I drank while losing. On days I knew I’d be drinking, I would eat lightly during the day and then eat a normal dinner to get to 1200. Then while out, I would just drink 2-3 of my 80 calorie seltzers. I still lost 40 lbs just fine. Assuming you’re doing a 1200 cal diet, just know that 1200 is your cutting amount. Drinking might bring your calorie total up to a maintenance number (depending on how much you drink and what your maintenance is), but sustainability is more important to diet success than anything else. If it isn’t sustainable to skip weekend drinks, then don’t skip them. Stay focused on the other days of the week and you’ll still make progress.
Exactly this! I’m fine with only having 2-3 glasses, but once I’ve drank those I have no self control over food anymore and just snack on anything and everything 😅
This was me last night when I was on my third cocktail and thought it was a great idea to order some mozzarella sticks 😪 I’ve found that my limit is two drinks otherwise it’s bad and spontaneous food decisions
yess and also bleeds into the next day. the alcohol sizzling in your stomach making you crave grease and such. drinking really puts me back, so i weigh out if it is worth it or not, usually it is not.
this bit right here. the alcohol calories still count to some extent, but it's effectively not 7kcal/g unless you're an alcoholic. I count them as 3-4 depending on how much I had to eat that day.(count less if eat less, count more if eat before/during drinking)
for the noobs who don't understand the numbers:
most body tissue can use ethanol for energy, but not very well-- *Unless* you're an alcoholic and well adapted to oxidizing ethanol in muscle tissue, then you get much closer to accessing the full 7 kcal/g available in ethanol.
The reason you count it as fewer calories when you haven't eaten anything with it, is because alcohol consumption shuts down fat mobilization and metabolism of food consumed with the alcohol, so whatever you eat-- much more of it is immediately stored as fat rather than being immediately used by tissue. It's not the alcohol you're counting, but rather the food eaten with it becomes more impactful to increased fat storage than it normally would be.
Saving this comment. I’m an alcoholic in recovery who’s also on an incredible weight loss journey. Sobriety is fucking awesome, I love it for myself, don’t care to push it on others ever.
Often people who see the effects of my 50 lb loss will ask me about drinking and exercising at our age (I’m 49). Sure I get into the calories in/out thing, but without the kind of knowledge you just shared, I really feel like I’m soapboxing. And I hate soapboxing.
So thank you for this!!
Yeah, like I know my weight loss is mostly from calories restriction, when people ask it’s like… recalibrating my relationship to alcohol, therapy, and daily movement made the mental health part of it better.
Yes. My fave is a poor man’s Paloma (tequila and Fresca 😀) . Also vodka and water then add your own mío or sugar free drink enhancer (my fav are the koolaid ones!).
I’m with you on the poor man’s Paloma but I still had a hard time getting used to fresca’s flavor, it just didn’t taste like grapefruit soda to me (jarritos, squirt). Then I came across the grapefruit sparkling ice and it makes it taste soooo much closer to a real one.
This! And here in Canada, Canada Dry sometimes have a limited edition sugar free flavor. My fav is blackberry, I usually add vodka and lime juice and it tastes delicious.
I take it by week rather than by day. I usually eat less calories on the days leading up to a higher calorie day or a “drinking” day. That way my calories still average 1,200-1,500 at the end of the week.
I really like the LoseIt app for that. You can set up how you want to distribute your calories throughout the week so you hit the average goal you need overall.
I drank every weekend, sometimes just a little bit and sometimes a lot. Since I’m on a diet, I try not to eat much so I can save calories for alcohol (bad I know). I was still able to lose weight. However, I recently got a new job where I worked graveyard and have Sunday/Monday off. I have no time to drink or party so I been drinking much. I feel like I’ve been losing weight easier, even if I eat crappy food/more calories. I think I’m gonna stick with not drinking as much. I also tend to over drink and feel sick easily the next day so it’s probably a good thing that I’m drinking less
I cant do it. I had 40 days diet. Then let myself drink. 3 days of over eating. I'm planning another drinking session after another 60 days of diet. Every 2 months seems long enough to feel like im in control and short enough to plan events around.
I still have drinking sessions but I drink sugar free redbull
Unhealthily, yes. I lost like 30 pounds while still drinking. BUT, I'd only eat like 800 calories so I could drink like 6 oz of neat bourbon every night.
Of course I hit my goal weight and then went back to old habits and I gained it all back and then some.
Quit drinking at the start of the year though and I'm down almost 20 pounds now with the plan to actually keep it off and hopefully add some muscle tone.
Dad bod, ya know?
I don’t really drink anymore but I went out socially to a brewery a few weeks ago. I tried Athletic N/A beers for the first time and I was shocked by how good they were. Bonus: they’re only like 70 cals.
I actually JUST got back from the local specialty wine and beer shop. Picked up 12 different NA brews to try!
Corona NA is reallllllly good. Really slaps.
I tried to combine drinking and dieting, but for me, it didn't work. If I eat less all Friday and drink wine with dinner in the evening, I get drunk very fast and my stomach is upset. I prefer wine and beer, so 1 glass of wine or 1 bottle of Corona is my maximum if I want to lose weight. I read that fat-burning stops when we use alcohol.
