Opening up a new bar and performance venue in Astoria, Q.E.D., was a lifelong dream for Kambri Crews. But it also became the source of her most unhealthy habit: a limitless supply of alcohol.
Stressing about the venue’s success, Crews got through her days with bottomless glasses of wine. “I lost track of how much I was drinking,” she says.
Before she knew it, the 46-year-old had ballooned to 182 pounds. The 5-foot-9 storyteller barely recognized herself in photos and videos. And she worried about how alcohol was affecting other aspects of her health, too.
“I felt fat, exhausted, stressed, overwhelmed and miserable,” she says.
On Labor Day 2016, she quit alcohol cold turkey. She started biking to work and went on the South Beach Diet, eating meals such as grilled tilapia or chicken with roasted asparagus. By February of this year, she had dropped to 145 pounds.
‘Women lose a lot of weight in their breasts, so when I dropped the last 25 pounds, [I was] able to feel the lump.’
But the hardest part was yet to come. Just one month after hitting her target weight, she discovered a lump in her breast that a mammogram had missed. “Women lose a lot of weight in their breasts, so when I dropped the last 25 pounds, [I was] able to feel the lump,” she says.
Doctors say Crews’ prognosis is good, especially since she’s changed her lifestyle. These days, she keeps her fridge stocked with portioned-out servings of pre-grilled chicken breast, low-fat cheese wedges, boiled eggs and peanut butter with celery — and she still avoids alcohol. She even bikes to her radiation treatments a mile-and-a-half away.
“[My doctors] say drinking increases risks and interferes with treatment,” she says. “So stopping drinking saved my life in more ways than one.”
Her tip: “When I felt tempted to drink, I sipped seltzer with fresh lime and lemon wedges, or had a sugar-free hard candy.”