Alcohol
goragon
Posts: 50 Member
Alcohol is destroying my weight loss and I just can't seem to stop.
I just looked up how many calories I've consumed just by drinking alcohol and last night I drank over 1500 calories.
It looks like I may have to try and stop drinking if I am to get my weight under control again.
I just looked up how many calories I've consumed just by drinking alcohol and last night I drank over 1500 calories.
It looks like I may have to try and stop drinking if I am to get my weight under control again.
5
Replies
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Can you just drink less? Like I normally have 1 drink and I make it something awesome and satisfying like a really good craft beer. Even the super caloriffic ones are 300 or less. I can generally make that work. Stouts are much lower calorie. In the 120-200 range depending on the brewer.4
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That's an awful lot of alcohol.
I had to quit too. Weight loss was only one of my many problems with alcohol.
I hope you find some peace. Quitting will be the best thing you ever do.4 -
Yep, all empty calories. I indulge in some fruity cocktails only once a month now and always make up for the extra calories by either banking them through the weeks or working out a bit longer.1
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Me and you both!
Okay. No, that's a lot of alcohol!
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Alcohol is destroying my weight loss and I just can't seem to stop.
I just looked up how many calories I've consumed just by drinking alcohol and last night I drank over 1500 calories.
It looks like I may have to try and stop drinking if I am to get my weight under control again.
If you can't stop drinking you may want to see someone about it.10 -
yowza! 1500 cals in alcohol is kind of overkill. alcohol hasn't inhibited my results at all. I only drink on weekends though, and have only 2-4 drinks (mostly beer) a day.1
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yeah, at least cutting back would be helpful. i was an everyday drinker, and i've gone over two months now without anything. it's the longest time i've gone without a drink in over 20 years (back when i wasn't of legal age.) i haven't sworn alcohol off completely, but both mentally and physically i feel 100% better. each weekend i think i'm going to have a drink, but i just feel so much better. i didn't cut down just because of the calories.5 -
Try Kudzu root pills. They worked well for me. They decrease alcohol cravings. You have one drink and say, "That was sufficient. I don't feel like having another."1
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when do you drink - with others or alone? i just quit for 3 months because of some meds and it was much, much easier to lose / work out without it. now i'm trying to ease back in. beer is a calorie bomb, it's all gin + seltzers in my future...0
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My sister stopped drinking to assist in her weight loss and lost 30lbs in a very short time. She too consumed a lot of calories in drinks.3
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I feel you - I need to stop too. You can do it! I noticed that if I'm craving for an alcoholic drink, I drink a glass of seltzer water or club soda (can buy the flavored ones) and that helps curb my craving.2
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You sound like you're on the verge of seeing what effects alcohol may or may not be having on you. I think 12 steppers call that taking inventory or moment of clarity or some other thing. (Not sure. Never had to do a program to quit stuff, luckily.) People without a strong urge to drink heavily will never understand that, and that's OK. You understand it. Having said that, as a practical matter as far as weight loss, just like with sweets, fried foods, whatever... if you can't see yourself going cold turkey, cutting out a little every day will move the needle in the right direction. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Can you cut down to 1000 calories of alcohol a day right now? That could easily net a 50 pound weight loss in a year, all other things being equal. That is a good strategy for weight loss, but does not really work if you are intending to battle addiction.1
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Alcohol is destroying my weight loss and I just can't seem to stop.
I just looked up how many calories I've consumed just by drinking alcohol and last night I drank over 1500 calories.
It looks like I may have to try and stop drinking if I am to get my weight under control again.
Feeling like you can't stop is a sign of addiction, so I hope you were just being hyperbolic by saying that. If you were exaggerating, you really just need to assess what you're going to drink and when and fit it in your calorie budget. Log the drinks in your food diary before you drink them, so you know how they're going to affect your day. If you were not exaggerating, I recommend taking a hard look at your drinking behavior and reaching out to a local AA group.1 -
Love ETOH--I won't give it up. I just drink on weekends.0
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What are you drinking? 1500 is a lot of calories but if you are having some type of sugar bomb fruity drink that could only be 2 drinks. If you like high calorie drinks then you may have to give up drinking them daily.
