18-30's: LOSING WEIGHT WHILE PARTYING.

Same problem.
Maybe avoid wine, sugary drinks, cider etc?

Moderation is something that is needed during weight loss, with food and with alcohol. Just don't drink as much, or as often?

Nothing you can do. Once you`ve had a few drinks your normal reasoning goes out the window - I`ve been out for a 3 course meal with a lot of drinks and stopped for a curry on the way home. Try to regulate the drinks (make every third drink water or orange and lemonade) so that you`re less drunk and can control the decision making - but this kind of obviates the whole point.
- It took me until my thirties too decide that the cost, days lost to hangovers and weight associated with a good night out were not worth it. Eventually a desire to run Sunday mornings and not eat too much became so ingrained that I could make the decisions
- Two choices really - best one is to hit the gym and burn it all off, other is to drink/go out less.
-

Make sure you have bacon and burgers and sausages and breadrolls at home (and cheese and mustard etc) and programme your mind that you absolutely cannot have a takeaway, because you're going to have a big hangover cure breakfast when you wake up in the morning. Works for me. No matter how drunk I am, I won't eat extra food if I've programmed my brain not to expect it when I'm sober.

I've never tried low calorie beer, and I don't drink shots. I like drinking proper real ale, or wine, of decent cider. Ale and cider particularly are calorific, but I don't care - I exercise more on days when I'm going out, and allow for a certain number of pints - I've got pretty good at stopping when I get to the number I've allotted myself. It has meant that I've been drinking slightly less than I used to (three pints is normally my limit, because I just don't have time to burn more than that) but sometimes I can make the extra effort (like new year, when I burned myself enough calories for two bottles of wine, couldn't drink it because my tolerance had gone down, and got a bit ... ill ... !

Anyway, I've lost all my weight drinking most nights, so it's totally doable! You just need a strategy.

I force myself to intersperse glasses of water. I find no one even notices. It slows me down, and I end up not drinking as much (and having less of a hangover) but still having a blast going out. And for whatever reason I also crave the junkfood so much less after drinking if I've stayed well-hydrated.

Have you tried recording the alcohol to add up the calories? That was a huge eye-opener to me. If I'm planning to drink, I'll try to factor those calories into my day. I actually pre-record everything into MFP. You're going to go over your calories, but as long as it's not every day it's fine. If I put 4 glasses of wine into MFP, I'm going to try my best to stick to that. Also, I won't eat a bunch of food afterwards, because I'll be thinking (if I was going to eat those cheese-fries, than why was I stopping myself from having that extra glass of wine?!)


Also, I've found my tolerance is much lower when I'm eating a healthy and lower-carb diet overall, so I don't drink nearly as much as I used to. Cut out all the starchy foods you eat, and see if that helps!

Finally, plan morning workouts. FUN morning workouts. With friends that don't party as much as you, so they'll be there and waiting for you. This has curbed my drinking more than anything else. You don't want to get wasted on Friday night if you have big plans for an 11am activity with a great friend!

Oh and also, eating while drunk is one of the worst things for your diet. It's not just about the calories, but basically, here is my (very loose) understanding of it. Your liver is where your metabolism is. Normally on a diet, your liver is processing your stored fat. If you drink ANY amount of alcohol, that process stops and your liver takes care of ridding your body of the alcohol. Until your body has fully processed that alcohol, ANYTHING you eat will be stored as fat.

What my trainer told me to do is wait to drink AFTER I'm done eating for the day. That way, you won't have to make decisions on what to eat while you're drunk, and it will not be stored as fat.