Cutting out alcohol to lose weight, will it help???

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Alicia5982
Alicia5982 Posts: 8 Member
in Introduce Yourself
15 months ago I got into a relationship with someone who is dependant on alcohol. I didn’t realise this then, I thought he just liked a drink for something to do. So I joined in and have basically drank most nights throughout this whole time. I have between 2 and 3 bottles of rose wine a night. In the past 15 months I’ve put on about 1.5 stones and assuming this is through all of the alcohol calories. Anyways, my relationship is now over and I’ve decided I want to stop the drinking (I can do this easily) and lose weight. I was already 2 stone too heavy that I like to be so realistically I want to lose around 3.5 stone to get back to my old weight. Has anyone had any experiences of weight loss through cutting out alcohol?? I know that it will cut about between 1000-1500 empty calories a day. Any advice, success stories relating to this???

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  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    To lose weight you just need to eat in a calorie deficit so if you cut out the alcohol calories then you should lose.
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
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    Cutting alcohol can absolutely help with losing weight, especially in your situation it seems. It sounds like you had a fairly heavy drinking habit, and the calories from drinking plus your calories from eating caused a calorie surplus that caused you to gain weight.

    You still should set your goals and track calories using MFP to see if you need to make any changes to your eating habits. Depending on what it shows you, simply cutting the alcohol may be enough our you may need to make additional diet changes as well.

  • jhilkene
    jhilkene Posts: 104 Member
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    I was in a similar situation and I recently cut out drinking and it definitely helped with weight loss.
    @MikePTY has basically said the same (just speaking from my experience)..
    First, I'm sure I always drank more calories than I'd think.
    Second, I would always eat after drinking (usually carbs or unhealthy), and probably too much.
    Third, the amount of water weight I lost was crazy. No longer bloated, or my body needing to process toxins, on top of anything else I consumed.

    It will totally be a positive for you I'm sure! ;)

  • Alicia5982
    Alicia5982 Posts: 8 Member
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    Thanks everyone. I’m going shopping now to get in lots of good, healthy food and going to focus on drinking lots of water. Thank you for your replies, much appreciated xxx
  • simonpaulhowell
    simonpaulhowell Posts: 58 Member
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    The worst thing is that alcohol calories are useless to your body...alcohol is basically a poison...so your liver has to process the poison rather than turn food into energy which is what one of it's primary function is. The result is weight gain...I know cos I've been there ;)
  • mazdauk
    mazdauk Posts: 1,380 Member
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    Alcohol is not necessary for nutrition, so that is calories you can easily give up. Also it does tempt you to naughty snacks because they go so nicely with a nice chilled glass! However, the bottom line is calories in-calories out, so if you replace alcohol with sugary drinks or even fruit juice then you won't see much difference. I've lost all my weight without giving up alcohol, I just account for it in my logging, do extra exercise and maybe don't drink beer (calories 130-240 depending on type and pint/half) but have gin and slimline tonic (56 calories for a single shot)

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