Pro Tip: Just Don't Drink

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  • kdavid1987
    kdavid1987 Posts: 107 Member
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    So true, cutting back on alcohol has really helped accelerate my weight loss -- 9.8 lbs in 4 weeks! I still indulge from time to time but not nearly as often and not in as great of quantities. I hear you about craft beer. Love it, but lots of calories. When I do indulge I try to stick with something light. I'd rather splurge a bit on decadent food than beer at this point. Glad to hear you are having some successes, best of luck going forward sir!
  • WayTooHonest
    WayTooHonest Posts: 144 Member
    edited May 2017
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    JustinAnimal wrote: »
    newmeadow: RESPECT (pounds chest). I haven't given it up for good, but my gut tells me it'd be a good idea. Advice is appreciated.

    redheadedwhatever: never claimed to be an expert. In fact, tried as hard as possible to indicate that the whole fat processing thing was total hearsay, hence me not citing my sources. It may not be true. Most of what I said may not be true for anyone. It happens to be for me, my bizarre psychology, genetics, whatever else might factor in. As for my fitness level or frequency of exercise... so be it. You're right. I didn't know how to properly label it. YOU GOT ME!

    As for my response, which you are looking forward to... I don't know what else to say. I agree that moderation is good. Sounds like you have it under control. I don't. I don't begrudge you your one drink. I don't think it'll set you up for failure. I do appreciate you publicly calling me alcoholic. Did you have a specific question you wanted me to answer?

    Anyway, good times.

    You say want discussion, but come across as defensive when I ask genuine questions. I assure you, I never assumed nor implied you an expert. I was not trying to "get you". How ridiculous.

    Bizzare genetics? Hah.

    And yea, 4-5 drinks a day, and the inability to stop (your words) fit the clinical definition of alcoholic addiction. I base it on the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual 5. I am not judging, it is a simple clinical observation based on the minimal information you provided. Take that as you will. But also recall I gave praise for stopping.

    You ask for conversation and respect, yes refer to me as redheadwhatever, despite the fact my username is right there. You don't want conversation. You want to expouse the value of sobriety and for others to agree.

    Cheers.
  • WayTooHonest
    WayTooHonest Posts: 144 Member
    edited May 2017
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    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    redheaddee1974 wrote: »
    b) Please provide peer reviewed, medical references regarding the bodies inability to process fat when one has had a drink.

    Stickler!

    Well, [Suter, Crit. Rev. Clin. Lab Sci. 42(3), pp197-227, 2005] states clearly in the abstract:

    "Experimental evidence from several metabolic studies showed a suppression of lipid oxidation by alcohol and thus the enhancement of a positive fat balance."

    Hah!

    However, in all truth, reading the abstract in its entirety shows that there is much uncertainty in this statement. I'm absolutely convinced that having a drink a day is fine (and maybe beneficial), so long as you don't go over your plan. It's the last statement that's the glitch for me.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16047538

    Hah.

    So I am a stickler. I prefer peer reviewed scientific evidence as opposed to stories. As a clinical psychologist, I'm a little crazy like that. And I will not apologize for requesting tested, peer reviewed facts. Sorry.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    redheaddee1974 wrote: »
    So I am a stickler. I prefer peer reviewed scientific evidence as opposed to stories. As a clinical psychologist, I'm a little crazy like that. And I will not apologize for requesting tested, peer reviewed facts. Sorry.

    Hey, I agree, that's why I went and found a paper. Still, there's a lot of disagreement in the literature about nutrition.
  • WayTooHonest
    WayTooHonest Posts: 144 Member
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    If you consider someone's opinion in a blog a diagnosis, then I am sad for humanity.
  • nowine4me
    nowine4me Posts: 3,985 Member
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    For those that can drink a glass of wine or beer after work and leave it at that, great. I can't. My glass turned into a bottle pretty much nightly and led to very poor food choices, poor sleep and no energy and eventually, 100 extra pounds. I still drink once in a while, when there's an appropriate occasion, like tonight's concert. Never again just because it's a Tuesday. And as concerned as I was about the "stigma" of not drinking, really -- people just don't give a crap. I've never once been pressured or teased for being dry.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    RosieRose7673 wrote: »
    redheaddee1974 wrote: »
    JustinAnimal wrote: »
    newmeadow: RESPECT (pounds chest). I haven't given it up for good, but my gut tells me it'd be a good idea. Advice is appreciated.

