Help!!! Diet vs Social life????

Keeping up a social life and a diet/lifestyle change is hard! I have that battle pretty mcuh on a daily basis! I have found the best way to deal with it, is to factor your wine/treat into your daily cals...so maybe only drink half the glass someone pours you...and make sure you eat fewer cals during the day. Its not IDEAL but cals wise your still on target. I have just told everyone that I have given alcohol up until July, so have removed that as a risk for me...but I still go out and drink water!

Don't sacrifice who you are BUT at the same time dont sacrifice your hardwork!

Good luck!

We all have to live our lives, we are social, and these things will happen. Life is to be enjoyed... but it requires planning if you're trying to lose weight and keep it off.

I allow myself one cheat day (or meal) a week.. sometimes I use it.. sometimes I don't.. but I plan for it. I work out extra hard, if not that day, then the day before AND after. I eat light all day before going out that night. I stay away from sugary drinks, like margaritas (used to be my favorite), and limit my drinking. Sometimes I go overboard, but I just get on track the next day, and move forward with my life.

It's all about balance. Finding a balance is essential to making a lifestyle change. You cannot be "good" 100% of the time, but if you're on track 80% of the time, you're still WINNING!

Some great advice here! Back when I used to feel like socializing meant eating "bad" food and that it was "ruining my diet", I was never successful for the long-term. But now that I've simply made a lifestyle change instead of being on a diet, it has become quite easy. Some tips:

* Do not think of it as a failure or as a cheat. Words have meaning and those terms make us feel like we have failed. It is a splurge or a treat, simple as that. Thin and fit people splurge all the time. Why shouldn't we? One of my always-been-slender friends who even lost her pregnancy weights fairly quickly, and who I have been jealous of for years, always eats light before she does a planned splurge or, if unplanned, just eats lighter for a day or two after. I'm come to realize that this is what thin people naturally tend to do. It makes sense. Enjoy and just make those adjustments around it.

* I zig-zag my calories through the week with a weekly goal instead of a daily goal. As I have days where I eat under my target due to various reasons like eating healthy enough choices that the calorie count wasn't enough or just having a day where my hunger was limited, or because I had a huge calorie burn that I didn't eat back all of my exercise calories, etc., this means I can "bank" those calories to "spend" later in the week at a social event or just because I want to. I had a wonderful Italian dinner out on Thursday with salad, garlic bread, seafood risotto and wine and I'm still under my calories enough for the week that I'm really going to have to pig out a bit today and tomorrow to meet my weekly target. I'm kinda excited about it. :drinker:

* If you really feel like you've blown it or just plain feel bloated from your splurge, a bit of extra exercise can do wonders. Even if it's just a short walk. But if you have time for longer or more intense exercise, just do it. In fact, I've even just done this when out with friends and if it fits with the surroundings, time of day, weather, whatever. Example: awhile back I had lunch with some friends at a restaurant at a marina and it was a nice day so, after splurging on my lunch, I suggested that we walk around for a while and look at the boats. We did, it added enjoyment to the outing, and it helped burn off a tad bit of the excess calories in the process. If you're doing dinner and a movie, if the movie is at a mall, you could suggest a bit of a walk around the mall before the movie to stretch your legs, for example. There are a lot of options that your friends might enjoy as well without making a big deal of it.

* If you splurge enough that you eat into your deficit for the week and can't offset it by lower calorie days or more exercise, no big deal. Let's say your deficit is to lose 1# a week (3500 calorie weekly deficit) and you eat into it and only end up with a 2500 calorie deficit for the week. So this week you're on target to lose 2/3# instead of 1#. Let's say you even do this every week for three months. That means you will have lost 8# instead of 12#. Since this is a lifestyle change and not a race, does this really matter in the long run? As long as you're moving toward your goal, having fun while doing it, and not feeling deprived in the process, it's not a big deal.

* Don't forget that portion control is your friend. If people are sharing a big platter of nachos. Have some, enjoy it, just have a smaller portion and savor each bite.

* Enjoy splurges but don't waste your splurges on things you don't really enjoy. The other day a friend and I went to check out a new restaurant that also has a bakery in it. I LOVE good pastry. We each had a cup of soup and then ordered three pastries to share. Well, they turned out to not be very good, imho. I ate a couple small bites of each, realized that they weren't worth wasting any more calories on, and let my friend eat my portions because she seemed to enjoy them. I just sipped my coffee and enjoyed the conversation.

* It sounds odd to me that some of you have friends that appear to be forcing food or drink on you. Really? Does anybody even notice what someone else is eating or drinking? I sure don't. If they are doing this, is it because you are making a big deal out of not eating or drinking as much as they are? Are you acting like "poor, poor, pitiful me" and drawing attention to yourself and your diet? When I've been out with friends and am not eating/drinking as much because I either don't have the calorie allowance to do so or I'm not in the mood or I'm saving my calories for a better splurge or I don't think the food is good enough to be worth splurging on, I've rarely had anybody notice or comment. When they have, like maybe just saying something like "you didn't take much, would you like more?", I just simply say "no, thank, but I've had enough" and people just go on with the conversation and fun and forget about it. If you a really honest with yourself, you might be drawing attention to your situation and causing people pestering you to eat/drink more. If you really don't believe that is the case, maybe you, unfortunately, have some friends that are diet saboteurs who really don't want to see you succeed. If that's the case, you may want to limit time spent with people who are positive energy-drainers. I tend to think of these type of people as vampires and find that I'm more successful and happier in all areas of my life if I limit my exposure to them.