If you really feel like you can't stop drinking then I'd suggest giving it up altogether for a w few weeks just to see if you can. If you can't, you need to address that problem.2 -
i can't do alcohol in moderation either and it was killing my weight loss, not to mention the crap food that i eat along w/ the alcohol.
if you can have 1 or 2 drinks and call it a day, great. if not then it comes down to:
what do you want MORE?
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If we are talking just beer, then that is about 8-10 beers per day depending on what kind of beer you are drinking.
I like to enjoy my drinks a few days a week too, but I had to lay off the beer. I switched to drinking red wine. The kind I get is approximately 100 calories per glass, 480 calories in the whole bottle according to MFP.
I do find that on top of the calorie overload after a night of heavy drinking, I am super starving the next day and tend to make really poor food choices.
I still drink beer on the weekends depending on what we are doing (bbq, crawfish boil, etc).1 -
I love my wine. Everybody who knows me knows I love my wine but I also need to cut way back because even though I bank my calories in order to drink, I am still not seeing the progress *I think* I should be. I am guilty of drinking an entire bottle of wine myself on a Saturday night. It takes me a while to get through it (I may open it at 6pm and finish it at 2am and then go to bed) but it just is not healthy and I know that. There is no reason that I need to be doing that every weekend. I don't think I have an addiction problem, I think it has just become a habit-just what I do on a Saturday night and I need to break that. My current goal is to not drink at all until Easter (when I will be with my family and everyone will be drinking) and then after that, only when I go out which is actually not often at all. I am newly single and over the years my friends have all moved, gotten married, had babies, etc, so I usually just go to work and go home so that means a lot of alcohol will be cut out. I know it is going to be hard to break the habit (just like how I cannot stop biting my nails, ugh!) but I know I can do it and I find that by reading a lot of articles/information online about how alcohol negatively affects the body has been really helpful to get though this. I have a lot of depression and anxiety along with constant fatigue and I am hoping that eliminating most of the alcohol I normally consume will fix those issues. I am really, really, really hoping that it will help my weight loss too. During the week, I can have just one or two glasses of wine just one night and be fine, but it's the damn weekends that get me so I think it is best for me to abstain for now.5
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Yes. It can be tough to lose weight if you drink every day. If your body is busy burning off alcohol, it's probably not burning off food calories efficiently while you are drinking. You will probably not make good food choices after a few drinks either (chips and salsa go so well with a margarita or two). I too, have a problem with controlling how much I drink once I start. So I went to counseling. After trying unsuccessfully to moderate my drinking, I came to the conclusion that I had to just stop all together. As my counselor says "I don't have an off switch" when it comes to alcohol. I would strongly urge you to try talking with a counselor who has experience in alcohol dependency and explore the reasons that you are having problems with moderating your alcohol intake. I resisted counseling for years and years and I wish I hadn't waited. Life is so much better now. I'd still love to be able to drink and miss it, but I like losing weight, no hangovers and being in control so much better.4
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When I gave up alcohol for 3 months I lost about 10 pounds. All the bloat, empty calories, plus dehydration and junk food cravings, really made drinking not worth it. I enjoy a good beer, wine, or mixed drink now, and find that with my lowered tolerance allows me to have a great time on just 1 or 2 drinks. (Even on my birthday I had 4 beers total.)
If you are just drinking to get drunk and find that you can't limit yourself, as others have said, please see a professional. Otherwise, cut back for a while and reap the rewards. You'll probably find working out and fighting junk food cravings is easier.3 -
FoxyMars25 wrote: »I love my wine. Everybody who knows me knows I love my wine but I also need to cut way back because even though I bank my calories in order to drink, I am still not seeing the progress *I think* I should be. I am guilty of drinking an entire bottle of wine myself on a Saturday night. It takes me a while to get through it (I may open it at 6pm and finish it at 2am and then go to bed) but it just is not healthy and I know that. There is no reason that I need to be doing that every weekend. I don't think I have an addiction problem, I think it has just become a habit-just what I do on a Saturday night and I need to break that. My current goal is to not drink at all until Easter (when I will be with my family and everyone will be drinking) and then after that, only when I go out which is actually not often at all. I am newly single and over the years my friends have all moved, gotten married, had babies, etc, so I usually just go to work and go home so that means a lot of alcohol will be cut out. I know it is going to be hard to break the habit (just like how I cannot stop biting my nails, ugh!) but I know I can do it and I find that by reading a lot of articles/information online about how alcohol negatively affects the body has been really helpful to get though this. I have a lot of depression and anxiety along with constant fatigue and I am hoping that eliminating most of the alcohol I normally consume will fix those issues. I am really, really, really hoping that it will help my weight loss too. During the week, I can have just one or two glasses of wine just one night and be fine, but it's the damn weekends that get me so I think it is best for me to abstain for now.