    redheadedwhatever: never claimed to be an expert. In fact, tried as hard as possible to indicate that the whole fat processing thing was total hearsay, hence me not citing my sources. It may not be true. Most of what I said may not be true for anyone. It happens to be for me, my bizarre psychology, genetics, whatever else might factor in. As for my fitness level or frequency of exercise... so be it. You're right. I didn't know how to properly label it. YOU GOT ME!

    As for my response, which you are looking forward to... I don't know what else to say. I agree that moderation is good. Sounds like you have it under control. I don't. I don't begrudge you your one drink. I don't think it'll set you up for failure. I do appreciate you publicly calling me alcoholic. Did you have a specific question you wanted me to answer?

    Anyway, good times.

    You say want discussion, but come across as defensive when I ask genuine questions. I assure you, I never assumed nor implied you an expert. I was not trying to "get you". How ridiculous.

    Bizzare genetics? Hah.

    And yea, 4-5 drinks a day, and the inability to stop (your words) fit the clinical definition of alcoholic addiction. I base it on the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual 5. I am not judging, it is a simple clinical observation based on the minimal information you provided. Take that as you will. But also recall I gave praise for stopping.

    You ask for conversation and respect, yes refer to me as redheadwhatever, despite the fact my username is right there. You don't want conversation. You want to expouse the value of sobriety and for others to agree.

    Cheers.

    I'm just going to point at that in the DSM 5, they do not have a diagnosis of alcoholism. They do have diagnostic criteria for alcohol use disorder.

    Furthermore, there are 11 criteria for alcohol use disorder. It can be classified from mild to severe (depending on how many criteria match).

    There is not a set amount of drinks to make someone an "alcoholic" to my knowledge in the DSM. If there is something out there that I am not aware of, I am definitely open to see it.

    In addition to that, I don't think anyone can diagnose him as such based on a post about having some drinks. Going off the diagnostic criteria, we can't confirm even one of them from OP's post.

    As anyone should know, you cannot diagnose someone from some post on the internet. I don't endorse drinking a lot on any one occasion but I am just pointing out the danger in trying to diagnose someone like this.

    edit: One diagnostic criteria is to end up drinking more or longer than intended. So there's that. But regardless, that doesn't meet any diagnosis for alcohol use disorder and should not be "diagnosed" from a forum post.

    All of this.

    I think OP is doing a smart thing by giving up the booze, at least for a while, and evaluating it, but I wouldn't go beyond that. That's for him to figure out. Plenty of people drink excessively for a time and then stop, plenty of people (like me) can't or decide it's risky enough for them that they shouldn't mess with it.
  • HM2206
    HM2206 Posts: 174 Member
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    For me, this is both yes and no.

    Alcohol is definitely empty calories. On the other hand, many treats are. And it's a common MFP "theme" that you need to allow yourself a treat now and then to not go crazy.

    Say you swap those calories from alcohol for candy, cake or similar. How much of it do you have?

    400 calories of red wine will last me a while. I don't chug red wine after all. 400 calories of chocolate is nothing. Chew, swallow, it's very soon gone (and often I want more).

    Everybody's different, but for me it's way easier to enjoy the "treat yourself" calories when in a glass you're sipping throughout.
  • SisterSueGetsFit
    SisterSueGetsFit Posts: 1,212 Member
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    WayTooHonest wrote: »
    Just a few points that stand out to me, if I may:
    JustinAnimal wrote: »
    To begin with, I'd say I exercise pretty decently during the week. I'm currently obsessed with HIIT routines and do 4-6 per week. Other than that, I pretty much just chase around my two-year-old son, go on the occasional walk / hike, do yard work, etc. I wouldn't call myself any kind of fitness buff or fanatic.