Hope some of this helps!

I think the first thing you need to do is separate the two things.......having a social life and having a healthy lifestyle are two different things that surprisingly can co-exist peacefully.

Having a social like should be more about hanging out with friends, getting to know/meet people and doing fun activities.

Having a healthy lifestyle means making more positive choices about food and exercise and (sometimes) watching our calories to help us get our bodies healthier because of years of poor choices and unhealthy habits.

Sometimes that means we have to focus more on the social aspect and less on the food/drink aspect of hanging out with our friends. Sometimes that means being more responsible with our alcohol consumption because we don't want to "waste" the calories on drinking. Sometimes that means we will know what we are doing and where we are going on a certain night, will pre-log our food and will then go and get an awesome workout in to offset the calories we know we will be eating. And maybe, once a month (I don't do it more than once a month) we might say screw the calories and have a true spike meal (not a whole day but not count the calories for that one meal).

Thanks FunkyCamper! Your post was really inspirational!! I've been really struggling with this topic, and I really appreciate the advice. It's great.

I was in a sorority in college. A bunch of us live in the same city. We go out quite a bit. I have narrowed them to 2x/week.

I cannot offer much in advice. But.... I have had my fair share of handling late night drunk food.

If you are going to McDonald's and feel left out for not ordering something, here are some suggestions to not blow the budget out of the water:

1. Vanilla ice cream cone there, it's ~100 cals. DO NOT GET IT DIPPED IN CHOCOLATE. learn from my mistakes. Their ice cream's low fat/fat free, i forgot which. If I get a sugar craving, I might even run in and get one on a regular day. *Note: I have not researched Burger King's or other place's ice cream cones. I just speak for McD's here.

2. Happy meal with chicken nuggets and apple slices. Their Happy Meals are a 6 piece chicken nugget, all 6 together are about ~250 ish. The apple slices are 35. The 6 piece chicken nugget calorie count's very similar at McD's, Burger King, Jack-in-the-Box, and Carl's. I am not sure about Wendy's, etc.

3. Large decaf coffee. I have found this works well no matter where you go, Burger King, Carl's, a diner, etc. In my non clinical study, I have found I get less jest from my girlfriends if I get a large decaf, rather than a small or medium. Don't ask me why.

If you know there's chain restaurants you go to regularly at night, look them up on the other forums and see what people say. I was surprised at some of the Chipotle answers.

Also, I have found if there's a late night drunk place that's a little more friendly to my snacking, when my friends have had a few, I'll be more encouraging to go to the place that works for me.

If you do not want to spend the money late night eating/snacking:

1. Homemade quesdillas. Two small corn tortillas: ~100 cal ; 1/4 cup of cheese: ~ 80 cal. I had friends coming back to my place. Before I left for the night, I filled small ziplock with 1/4 cup of shredded cheese. So when I came back, I just pulled out the ziplock, grabbed two corn tortillas, and made some quesdillas. Not too bad. I knew what I had, and I did not have to be annoying or embarrassing about portioning it out.

2. Baked apples with cinnamon. You make this in a slow cooker. It can be made with butter, I suggest margarine, or none at all. But it's super easy and you just leave it to cook. It's an amazing dessert. Most receipes make it with brown sugar. I would not shortcut on the brown sugar as much as the butter. If you make this with four large apples, and you have half of one, it should run you pretty good.

If anyone has other ideas, I'd love to hear more about social life, eating with social left, etc.

I just wrote an article about this. Hope it helps you all with your diet. http://theactivefeed.com/2013/10/04/social-diet/

I think you handled the situation fairly well. You had a lower-calorie meal and then enjoyed a couple glasses of wine. That's one option. Or, if you have a lot of social engagements coming up, plan to be extra good at most of them and then choose one or two at which to indulge. You don't have to be good all of the time. I think the times we allow ourselves to indulge are just as important for staying in track.

I don't recommend being the girl who ways "I can't have that because I'm counting calories." Just make your choices, treat yourself once in a while, and enjoy yourself.

Dang, just realized this topic was started in March of 2012. :huh:

This is one of the reasons I like intermittent fasting. I skip breakfast as routine anyway, and then on the days when I know I'm going to have a big night out with friends I skip lunch too or have a small bite --- saving my calories for later in the evening.
I'll do a few days of 20:4 in addition to my 16:8 days, or throw in a 24hr fast ... weekly deficit stays where it needs to be, and I get to have fun as well.
And then there's the other strategy of course of enjoying the company of your friends without the calories. Eat beforehand and/or eat afterwards. Drink a diet soda instead of having a cocktail.

First of all, lose the diet mentality. You are making a lifestyle change. Which means you need to learn to make your diet (as in what you eat) fit into your lifestyle. If you go out a couple of times a week and eat something heavy, pick up your exercise routine a bit. Or eat lighter (lighter, not starve. NO EXTREMES.) This is what my boyfriend has to do, since he commutes to college and has to eat on campus and his family eats out twice a week.

Second, adjust your attitude towards food. Food is awesome. No food is bad. All of it is awesome. Do some damned research and learn how many calories your usual eating out fare is. That way you can budget calories for the rest of the day. Or the next day. Or measure your calories on a weekly basis instead of daily, so you can eat lighter on non-eating out days.

In other words, quit whining and take back your life from your preconceived notions and 'It's not fair!' attitude. It is your life, you call the shots and you need to learn for yourself what works for you and what doesn't.