I cannot offer you any advice about your drinking, as that is for you alone to analyse and manage. But I can help with the nails!
Go and get gel nails put on. You go to a salon and have them applied. They go over your regular nails, and if those are too short, they will apply a plastic "extender" so as soon as the session is over, you have nice nails. You cannot bite these - well, you can but they are hard as nails (haha!) and you wont get very far!
Initial application (here in my city in Canada) runs about $50 - monthly maintenance (you have to go in every few weeks to have the space at the bottom of the nail filled in, as the nail grows) is about $35. Your nails have a chance to grow out underneath the gel coating, and arent destroyed. The gel breathes a bit.
You can have them painted, french manicured, designs etc - its worth while to help with the habit of nail biting, and your nails will look great!
(yeah, this was a little off topic......)1 -
cross2bear wrote: »FoxyMars25 wrote: »I love my wine. Everybody who knows me knows I love my wine but I also need to cut way back because even though I bank my calories in order to drink, I am still not seeing the progress *I think* I should be. I am guilty of drinking an entire bottle of wine myself on a Saturday night. It takes me a while to get through it (I may open it at 6pm and finish it at 2am and then go to bed) but it just is not healthy and I know that. There is no reason that I need to be doing that every weekend. I don't think I have an addiction problem, I think it has just become a habit-just what I do on a Saturday night and I need to break that. My current goal is to not drink at all until Easter (when I will be with my family and everyone will be drinking) and then after that, only when I go out which is actually not often at all. I am newly single and over the years my friends have all moved, gotten married, had babies, etc, so I usually just go to work and go home so that means a lot of alcohol will be cut out. I know it is going to be hard to break the habit (just like how I cannot stop biting my nails, ugh!) but I know I can do it and I find that by reading a lot of articles/information online about how alcohol negatively affects the body has been really helpful to get though this. I have a lot of depression and anxiety along with constant fatigue and I am hoping that eliminating most of the alcohol I normally consume will fix those issues. I am really, really, really hoping that it will help my weight loss too. During the week, I can have just one or two glasses of wine just one night and be fine, but it's the damn weekends that get me so I think it is best for me to abstain for now.
I cannot offer you any advice about your drinking, as that is for you alone to analyse and manage. But I can help with the nails!
Go and get gel nails put on. You go to a salon and have them applied. They go over your regular nails, and if those are too short, they will apply a plastic "extender" so as soon as the session is over, you have nice nails. You cannot bite these - well, you can but they are hard as nails (haha!) and you wont get very far!
Initial application (here in my city in Canada) runs about $50 - monthly maintenance (you have to go in every few weeks to have the space at the bottom of the nail filled in, as the nail grows) is about $35. Your nails have a chance to grow out underneath the gel coating, and arent destroyed. The gel breathes a bit.
You can have them painted, french manicured, designs etc - its worth while to help with the habit of nail biting, and your nails will look great!
(yeah, this was a little off topic......)
hahaha, thanks for the advice! I will look into it!0 -
FoxyMars25 wrote: »cross2bear wrote: »FoxyMars25 wrote: »I love my wine. Everybody who knows me knows I love my wine but I also need to cut way back because even though I bank my calories in order to drink, I am still not seeing the progress *I think* I should be. I am guilty of drinking an entire bottle of wine myself on a Saturday night. It takes me a while to get through it (I may open it at 6pm and finish it at 2am and then go to bed) but it just is not healthy and I know that. There is no reason that I need to be doing that every weekend. I don't think I have an addiction problem, I think it has just become a habit-just what I do on a Saturday night and I need to break that. My current goal is to not drink at all until Easter (when I will be with my family and everyone will be drinking) and then after that, only when I go out which is actually not often at all. I am newly single and over the years my friends have all moved, gotten married, had babies, etc, so I usually just go to work and go home so that means a lot of alcohol will be cut out. I know it is going to be hard to break the habit (just like how I cannot stop biting my nails, ugh!) but I know I can do it and I find that by reading a lot of articles/information online about how alcohol negatively affects the body has been really helpful to get though this. I have a lot of depression and anxiety along with constant fatigue and I am hoping that eliminating most of the alcohol I normally consume will fix those issues. I am really, really, really hoping that it will help my weight loss too. During the week, I can have just one or two glasses of wine just one night and be fine, but it's the damn weekends that get me so I think it is best for me to abstain for now.
