Alcohol is my worst enemy :(

I have the same struggle. I do well during the week, but loose the battle on Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Wine is my weakness. I will join the challenge!

I recently cut almost all of the alcohol out of my life. I have a beer on occasion, like maybe once every two weeks.

My husband is moving toward a healthier lifestyle too, but he still drinks and so do my friends. I have found that the trick that works for me is making sure that I have something to drink while everyone else has alcohol. My choices are usually an unsweetened iced tea with lemon or a soda water with lime. If I don't get something like that to drink, I weaken and often order a beer.

I find that I wake up easier in the morning and have more energy through out the day. You can do it!!!

Drinking is killer. You will make it MUCH harder to lose the weight by ruining your healthy habits with drinking. Try to limit yourself to a glass (wine/beer) or 2 per week max.

I know lots of folks who drink daily and they are all fat. Plus, I would want to examine my motives if I felt like I needed to have a drink every day, just to relax. Don't get me wrong, I like beer, wine, rum, scotch, etc. just as much as the next guy. (Beer used to give me wicked heartburn because of the carbonation, but that is better now that I have lost weight.) And I really do enjoy the feeling of getting a little a buzz on. But not every day.

Living healthier is about making choices. Do you want to indulge your wicked sweet tooth (a particular issue for me) or do you want to be more active and less chubby? Do you want to drink beer or do you want to avoid having reflux that wakes you up at night? Do you want to be slim and healthy, reduce your risk for diabetes and a host of other weight-related diseases, or do you want to just eat whatever you feel like eating?

Your diet is like your budget. Everyone knows you can't just buy whatever you want if your budget does not support that purchase. Your daily diet is the same.

After reading these posts I decided to stop having my rum and diet coke or lite beer.....as I was just staying at one weight and not going anywhere no matter what I ate!......It seems to be working.....I lose 2 pounds this week....very strange, so I try to figure it out.
What I found is this:

Alcoholic drinks are full of ‘empty calories’ which means that you’re not taking in any useful nutrients. The other bad news is that alcohol is actually toxic so your body rushes to metabolise it and get it out of your system as soon as possible.

While this sounds like a good strategy it means that while your body is processing the alcohol it’s not getting to anything else you might have eaten. Wine and cheese tastes great but if your body is processing the wine, the calories from the cheese are being stored for later use. If you keep drinking, these extra food calories need to go somewhere. You don’t get a choice where they go so it’s probably where you least want them, thighs or stomach typically seem to win.

The other significant downside of alcohol is that it’s very dehydrating. You know what it’s like, after a few alcoholic drinks you keep having to go to the bathroom. Your body is desperately trying to flush out the toxins you’ve introduced into your system. The kidneys go into a bit of a panic and also try to retain any available water to dilute the poisonous by-products from the alcohol.

Their more on this here: How alcohol stops you from losing weight and getting fit.......http://www.beginnerexercise.com/how-alcohol-stops-you-from-losing-weight-and-getting-fit.html

Im the same... i can go monday to thursday without even thinking about having a drink but friday hits and im gagging to hit the bar! then saturday afternoon/evening im bound to be in my local having a few and sunday starts all over again.

Its the social aspect for me i hardly see grown ups all week so the pull of having the chance to go out and have a conversation with an adult and a few drinks is too much for me to fight off!
I do drink vodka (or brandy) & diet coke mainly or i occasionally have red wine or champagne.

I keep saying i need a month off but each time i think yep lets do it a party/function appears in my calendar and i fall at the first hurdle.

This coming weekend ive got a friends 50th birthday Champagne lunch to attend.

But im definately going to try harder to cut down

I feel so much better knowing I am not the ONLY one! I too drink to unwind at the end of a busy day! I am Celiac, which means no beer! I couldn't figure out why my clothes were getting tight...figured out it is the wine!!! I have been trying very hard not to drink during the week! This has been kind of hard becasue we like to sit outside and enough the evenings with a glass...or two!!!!! After reading all of your post, I am really going to try to buckle down and get this done! Thanks so much!!

Hi

Alcohol is broken down in the body by certain enzymes into Acetaldehyde, Diacetic Acid, Acetone & then finally into more familiar things water, sugar & carbon dioxide. From this the water goes through the usual way, carbon dioxide through our lungs and then we are left with the sugar. This sugar (and other sugar from carbs) is burnt by our bodies BEFORE fat. Therefore the more carbs that go in the less fat that will be burnt so we hold on to it. I have done quite a bit of research into this as I've had too much weight for years! Food has been a comfort to me for many years as well as other not very healthy things. I've dealt with the other stuff but food has been like my achilles heel. Since recently receiving a shock from my Dr (underactive thyroid, high cholesterol & heading towards diabetes) I've found the required willingness to do something about it! This research has suggested hypoglycemia & my symptoms of this are widespread with lots of people I know who are also overweight. It's funny how we are told that we should be eating low fat when the fat is replaced by sugar (or its substitutes) which cause further craving for MORE FOOD! We turned our bodies from fat burning furnaces into sugar producing factories!

Drinking is killer. You will make it MUCH harder to lose the weight by ruining your healthy habits with drinking. Try to limit yourself to a glass (wine/beer) or 2 per week max.

I know lots of folks who drink daily and they are all fat. Plus, I would want to examine my motives if I felt like I needed to have a drink every day, just to relax. Don't get me wrong, I like beer, wine, rum, scotch, etc. just as much as the next guy. (Beer used to give me wicked heartburn because of the carbonation, but that is better now that I have lost weight.) And I really do enjoy the feeling of getting a little a buzz on. But not every day.

Living healthier is about making choices. Do you want to indulge your wicked sweet tooth (a particular issue for me) or do you want to be more active and less chubby? Do you want to drink beer or do you want to avoid having reflux that wakes you up at night? Do you want to be slim and healthy, reduce your risk for diabetes and a host of other weight-related diseases, or do you want to just eat whatever you feel like eating?

Your diet is like your budget. Everyone knows you can't just buy whatever you want if your budget does not support that purchase. Your daily diet is the same.

WOW! Thank you for posting this, I needed to read this today. I had never thought of diet like budget. Perfect analogy. Thank you again for this wonderful motivation toward giving up the things we seem to think we simply cannot.

I can so relate. It's hard for me to sleep at night so a couple of glasses of wine do the trick. I think I may need to go to the doc for sleeping medicine because Im pretty sure the wine is hindering my weight loss. Your not alone.

Hi,
OK, so I'm going to preface this by saying, I love red wine. Wine actually hinders your sleep at night. It may help you fall asleep, but you actually sleep lighter and wake up more times in the middle of the night if you drink alcohol.
Two, before you try sleep medicines, try to drink chamomille tea at night before bed. It's a calming herbal tea which may help you fall asleep naturally without any side effects from a sleep aid.