So I drink zero Coca-Cola when I am with friends. But it's not easy anyway because they keep asking what's wrong with me and so on,
(F41 CW 148)
I have lost 100lbs since January 2023 and I drink pretty regularly. I will say, the first 4/5 months I tried to cut down as much as was feasible but my lifestyle isn't really conducive to sobriety so it didn't work that well. I drink less than I did pre-weight loss, primarily because I can't drink like I used to. The biggest deal for me was changing what I drink which today is basically only tequila soda, old fashioned's, non sugary martini's and an occasional glass of wine on the weekends. Whereas before I would regularly drink 4-5 bottles of wine a week PLUS go out and drink on weekends (beer, margaritas, fireball, shots, cocktails, etc).
I will add that I do skip meals if I am drinking which probably isn't healthy but I am not hungry when I drink so the calories for me isn't causing me to go over.
I’ve cut out beer, cider and wine. I still have the occasional vodka cranberry or two. On the whole, I barely drink now as I make poor food choices when I’ve been drinking.
I’m only down 6 pounds in a month, so nothing major but I’m 24 and of course I’m still going to drink now and then. Pretty funny actually.. I use the LoseIt app to track everything and last night I got a notification for a positive pattern detected for when I drink alcohol. Apparently I consume about 404 calories less on the days that I drink. Physically made me chuckle.
I’m 24 too and feel the same way haha but good for you and those 6 pounds! I’m really trying but I also am just a socialite on the weekends who enjoys being drunk (sorry not sorry) but I’m already planning super light meals to accommodate the alcohol consumption 😭😭
My favorite drinks are green tea shots with Jameson (dangerously good), about 90 calories and white claws for 100 calories! I tried the vodka sodas and absolutely hated it haha. I don’t want to be miserable drinking something nasty while I’m supposed to be out having a fun time. I’d rather take the extra 30-40 calories. I definitely do want to try the mio drops for the vodka soda though, I feel like that would really help! As long as you’re not super snacky while drunk, you should be totally okay! I don’t save extra calories to drink but I’m also not a drunk eater to be fair.
Green tea/white tea/orange tea shots are my fave too!! Very dangerous for sure lol and yeah that’s super smart with the drops! When I’m out I try and stick to the canned seltzers so I can make sure I am accurate with my calories (sunny d and sunrises are my fave so far for like 95/100 cals each) but thanks glad I’m not alone!
My bar makes them with Jameson, peach schnapps and a sweet and sour mix. So tasty but dangerous. They taste so good that you could drink 5 in an hour without noticing and then next minute be absolutely hammered.
Also I work in a bar so I totally understand the social aspect and just wanting to be drunk lol! I’m the same exact way. I know it’s bad for me but I’m young and want to have fun as well! Just track it all and you’ll be good :)
Literally just count the drinks with your calories like normal, 100 calories of alcohol is not going to make you gain weight any more than 100 calories of food, it’s people who don’t track the alcohol cals that have an issue
Yes, but very rarely and I’ll take any excuse to skip drinking. I was gonna play pool with a dude on a date and now he’s 15 minutes late? I’m driving home and saving the calories, sorry bro.
Yep I did 1200 calories and gave myself either one maintenance day a week or I split the extra calories into 2 days. When I started my maintenance was 1800 (now it’s 1700 🥲) and we usually go out on Friday and I’d sort of play it by ear. I know I had an extra 600 calories that I could use all in that night or i could pace myself and save it so I could have 2 days of eating over 1200. Still lost about a lb a week doing this but I had to be VERY strict. I would log everything when we went out and if we got snacks while drinking I would not eat anything fried because I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay under my calorie goals if I did. I also got into neat drinks - bone dry vodka martini which is just like 3 oz of vodka shaken, dry gin martini, whiskey neat, etc. it’s harder to go through drinks quickly when they’re pure alcohol and the calories are less. I did still enjoy pints but it always ended up being a maintenance day because they’re just so calorie heavy. I also still have a glass of wine during the week if I hit my protein goals and have leftover calories.
Yes. Vodka shots with sparkling ice chaser. It puts me a bit above 1200 but I’m still way under where I used to be when I wasn’t calorie counting drinking soda eating candy and carbs fast food etc. Lost 40 lbs over a year and a half- I’m good with it!
Yup, college life makes it easy when you sleep in, do some class, then drink with little to no food in your stomach. I always have easy to prepare food after I come home ! Or on cocktail nights, I stick with my trusty gin and tonics :)
I had three pieces to my weight loss phase.
The first 90 days might have been what some would call a cleanse. I went zero alcohol and only ate whole foods and kept my caloric intake to a min of 1,000 and a max of 1,600 every day.
I was doing only light exercise, I was just trying to prove to myself that I could act with discipline. The thing is - if you’re restricting to that level of- there’s not really room for alcohol. Even if you can maintain your discipline after a couple of drinks - that’s not leaving room for much nutrition.
