Maintaining a diet while drinking wine

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Replies

  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,455 Member
    OP I lost the weight I set out to lose, and am currently maintaining, while regularly drinking wine. During weight loss I drank one, sometimes two glasses a night. For quite some time in maintenance I was drinking 2 glasses a night or sometimes more - I've recently cut back and am drinking only on the weekends, 1-2 glasses at a time.

    Just factor the calories consumed into your total day, and try to limit the mindless snacking that some people struggle with while drinking!
  • Maxxitt
    Maxxitt Posts: 1,281 Member
    edited March 2018
    My issue with wine is that it's yummy enough that I want two glasses, and my meager deficit still has me needing to eat under 1400 calories a day to try to lose two pounds a month, which is challenging enough without having to work 250 calories of wine into the equation. So I save it for special occasions.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,088 Member
    edited March 2018
    psychod787 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    When I have a beer, I rarely drink, I will track alcohol as carbs or fat.

    Just curious, why would you log it as fat?

    From my understanding, alcohol acts like a carb and a fat. Carbs are listed as a macro, but alcohol generally not. As fats and carbs are almost interchangeable as far as tef, I will use what ever macro I have the most of. I could be wrong. If I am, please let me know.

    What do you mean by "acts like a . . . fat"? Alcohol can't replace fat in the dietary sense -- fat plays a role in our bodies that alcohol cannot.

    From my understanding, once some one has taken in their minimums of fat intake for the day. This will vary on who you ask. I think the one I read was .35grams per pound of bw, you would have enough fats for basic hormonal support.

    https://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/what-to-drink/how-count-alcohol-against-your-daily-macros
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    psychod787 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    When I have a beer, I rarely drink, I will track alcohol as carbs or fat.

    Just curious, why would you log it as fat?

    From my understanding, alcohol acts like a carb and a fat. Carbs are listed as a macro, but alcohol generally not. As fats and carbs are almost interchangeable as far as tef, I will use what ever macro I have the most of. I could be wrong. If I am, please let me know.

    What do you mean by "acts like a . . . fat"? Alcohol can't replace fat in the dietary sense -- fat plays a role in our bodies that alcohol cannot.

    From my understanding, once some one has taken in their minimums of fat intake for the day. This will vary on who you ask. I think the one I read was .35grams per pound of bw, you would have enough fats for basic hormonal support.

    https://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/what-to-drink/how-count-alcohol-against-your-daily-macros

    Thanks for the link, very interesting!
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,393 Member
    psychod787 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    When I have a beer, I rarely drink, I will track alcohol as carbs or fat.

    Just curious, why would you log it as fat?

    From my understanding, alcohol acts like a carb and a fat. Carbs are listed as a macro, but alcohol generally not. As fats and carbs are almost interchangeable as far as tef, I will use what ever macro I have the most of. I could be wrong. If I am, please let me know.

    What do you mean by "acts like a . . . fat"? Alcohol can't replace fat in the dietary sense -- fat plays a role in our bodies that alcohol cannot.

    From my understanding, once some one has taken in their minimums of fat intake for the day. This will vary on who you ask. I think the one I read was .35grams per pound of bw, you would have enough fats for basic hormonal support.

    https://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/what-to-drink/how-count-alcohol-against-your-daily-macros

    OK: so you have your basic fats. And you basic carbs, if you care about that. And your basic protein. And your basic fiber. There is no basic amount of alcohol that you need, so generally speaking it doesn't get tracked.

    I mean if you really feel the need to track your alcohol, you could use a standard drink equivallency, call a standard drink a cup of water (or an oz of water) and track your drinks as water! Then you would have a distinct count for your "drinks" per day/week/etc if you ever wanted to refer to them.

    Anyway. What I am getting at is that it is not a fat, and it is not a carb regardless of whether it gets processed before anything else.

    It would be, I don't know, like me deciding to add edamame beans into my meat "allowance". I mean they are both complete proteins. But the beans are not meat. So why would I claim I ate a lb of meat if I had a lb of beans instead?

    So, yeah, it should be in its own macro category and it isn't. But by adding it to your other stuff you are polluting your data with no benefit that I can see.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,088 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    When I have a beer, I rarely drink, I will track alcohol as carbs or fat.

    Just curious, why would you log it as fat?

    From my understanding, alcohol acts like a carb and a fat. Carbs are listed as a macro, but alcohol generally not. As fats and carbs are almost interchangeable as far as tef, I will use what ever macro I have the most of. I could be wrong. If I am, please let me know.

    What do you mean by "acts like a . . . fat"? Alcohol can't replace fat in the dietary sense -- fat plays a role in our bodies that alcohol cannot.

    From my understanding, once some one has taken in their minimums of fat intake for the day. This will vary on who you ask. I think the one I read was .35grams per pound of bw, you would have enough fats for basic hormonal support.

    https://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/what-to-drink/how-count-alcohol-against-your-daily-macros

    OK: so you have your basic fats. And you basic carbs, if you care about that. And your basic protein. And your basic fiber. There is no basic amount of alcohol that you need, so generally speaking it doesn't get tracked.

    I mean if you really feel the need to track your alcohol, you could use a standard drink equivallency, call a standard drink a cup of water (or an oz of water) and track your drinks as water! Then you would have a distinct count for your "drinks" per day/week/etc if you ever wanted to refer to them.

    Anyway. What I am getting at is that it is not a fat, and it is not a carb regardless of whether it gets processed before anything else.

    It would be, I don't know, like me deciding to add edamame beans into my meat "allowance". I mean they are both complete proteins. But the beans are not meat. So why would I claim I ate a lb of meat if I had a lb of beans instead?

    So, yeah, it should be in its own macro category and it isn't. But by adding it to your other stuff you are polluting your data with no benefit that I can see.

    Well as a macro tracker, vs a strait calorie counter. Yes counting macros is a form of calorie counting, I need to have a way of accounting for the alcohol calories in an alcoholic drink. It's just the way I do it. As far as throwing off my data, in my case, my one drink a month I have will not really pollute my data that much. I used to think in the short term, now thanks to many of the folks on these forums, I look at the long term data. I do like your scientific responses btw.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
    psychod787 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    When I have a beer, I rarely drink, I will track alcohol as carbs or fat.

    Just curious, why would you log it as fat?

    From my understanding, alcohol acts like a carb and a fat. Carbs are listed as a macro, but alcohol generally not. As fats and carbs are almost interchangeable as far as tef, I will use what ever macro I have the most of. I could be wrong. If I am, please let me know.

    What do you mean by "acts like a . . . fat"? Alcohol can't replace fat in the dietary sense -- fat plays a role in our bodies that alcohol cannot.

    I agree with this. Beer contains no fat but it does contain carbs, some quite a bit. But as far as logging you can do whatever best suits your needs. If it were me I'd just log the beer from the database and let the chips fall where they may.
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    I don't drink a lot but didn't change it before and after I started this 6 years ago.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
    Not a popular answer :
    Accept a slower rate of loss. If you're eating near the lower end of minimum calories (1200 women, 1500 men) you can hardly afford to substitute alcohol in place of actual nutrition.. For long term health reasons. Eat your minimum in nutrition then add the alcohol.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,971 Member
    I enjoy beer and wine but one of the reasons I got fat (twice) was that I drank 3-4 cans of beer a day w/o regard for the calories consumed.

    Now that I am carefully monitoring my calorie intake, I am very selective as to when I drink beer and wine because the 100-300 calories consumed in 1-2 glasses of beer/wine is nutritionally empty and throws off my macros (limiting the amount of protein that I can eat) unless I burn an additional 100-300 calories exercising.

    So, I am no longer drinking very much beer or wine anymore.

  • Pastaprincess1978
    Pastaprincess1978 Posts: 371 Member
    This mightn't work for you but I drink wine out of a sherry glass (only about 2 oz max). One of those a day doesn't hurt much.
  • Booksandoceans
    Booksandoceans Posts: 38 Member
    I have between one and three drinks a week, and doing so reached my goal weight. Been maintaining for a while. Cheers! :)
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,048 Member
    Grimmerick wrote: »
    I used to jog to and from the bar to happy hour, it was a little slower on the way back.
    The only way I can get DH to walk (not jog!) is if we go to the nearest Mexican place and have a margarita. I read somewhere the fancy name for that is “temptation bundling,” or bundling something you’re tempted to procrastinate (exercise) with something you’re tempted to indulge (margaritas). It works!
  • chesves
    chesves Posts: 224 Member
    It's all about balance - if it's important to you, find a way to work it in. For me, when I know I'm going to have more than a glass or two, I ensure I am moving a lot more that day and burning more calories. I also try to make a conscious effort to eat lower calorie meals that day to fit it in my daily allotment as much as possible!
    It IS doable!