I cannot offer you any advice about your drinking, as that is for you alone to analyse and manage. But I can help with the nails!
Go and get gel nails put on. You go to a salon and have them applied. They go over your regular nails, and if those are too short, they will apply a plastic "extender" so as soon as the session is over, you have nice nails. You cannot bite these - well, you can but they are hard as nails (haha!) and you wont get very far!
Initial application (here in my city in Canada) runs about $50 - monthly maintenance (you have to go in every few weeks to have the space at the bottom of the nail filled in, as the nail grows) is about $35. Your nails have a chance to grow out underneath the gel coating, and arent destroyed. The gel breathes a bit.
You can have them painted, french manicured, designs etc - its worth while to help with the habit of nail biting, and your nails will look great!
(yeah, this was a little off topic......)
hahaha, thanks for the advice! I will look into it!
have y'all heard of the next gen "dipping" nail stuff?0 -
FoxyMars25 wrote: »I love my wine. Everybody who knows me knows I love my wine but I also need to cut way back because even though I bank my calories in order to drink, I am still not seeing the progress *I think* I should be. I am guilty of drinking an entire bottle of wine myself on a Saturday night.
Can I ask which wine is that that makes you so into it?
I recently pick up drinking to spice up my evenings. I'm not worried about calories. I'm pretty disciplined (or food and drink don't have that kind of grip on me). I got some Christian Brother brandy, whiskey and Cognac but not able to detect the pleasure of them yet. However, I do enjoy Sangria, margarita with gold tequila and some random cheap red wines. I can finish a whole bottle of moscato.
Do you folks drink along with foods or just ...drink?
Does alcohol negatively affect your sleep?
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I'd recommend taking a break or cutting back while you're losing weight. That you said "I just can't seem to stop" is a little worrisome and reminds me a lot of where I was about 5 months ago. I went through a phase of heavy drinking. It was not actually a really great place.
My husband and I decided to give up alcohol for three months and it was fantastic. It was hard for a week or two, but then it got easier and easier and easier. Our three month challenge ended and we drink again, but only a couple a week. Having a lot of time off really allowed me to reassess the role of booze in my life. And you know what? I feel better than ever! I haven't had a hangover in months, we spend less on alcohol, and I have just as much fun going out with friends. I was worried going out wouldn't be fun, but honestly, I have as much fun whether it's a soda or a beer in my hand.
You never really notice how much people are enslaved by alcohol until you step away from it for a bit.2 -
What did you consume 1500 calories on? Like a previous poster mentioned a couple of bellinis or 10 beers?0
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I don't see what's so special about drinking that you'd want it to get in the way of real goals. It was cool to binge drink when I was in college and going to parties but as an adult with goals you need to prioritize what's important, because you'll never lose weight drinking in a belligerent manner.1
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I had a daily drinking habit. Throw in some stressful life events and my use piled up. I truly think it was a big driver of my weight gain. I quit for a month (it was hard!) and now limit myself to 2-3 drinks once a week on Saturday. I feel SO MUCH BETTER!!! Yes, I lost weight. It is not just that. Eliminating those 2-3 (or 4) glasses of wine a night dramatically improved my sleep quality and energy levels during the day. My bank account thanks me as well.
Try to eliminate the alcohol for one week. See how you feel. Here is a March MFP sobriety challenge: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10519844/sober-march-challenge-marchingtosobriety#latest
Maybe you can start an April one? I bet you would have people joining you who could offer support.1 -
I drink daily and hit my goals, just like pie - moderation my friend. Slow down and enjoy the magic that fermentation has to offer. Beer - its proof of a loving God.
I like to think my Untappd and MFP apps are battling over my soul.1
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