alcohol temptations :(

hillaryroland

Hey everyone, just had a question for you all. What do you do when you have the temptation of alcohol or drinking placed right in front of you?
the reason I'm asking is because I'm a college student, living at the dorms, and well...we all know us college kids like to booze it up sometimes. Now, I'm completley serious about losing weight , but I just don't know what to do about drinking. I'm afraid that when placed in a situation where alcohol is involed, i might cave and end up drinking. Just wondering if anyone had any tips for me? It'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks

NightOwl1

The simple answer is resist, resist, resist! I know that sounds simpler than it is, but it doesn't have to be. Yesterday I went out to a club with friends, and my drunk friend kept trying to get me a drink, and I declined every time. I still had a boatload of fun sober. If you make it known to people that you aren't drinking for health reasons, they should respect it. If they don't, you might want to look at new friends.

lutzsher

I work in an industry that promotes social gatherings ALWAYS with alcohol. I allow myself to imbibe usually once per month, then drink water like crazy for the next few days. I don't mean to go out and binge, but if you are feeling left out and it is something you enjoy then go ahead and treat yourself sometimes.
It is good to want to be healthy but don't deprive yourself of a great college experience while doing so. You are only going to be in this period of life once so make the most of it sometimes . . . without guilt because you deserve to let your hair down on occassion and have fun!

anubis609

As I started losing weight and living a cleaner, healthier lifestyle, I became a lightweight. So, if I do have a drink, I end up babysitting it because I can get pretty toasted with a smaller amount of liquor. Which is my selling point when I have clubrats buy me drinks. Lol.

sunstreaks22

Hey there! I'm in the EXACT situation that you're in, living in the dorms and everything. It's my third week of not drinking. It hasn't been easy though! What I've been doing is going out with my friends and doing exactly what they do, but I've been substituting water. So if we play flip cup, beer pong, or quarters, I just play with water. It's just as fun and it's so easy to get your water consumption for the day! But if you're going to drink, drink the light beers (55 calories or whatever), and watch the rest of your carb intake for the day!

Samana06

My tip ... Whenever I would party in my younger days ... I would get a non-see through cup ... dixie cups are ALL over party scenes. I would have ONE drink ... usually rum and diet coke ... then whenever I would get a refill I would just get diet coke. No one knows you aren't drinking therefore there's no pressure from everyone else to drink. It's all a personal choice. I know how hard it is to resist, especially when there is everyone else around telling you to drink. You can have just as much fun sober as you can when drinking.

JeepOnRock

If you are going to do it, plan for it.

But...

I didn't drink much through college. I still don't. I love Kahlua and a few other types of alcohol, but just not that often. A lot of people have asked me over the years why I was drinking a Coke or water when I could drink something else. I said a LOT of time "I don't drink. I don't have anything against it, I just don't do it... besides, someone has to stay sober to remind you of what you did." Never really had people giving me a hard time over it. Spent a LOT of time as the designated driver, too.

Just remember that you are in control of you... and how many miles you will need to log to make up for that beer..

SheehyCFC

Resistance only gets you so far. You have to be comfortable in the situation.

I agree a lot with lutzsher's second paragraph - enjoy college as much as possible. Go out and have fun but be smart about it. Diet + Vodka/Rum is a decent drink or even "lite" beers. Just don't do it every night. And make sure to try and work out the NEXT day (not the day of). I've always found "sweating" out the alcohol makes me feel better (and think twice about how much I drink next time).

deandp371

It might be good to make sure you eat first if you are going to have a drink. The alcohol will be absorbed more slowly so you should be less likely to get carried away...

Also, you can have a glass with tonic water and lime -- and no one will know you're abstaining!

lizvanb

Good question! I know someone who cut out alcohol altogether (with the exception of celebrations/holidays) and she says it helped a LOT. As for me, I've been going out a lot less since I've turned 21 (it's not a myth -- that totally happens when you're 21!) but I'm like you, I live at school in the dorms, so I understand it's sometimes hard to avoid it completely.

Unfortunately I don't have any great advice for avoidance or curbing your craving, but I can tell you I have the same problem. I'm not necessary omitting alcohol completely, but just being smarter about it. I can say that when I do go out, I try to only have 1-2 drinks, or getting the less complicated drinks (ie rum & diet coke, gin & tonic, vodka with lime soda).

Plus it's been saving me a lot of money!

hillaryroland

everyone one of you have a lot of good tips and advice, I appreciate it a lot. I think the big problem with me is if I have one drink, I'll tell myself its ok if I have just one more...which will lead to a pattern of that all night. blahhh, hopefully I'll be strong when I go out tonight!!

hippiechel

having the same problems. i just graduated from college but a lot of my friends are still at school, and even the ones who aren't, we party hard. we like to get rowdy and it's so hard to resist! i read on another forum thread that just ONE drink messes up your metabolism (for a few days?)

uhmmm case in point. last night. woke up feeling nauseous but i like to battle my nausea with food (weird but works) sooo it doesn't help at all! i am going to try to keep my drinking to once a week or so and maybe not go all out.

i think what you (and i) can do is to drink slowly so we can spread one drink over a long period of time! and i agree with anubis609 about being a lightweight when you 1. weigh less and 2. eat less. my tolerance highly depends on what i eat that day. for example, i had a huge dinner of ramen last night and it took a good amount of alcohol (4 shots and AMF) before i was fairly buzzed. but last week i hardly ate the whole day and i was drunk on 3 beers.

blondie1238

My suggestion is, if you are "tempted" and find yourself unable to say no, or not wanting to say no, have vodka/diet coke, which is relatively low in calories (I'm not sure exactly how many calories vodka has), and have a water between each drink... and if you use the dixie cup suggestion, no one will know the difference You'll also find yourself not having too many drinks

hillaryroland

yeahhh, I think a lot of it is just moderation. I was just on tumblr (a blogging site) and got reinspired to cut out the alcohol haha. sooooo, I think I just had another push of motivation.

emh009

I'm in the exact same boat as you. College Junior, in Greek life, living in a city, working in an industry where everything is done over drinks.. The list goes on and on. My go to drink is a rum and diet, which only has about 65 calories. I know it's really hard to do, but avoid beer as much as possible, or just have one instead of four. Alcohol adds up so fast after a night out, and beware of shooters and fruity drinks or drinks with syrup- those will not only give you a nice little shock when you have to log them on MFP.

I know I'll be drinking on most Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights- it's so much part of the culture and I don't want to miss out on it. So I just make sure that I log some extra time at the gym those days, and eat lots of fruits and veggies (and as few carbs as possible!). Then I've got some wiggle room to have a few drinks and not feel like I'm missing out.