Subtracting out Alcohol Calories - How long to see results?

Quitting alcohol doesn’t cause weight loss unless it puts you in a calorie deficit. There are many other good reasons to drink less or stop drinking, but if you want to lose weight, you have to make sure you are eating fewer calories than your body burns. Weighing and logging your food is a good way to make sure you’re in a deficit, if you aren’t doing that already.

Tacklewasher wrote: »

crazyravr wrote: »

Fitness327wk wrote: »

I enjoy eating healthy for the most part and over the last three years have put on ten plus pounds. I do drink wine every night and at girls lunch enjoy a glass of wine with friends. I have noticed the additional calories are not helping my waist line (Simple Math ). I have stopped drinking any wine or alcohol for over a week and haven’t the scale tip at all? I am drinking a lot of hot tea now, no calories.

Does your body take time to adjust? I know with time it would have to as I am subtracting wasted alcohol calories with no calorie hot tea and eating healthy within my calorie range.

I just thought I would have seen a change at the end of the week.... I know patience.

Thoughts?

3500cal = 1lbs of weight loss or gain.

And 1 glass of wine is around 125 cals. So 28 glasses to equal 1 lbs.

You'd have to cut out a lot, and not replace the calories to see any change in a week.

This.

Let's say you drank 8 glasses per week. That's 8 x 125 = 1,000 cals. Assuming you ate exactly the same amount of food every week (which is pretty much impossible) that would mean you would lose 0.35 lbs per week.

Home use scales aren't perfectly calibrated, so you can't expect them to necessarily pick up one third of a lb accurately.

Add in water weight fluctuations, which happen all the time and can easily cover up small fat losses.
Add the fact that you probably don't eat the exact same amount of food every week.

You should probably expect to see around 1 lb per month actually register on the scale, and that's assuming you are logging and don't subconsciously eat a little more because you subconsciously know you are saving calories on alcohol.

Even if you were drinking 2 glasses a night, that's still only 0.5lbs per week, which even if it is happening won't actually show up on the scale every week, for the exact same reasons.

You need to be more patient, and you might want to do something else to get yourself into a little bit more of a deficit if you aren't willing to give up your wine for the next 6-12 months. As you said, it's the math Good luck!

Fitness327wk wrote: »

I enjoy eating healthy for the most part and over the last three years have put on ten plus pounds. I do drink wine every night and at girls lunch enjoy a glass of wine with friends. I have noticed the additional calories are not helping my waist line (Simple Math ). I have stopped drinking any wine or alcohol for over a week and haven’t the scale tip at all? I am drinking a lot of hot tea now, no calories.

Does your body take time to adjust? I know with time it would have to as I am subtracting wasted alcohol calories with no calorie hot tea and eating healthy within my calorie range.

I just thought I would have seen a change at the end of the week.... I know patience.

Thoughts?

um...not unless you have an alcohol problem (Figuring a visible difference at ~3 lbs loss, that'd be ~17 bottles of wine).

ritzvin wrote: »

(it will add up over time to some loss. However, with that being said, the high-calorie snacks that tend to be around at places we consume wine with friends probably amounts to a LOT more calories).

Yes ritzvin, that is me to a tee. More drinks = more snacks.
Alcohol keeps our liver busy, too busy to digest food properly.
Personally, I have cut down on alcohol, and every day that I do not have a drink I see a change in the scale, so ... pretty much immediately. Everyone is different.

Sambo_fitness wrote: »

Sadly, changes do not happen overnight! Or even in 1 week time. A healthy amount of weightloss per week is around 2 pounds per week. It takes a while for the momentum of that weightloss amount to build up for you to notice a difference. If you are consistent with your diet, working out, and minimizing your alcohol intake, you will notice a small difference in around 3 weeks time. Again, takes time!

If you need any help with getting started in changing your lifestyle, feel free to send me a message.

The OP only needs to lose 10 pounds, and so an appropriate rate of loss for her is a half pound a week.

How could she benefit by directly messaging you rather than continuing the conversation in the forums? "Send me a message" is usually a prelude to trying to sell something, which is prohibited.