alcohol. I also know that I perform better as a business owner and as a human in life without alcohol. And this is the real reason why I choose non-alcoholic beverages like NA beer instead of alcoholic beverages and beer beer.
Now, as a thank you for being here with me today, I want to give you a [00:13:00] gift, my Three Pillars of Healthy Living guide. You can grab it in the show notes or in the YouTube description. You can also go to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living-guide to start integrating it into your life today. It's only gonna take you a couple of minutes to read through the guide, and the three pillars are simple, movement, tracking, and accountability.
When you integrate these three pillars into your life, you will see yourself over time, you will see yourself living healthier. I want that for you. I'm excited to 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's about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now [00:14:00] towards your goals. And if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible
