Alcohol Calories?
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As you lose wieght your deficit gets smaller and smaller, so at a heavier weight you have more room for error and still be able to lose. You've managed to still stay at a deficit. Closer to your goal weight you'll find that you have to be very accurate.4
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xjessicaxrx wrote: »
They could be.
Are you using newish scales on a level, firm surface in the same place and weighing yourself at the same time each day?0 -
There are to many factors to give an accurate response, (tho I'm not really sure that is what you are looking for).
But say you still have your deficit set to lose 2 pounds a week, or -1000 a day. Your average bottle of wine is +/- 625 calories. 625x2=1250. 1250-1000=250. 250/3500= 0.0714.
So hypothetically drinking two bottles might only put you 250 calories over your maintenance, which theoretically would only cause you to gain .07 of a pound. And those 250 calories could easily be burned off by the extra activity of staying active later in the night.
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xjessicaxrx wrote: »
Liquid weighs, unless you pee out 2 bottles worth of wine in one night, which is quite a bit, the weight is going to be there and that's without including the calories from the drink.
I know my my weight fluctuates about 5lb a week just from liquid intake and expulsion alone.0 -
xjessicaxrx wrote: »
They could be.
Are you using newish scales on a level, firm surface in the same place and weighing yourself at the same time each day?
No they are the same scales which I have had since starting, they never move from the same spot on my tiled bathroom floor. I always weigh myself in the morning after using the toilet.
My deficit is set to lose 1lb per week, I am only short at 5ft 4 so maintenance is around 1900 calories per day. I definitely ate 1400 yesterday maybe even a bit more because the food was provided at the party (cheese & onion pie) so that was estimated as I didnt cook and weigh it myself as I normally would.
I was looking to see if anybody else is the same and finds this themselves, obviously not judging by the amount of comments trying to contradict me and telling me I must be wrong / deluded lol!0 -
xjessicaxrx wrote: »I was looking to see if anybody else is the same and finds this themselves, obviously not judging by the amount of comments trying to contradict me and telling me I must be wrong / deluded lol!
Not sure anyone is doing that, but 2 bottles ( 3 pints) of wine contains about 1200 calories. As long as you are that far within your deficit, then it won't make you put on weight. It might slow you down though.
(Incidentally, I find that I might have lost weight after a good sesh but only because I'm dehydrated.)4 -
I understand what you're saying about alcohol calories. When you weigh yourself tomorrow, you'll probably be a pound or 2 heavier than today as you were probably a little dehydrated this morning (even with all the water you drank).
In the beginning of my weight loss journey I felt alcohol calories may be wrong, like you do. But towards the end I noticed the scale wasn't moving. Once I started accounting more for alcohol I started losing again. I hope this helps.3 -
good luck!0
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OP, I drink every single day and have lost 37 lbs since January. I have to measure what I drink every evening, but occasionally I do go all crazy. As long as you are at a deficit, you'll lose weight.
Just don't be like one of my formerly close girlfriends. All she ever did was drink - no eating - and she lost massive amounts of weight. However, she also became anorexic, and even after recovery is a miserable person. Watch out for that
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xjessicaxrx wrote: »Well I drank 2 bottles of wine last night and godknows what else because I dont remember, but my weight is still the same today? I would have thought that there was too many calories in wine (if counting) for that to be actually possible? I ate a normal amount of food during the day so my food calories were ok, not under.
Calories does not equal weight in the short term.
For example, weigh yourself. Drink 4 cups of water (32 oz). You've just consumed 0 calories, right? Weigh yourself on a scale again. You've just gained 2 pounds! Wha? How'd that happen? You consumed 0 calories!
It's water weight. Since you drank 2 pounds of water, you weigh 2 pounds heavier in the short term. Weigh yourself again the next day, after the water is gone from your system, you'll be back to the same weight.
Alcohol dehydrates you temporarily. Drink a bottle of wine, it's calories are added to your body, but it also removes water from your body by dehydration. What the water weighed before is now gone from your body, so it appears that you dropped pounds. Weigh yourself the next few days, and you'll find that you gained pounds by drinking that wine in the long term. Short term, no. Long term, yes.
