Alcohol - your opinions

bump - 'm in the same boat as you. Would really love to see all the opinions.

For me it's a diet killer! If I don't drink I have steady weight loss week to week. Then I'll decide to treat myself to a drink or two which always leads to 3-4. Then I end up snacking and before I know it I'm 500+ calories over where I needed to be. If you can keep within your calories it's probably not a big deal but you have to be pretty tricky to do that! Maybe if you can limit it to once a week and only have two drinks like wine or something lower calorie.

I saw (years and years ago) on a PBS station a discussion of alcohol and it's history..........one of the discussion group made the statement that if alcohol was invented/discovered today it would be classified as a sched. 2 narcotic.........that got my attention and did it for me.

Alcohol and weight loss really don't go well together unless you record it to stay under your cals. there's tons of calories in alcohol.

alcohol is not your friend, it turns straight to fat, makes you make bad food choices not only when you're drinking it but when you're suffering a hangover the next day.

give yourself a trial break from it for 4 weeks and see what a difference it makes to your weight loss. this way you will know how it is affecting your life style plan

i have cut out alcohol at weekends just having it now and again or on special occasions, its made a difference to me - to my purse too

i will have 2 5oz glasses of red wine. I alot for that and will exercise just to have them. I would rather have my wine than sweets!

Me, I've more or less given it up. I'm not anti-alcohol, and I think light drinking is fine. However, it just didn't seem to work well for me with weight loss. Not only did the alcohol (I was only having a small glass of wine) have calories, but it made me want to eat! I find it easier now that I have more calories for solid food.

Try a couple of glasses of Red Wine. (it's at room temp so you can make it last) Then Water n Lemon. More than 2 drinks is going to sabotage your work.

This content has been removed.

Partner was losing 1-2lbs per week. He is still eating what I am but he's been drinking more. This in turn makes him eat more on the weekend. Such a shame when he's eaten well all week. He lost weight about 6 weeks in a row, upped his weekend antics and the last 3 weeks have been +2,+1,+2 on the scales. He's upset that he's done that, and realises not is the drink. It's 9 calories per gram! Not worth it, add onto that the extra beer munchies calories and it's ruining all your hard work! If your honest, you know the answer! Cut it back!

Zara :-)

Hi there,

I am currently stuck in a dieting vicious circle.... Every weekend I am virtuous with logging and calorie consumption, and if I weigh on a Friday morning I can easily shift 1-2lbs without a problem. However, at the weekends I tend to be more lax with my logging, especially when it comes to alcohol and sure enough, I have usually put on 2lbs by Monday morning.

Not only is this annoying, I cant imagine its very healthy and I wanted to hear your thoughts on alcohol and how damaging it can be to a good diet? Some people I have spoken to say they don't worry about alcohol consumption and some say it's a diet killer - I just wanted to throw it out there and hear what people have to say really.

Thanks so much.

Screw opinions, lets talk about fact. Fact - alcohol has calories, if alcohol makes you go over your TDEE, you'll gain weight. It's also not the most nutritious way to go about things. But it is delicious. It's a toss up.

Thank you, and thenewbritt I completely agree with you - I find eating out hard as well but its something I enjoy. My other problem is that I much prefer wine to spirits which are typically lower calorie so that seems to affect things too.

1 dl cognac is 225 calories, while 1 dl dry white wine is 80 calories. The only reason why you might get less calories from cognac, is that you normally drink smaller amounts than of wine. But as you see, you can drink almost three times as much wine as cognac, before you get to the same amount of calories.

Love all the comments! For me, it's like what newbritt says - maybe the problem isn't so much the alcohol as the stuff I eat after the alcohol. I am PERFECT on days with no alcohol - and always go over if I drink - unless it is just one light beer or one glass of red wine. White wine is my enemy when I'm working on losing weight. Do I always remember that? Well....

I don't drink often, certainly not every weekend, but if I go to a concert or something like that, I will usually have a couple beers. Since I've been focusing on improving my fitness (I began on Jan. 4th 2013), I've discovered that some hard ciders are lower in calories and sugar than the fancy micro brews I typically drink. Woodchuck "Crisp" variety, for instance, is only 120 calories and 6 grams of sugar. I don't like domestic "Lite" beers, so they aren't for me.

Even when I drink, it will usually only be something like 2 or 3 over the course of an afternoon to evening outing. I am normally driving and I will not drink and drive, so I drink mostly water, especially for the last 2 or 3 hours of a night.

Also, most activities that I go out for involve a lot of movement...fast walking and vigorous dancing, jumping, etc... So, I generally burn off any extra calories I've taken in from a couple of ciders, during the same night out.

So far, I have always stuck to eating only healthy foods on these outings. The key for me is to keep a lot of good, nutritious munchies in my car, so there is always something handy to eat that is in keeping with my chosen healthy lifestyle. I can't stand White Castle. LOL

I still log *everything*, even if the beverages I drank put me over my goal for the day.
I think moderation is the key. I mean, moderation with alcohol is the key, even if you are not trying to lose weight and get fit, isn't it? Over drinking isn't a great choice for anybody.