Does drinking derail your progress?

This seems to happen to me every weekend. I'm wondering if anyone else has this problem. I do great through the week and then I have a drink or two on Friday and feel guilty and somewhat hungover (yes from only one glass of wine) so then all I want to do is eat to try and make myself feel better! It isn't even like I get drunk, but I'm giving myself a 30 day challenge to not drink and see where my weight loss is on March 13, 2010. Let me know if you want to join in!

It sounds to me like the binging afterward is your real problem. Just drink water after you drink wine, take an aspirin, call a real doctor in the morning.

ahh drinking... I recently cut waaaayyy back (since January) and I've learned that my body *really* doesn't like alcohol as much as my brain and tastebuds do! I'm with you, the next day is torture and sometimes it takes me a couple of days to completely recover. Plus the calories really do add up and of course that's gonna have an effect on your progress.

Now when I drink, I try not to have more than 2 or 3 and I'm trying to limit it to once a week, which sounds like what you were doing anyway... If I wasn't in grad school I would probably try to quit altogether, but I rather enjoy it, so I'm sure I'd work it in somehow.

I think once in a while, it will be ok to have a glass or 2, but I have to agree just cutting back a little bit should help you feel better the next day.. There are, after all, some health benefits in it!

I actually just said the same thing at work yesterday....i'm trying to do the no drinking thing for one month also. my downfall is too many captain and diets on the weekends playing rockband.

If you know you are gonna drink plan ahead. Sometimes I will have a Lean Cusine pizza on hand (Better than eating a whole pizza or having one delivered) or make snack size baggies with fat free chips, nuts, or chex mix. I know some of these things are high in sodium etc. but at least you are not eating the whole bag or whole pizza and you can keep up with what you REALLY ate the next morning. I have to admitt though, I drank tooo much last night myself and did not plan ahead as usual so I am paying BIG time today. Can you say "Excederine?" lol Good Luck.

Unfortunately it does. It makes you really not care about those extra cals you're consuming. I'm not a big drinker anyway. I just save it for special occasions and "cheat days". Most of the time, I just dont' allow myself to drink. I'd rather have something yummy than those empty cals.

The problem with drinking alcohol is not necessarily the added calories, but more with the fact that it impedes your metabolizing of protein, which impedes muscle building. So basically, if you're drinking and trying to build muscle, any workout is pretty much moot. The calories don't help, though

I've wondered the same thing. My Brother-in-law's Cardiologist told him that he should drink 2 glasses of wine per evening. I've been taking full advantage of the, but may have to reconsider.

I think this is not very good advice, someone should tell that cardiologist to suggest a better way of receiving antioxidants than by drinking! People tend to extend what an expert tells them.

tom, don't you believe it. The reason why medical experts say wine is good is because of the antioxidant properties in grapes, which come from the polyphenols. But there's a lot of different ways to get these antioxidants, blueberries, acacia berries, green tea...etc. all of which are far better for you than wine as the sugar in wine isn't very good (no fiber to lock up and slow down the sugar release) and the alcohol in wine disrupts normal metabolic patterns.

I guess the other aspect is stress reduction, while having a glass of wine may be a nice relaxer for some, I'm sure most people can find ways to reduce stress other than to use alcohol (trying to reduce stress by drinking is an addictive response BTW, not a good idea).

Just MHO.