Dieting with alcohol

I tried giving up alcohol completely but that just wasn't realistic for me. I enjoy a good craft beer too much to cut them out completely. I just try to be mindful and only have one beer instead of 3 or 4 when I go out with my friends now. And I plan ahead. I tend to go by my weekly calories instead of just looking at just daily calories. If I know I'll be going out on the weekend I'll eat less calories the rest of the week to save some up for the weekend. If I save an extra 100 calories a few days during the week I can have a few beers without going over my calories for the week.

If you consume it you should count it. If you have the app I would say take your phone with you and log what you are drinking before you take the drink. A lot of drinks are already in the database. If you have drinks you usually get when you go out and you know how many of them you typically drink, I would suggest logging those drinks before you start eating for the day. Make adjustments to drink numbers if the alcohol takes up to many calories. This way you will already know how much you can have before you go out and it would be an amount you decided was a good amount for yourself way before that temptation of one or two more drink hits.

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This keeps coming up for a reason. Many of us like alcohol! It seems all to easy to fall into the habit of "a couple of drinks a few nights a week." It's harder to lose weight under those conditions. One way or another you have to fit it into your plan and you have to keep the buzz from making you munch down on those chips. It's hard.

My drink of choice are the higher calorie rich craft beers. I haven’t stopped drinking them—I just drink less of them and fit them into my weekly calorie allotment where I can. On those days I just accept I have to eat less to stay within a deficit. Worth it.

Drink what you like best, and log in your calories. I've lost weight doing this.

I would say that it's virtually always *possible* to cut out alcohol, but it's okay to prefer not to. I drank just about every night when I was losing weight. I drank all types of alcohol -- mostly wine, but also cocktails, beer, and bourbon.

I consistently logged what I was drinking and stayed within my calorie goal and I was fine. You should count the calories for sure. Depending on what you are drinking and how much you drink, it's incredibly easy to drink enough to cancel out a calorie deficit and keep yourself from losing weight.

You can use the database to find just about any type of alcohol. Stuff to consider -- if you're the type of person who finds it harder to control your food intake when you've been drinking, you may have to limit in order to lose weight. Having one or two drinks within your calorie goal isn't going to stop your weight loss, but having a couple drinks and then eating a bunch of bar food that puts you over goal or being hungover and deciding to eat whatever the next day, those things can stop your progress. Make sure you're accurately measuring your drinks. If you're pouring freehandedly, it can be really difficult to log. I made most of my own drinks at home and made sure to measure them all. Once I got a feel for it, it became easier to estimate when I was out. Adding higher calorie mixers will use up your calories faster. Things like juice, regular soda, tonic, sweet and sour mix, etc . . . all tend to add a lot to a drink. I usually mix with diet soda or diet tonic if I want something sweeter. If I have a special cocktail that uses high calorie mixers, I virtually always limit myself to one because I just don't want to allocate the calories to more.

Something else to think about: regular drinking while on a deficit can make it harder to meet your nutritional needs, especially if your calorie goal is lower. If you do decide to drink regularly, I recommend paying attention to this.

I do the same as jellyroll said above, i figure in my alcohol calories, i drink vodka and soda water with a splash of cranberry juice. light and low on calories .

I've lost 22lbs since August 1st and drank at least 2-3 days week. You just need to fit the booze into your calories. Which may mean eating less. You learn to work around it.

Now, before I started "losing", I drank mostly every day. So, I did cut back. I cut back a lot, but I never "quit" anything I liked.

I run for wine/beer/scotch etc.

My MFP limit to lose 1 lb per week is ~1800 calories, so I aim to eat "food" of 1800 calories and whatever I earn through exercise is my junk/alcohol calories. That way I know I'm eating well enough nutrient wise and still get to enjoy stuff.

I lost and maintained (almost 2 years) while drinking daily. I just cut back elsewhere.