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I don't drink often but when I do I can't help but be delighted when I hop on the scales the next morning. I'm well aware that it's dehydration that is causing that sudden drop, but it delights me anyway. Tough sledding after that though.0
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goldthistime wrote: »I don't drink often but when I do I can't help but be delighted when I hop on the scales the next morning. I'm well aware that it's dehydration that is causing that sudden drop, but it delights me anyway. Tough sledding after that though.
If women on weight watchers knew the alcohol secret, I bet a lot of them would be pleased.
For example: They had a hard weekend, eating bad, and need to weigh themselves on Monday, but are scared of the scale at the Weight Watchers meeting. They don't want to be embarrassed.
Solution: Drink heavily on Sunday night. The scale is their friend for that one morning. They aren't embarrassed anymore.
Of course, the next week, they'll have to work much harder to keep their weight the same.
(I'm saying 'women' because I've been a part of weight watchers before, and I saw this all the time. All the men I've seen there never had an issue with the scale. They would weigh on good weeks or bad weeks, they never avoided it. The women did many times)
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Iv never counted alcohol in calories, I.dont believe 800 cals in a bottle of wine is the same as 800 calories of cake regardless of what people say. My body says different.
The difficult part is ensuring u dont give into the food cravings that alcohol causes, which is why I limit wine to a glass or two.3 -
Iv never counted alcohol in calories, I.dont believe 800 cals in a bottle of wine is the same as 800 calories of cake regardless of what people say. My body says different.
The difficult part is ensuring u dont give into the food cravings that alcohol causes, which is why I limit wine to a glass or two.
Since the weight doesn't go on right away and you're presumably eating other things besides just cake and alcohol, I don't know how you can possibly determine this. Consider: many people see a temporary water weight loss (due to dehydration) when they consume a lot of alcohol and a temporary water weight gain when they eat a lot of carbohydrates. But this has nothing to do with actual weight gain or loss. Your body will still process the calories.
I always weigh less the day after drinking heavily and I always weigh more after eating a big piece of cake or cookies. But these are temporary fluctuations.5 -
I can determine it because im 40lbs lighter, I.didnt say it will work for everyone, I just answered the OPs question. Works for me and I always eat all the calories mpf sets for me with wine easily 500 calories on.top of that for 2 small glasses.1
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I find the same thing. There was a thread awhile back with similar findings I remember commenting on and someone linked an interesting study about all this, I'll see if I can dig it up. I say if it's working for you and you are still losing, just go with it5
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i always count alcohol calories, and they definitely hit me the way any other calories do, which is not to say the next day after a binge i will be up. If i just drink i'll be a bit down from dehydration, if i combine alcohol with salty foods i'll be a bit up from sodium / water retention. but that's not an accurate indication of the actual effects.
i also have to factor in that if i drink too much i'll probably be pretty sedentary the next day and have to really watch my calories. the day after my birthday i literally only took 23 steps according to my fit bit, so my calories need to be adjusted for that as well. add in the anxiety or depression the day after a binge and the cravings for comfort food and it's a pretty significant package.
overall, i make room for 1 glass of wine or 1 beer with dinner and try to stick to that most days. that way, when my inner party girl emerges i've got some wiggle room and hopefully don't derail the whole week.2 -
I do try to log my alcohol calories just to keep myself accountable. To be honest I don't always recall exactly how many vodka sodas I drank, so it's an approximation at best. I also have noticed the phenomenon of weighing less the morning after drinking (assuming of course that I didn't eat the entire contents of the fridge). The temporary drop on the scale makes the hangover ever so slightly more tolerable. 1
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I've been doing the same.... but lately I'm thinking, if I don't have those drinks, then my workout will be that much more effective. Its super hard to not drink for me, but its worth a shot.
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At 5'4", you are teetering between a healthy/overweight BMI, meaning you might have wiggle room for error in logging. However, I can guarantee that the leaner you get, the more important those alcohol calories get. In a night, even just me drinking Jameson and Diet Coke, each ounce is 70 calories. If I have 3 drinks that aren't logged, that's already 210 calories. That's enough to nearly wipe out a daily deficit at .5lbs a week.
So you might not find it important now, but there will come a time that it's important. Might as well start now and get in the habit.4
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