    This is a LOT of exercise a week. MFP would consider this very active. Let's be real here, please.
    JustinAnimal wrote: »
    On top of that, I'd have (in the neighborhood of) 2-5 drinks per evening....I was once told that, as long as you have alcohol in your system, your body is unable to process fat (it just stores it). I'd go as many as one or two days without drinking, but then get back after it.

    a) This sounds like alcoholism, which means no longer drinking was an excellent decision for you. Kudos.

    b) Please provide peer reviewed, medical references regarding the bodies inability to process fat when one has had a drink.

    I have 1 beer or glass of wine a night, and half the time, half the beer goes into my plants (it's crazy but it works wonders). This has never had an impact on my results. My fat *kitten* going to Arby's is the problem. But I digress.

    Is it an easy way to cut calories? Of course. Am I setting myself up for failure by having a beer with my burger or a nice, chewy Merlot with my steak? Of course not. I look forward to your response.

    ETA what the crap is with the kitten?? That's not what I typed... :p





    You must be a blast at parties. Relax.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    SezxyStef wrote: »
    Slemans Clear is 70 calories and 4% (I think it has as much as "reg" beer) and could compete with Moosehead light or Coors light for taste.

    Alcohol is "calorie dense" at 7kcals per gram. Sugar or protein have 4kcals per gram and fat has 9kcals per gram, so alcohol is in between. For fun, I just looked up pure dark chocolate, which has about 6kcals/g.

    If light beer has 4% alcohol (by mass), so you can calculate:

    12oz * 28.4g/oz * .04 * 7kcal/g = 95kcals

    It seems that they list alcohol percentage by volume (based on the numbers). Alcohol has a density of .8g/cc, so to account for that you calculate:

    12floz * 28.4cc/floz * .04 * .8g/cc * 7kcals/g = 76kcals

    So you can see that in a light beer, there's "no room" for much more than the alcohol. It's pretty close to a vodka and soda with a lime, or any other "lite" cocktail.

    For wine of 10% alcohol (by vol):

    5.2floz * 28.4cc/floz * .10 * .8g/cc * 7kcals/g = 82kcal (out of ~120kcals total)

    I'm guessing the rest of the cals in wine are from unfermented sugar.
  • Ironandwine69
    Ironandwine69 Posts: 2,432 Member
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    Anything is fine in moderation. If you have a problem with stopping at "moderation" then yes, stopping is best.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,506 Member
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    I'll chime in with unlike any other macro, ALCOHOL inhibits usage of any other energy source while in the body. Alcohol CANNOT be stored in the body, so it has to be metabolized. Until it's gone, the body doesn't burn any carbs, fats or protein for energy.
    It's especially not conducive to losing stored body fat if you drink alcohol before bed. You burn the most stored body fat at rest or when you sleep. If alcohol is in your system before bed, you have to metabolize it before any fat gets burned.
    It's why a lot of bodybuilding/fitness competitors cut it out before a competition because losing body fat down to low percentages is needed to compete.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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  • Gamliela
    Gamliela Posts: 2,468 Member
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    Hmmm. Well I haven't had a drink since June, 1974, so I couldn't really say. :smile:
  • ladyreva78
    ladyreva78 Posts: 4,080 Member
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    Haven't touched a drop of alcohol in 1.5 years. My liver was threatening to file for divorce. :neutral:

    I'm an extremely sad panda as I really enjoyed my glass of wine with dinner. Things are as they are and there's no point in crying over it. I still sometimes miss that glass of red but considering the alternative, I'll deal with the disappointment.
  • Tropicoolblonde
    Tropicoolblonde Posts: 70 Member
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    i would rather not give up my social life...and yes part of that is going out for drinks.. If i am going to drink at night i just cut 500-800 calories extra for the day, workout for an hour and then limit myself to 2-3 drinks that night. works for me xx
  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,874 Member
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    Tropicoolblonde wrote: »
    i would rather not give up my social life...and yes part of that is going out for drinks.. If i am going to drink at night i just cut 500-800 calories extra for the day, workout for an hour and then limit myself to 2-3 drinks that night. works for me xx

    500 calories is 38% of my daily goal. 800 is 61% :confounded: I'm glad it works for you, but that would be tough for someone with a lower calorie goal to pull off on a regular basis.

  • jessiferrrb
    jessiferrrb Posts: 1,758 Member
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    i tend to not eat if i'm drinking which works for my deficit but not for my hangover.

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