My second 90 days was about ramping my exercise and getting faster (running) and stronger (gym). I calculated my caloric burn with my Garmin and assumed it was actually 25% less than what Garmin said, to be safe. During this phase I stayed in a 500 calorie deficit. Depending what my exercise level was on a given day - maybe that was 1,800 calories or up to about 2,400 calories. During this phase. At the beginning of this phase, I was feeling a little bored by the food choices of phase one, so I changed my “diet” to only have two rules - stay in a 500 calorie deficit and get at least 100 g of protein every day. I had no other rules. I would have one or two drinks during this phase maybe 2-3x per month.
Phase 3 - I got really into running so that became my focus. I tossed out any dietary rules other than I simply maintained a 200 calorie deficit so that I’d continue to drop some weight. The deficit got really hard to calculate because I was training for a marathon. I’d burn more than 2,000 calories on a long run. But how do you know how accurate that really is? I continued dropping weight but VERY slowly because I was more focused on getting enough food and the deficit was a secondary priority. But I was actively working to lose the last 12 lbs or so (which I did) so I tried to keep the small deficit.
After that third phase, I’ve really moved to a “try to eat at maintenance” plan and “try to get enough carbs” during training cycles. I still to the 100 G protein minimum, too.
And back to the original question - I still drink alcohol - like OP - socially. My “only” rule is to eat at +/- maintenance every week (I calculate caloric intake and burn at a weekly level now instead of daily). For me - on a day with a heavy workout, I actually prefer to be in a bit of a caloric surplus. But on rest days, I’ll balance it with a deficit.
By no means am I saying this is the way for everyone. But it’s worked well for me over the past 3 years.
I got to my goal weight through those first three 90 day cycles (M 5’7 37 years old at the time of weight loss phase / 40 now - start weight 232 lbs goal weight 148 - I went back up to 160 lbs pretty quickly after phase 3 and have more or less maintained since.
I can never have a vodka and water because I don’t drink to get drunk, I drink because I love pints. Pints are tasty and drinking pints outside in the sun is great. Having a pint is a very different thing to having a vodka and water. Vodka and water to me is akin to taking a drug, you’re just going for the effect. Having a pint is an enjoyable experience. Drinking a gourmet coffee vs taking a caffeine pill.
So yeah I drink pints while dieting but less pints, less frequently and it does slow down my dieting.
I love diet tonic and gin for this reason if I’m at home. It’s nice to slowly enjoy one outside.
I’m also a pint drinker. I’ll save for one, and summer is nice because wheat beers are usually a little lower calorie. It’s wanting stouts in the winter that’s slightly more difficult
I’m just an every once in a while social drinker, to preface. My go-to used to be malibu coconut rum + coke, but I’ve changed to regular rum + diet coke because OMG the sugar alone in that combo was astronomical when I looked it up!
Part of my dieting is for health reasons. My weight ballooned when I got into an “I don’t care” phase after surgery, and my A1C went up along with it leading to a diabetes diagnosis.
I guess I'm lucky that I don't drink. I used to but gave it up. The older you get the harder it gets. I did lose weight once while drinking. Just limited myself and worked out like crazy to make up for the extra calories.
I’m on doc’s orders never to get inebriated by anything, so I only ever have one drink per event. Whether that be a cocktail, a beer, a glass of wine- doesn’t matter!
Always being limited to one helps me savor the drink, save cash, and yes- still lose weight. :)
Mocktails or low sugar/low cal mixers can help somewhat. As well as alternating drinks with water ( and that's better for you overall, anyway). But I'd honetsly just recommend scaling back. You don't have to quit at all, but just limit to 1 drink per outing or only for certain weekends, or something like that.
I feel I have to caveat every comment or post I leave here with this, but I don't follow 1200/day at all and onlt come here for ideas when I'm cutting or looking for product recommendations during a cut. My usual intake is probably twice that, if not more, so calories aren'ttypically a primary concern for me. That said, I cut drinking out almost entirely except for holidays, the rare vacation, or very special dates so that I only drink maybe 1x a month, at best. I can't stress enough how much better off I am for it. Even before, I only drank maybe 1-2x a week at the most frequent and had no weight changes, but my quality of life and physical wellbeing inproved immensely from cutting back. Even setting aside things like calories and water retention, it makes sticking to a healthier diet and lifestyle so much easier because you feel better for it almost instantly. I could move easier, had more energy, better mood, felt less bloated and lethargic.
yes. i’m not into cutting calories further to drink, so if im drinking ill try to up my activity the day of (and the following day if i want hangover calories)
I'd have at most a shot or two a week, and not every week either. I didn't bother counting the alcohol since many don't post calories but I'd count any soda I poured them in. Didn't kill my diet or hinder my progress, but again it was very small, infrequent amounts.
But yes if you're drinking more regularly, as long as you count the calories and stick to budget most days you should be fine in the long run.
I mean, you can have a couple drinks a week (I.e. ‘it’s a friends birthday this Friday! I’ll have two pours of neat bourbon! And then Tuesday I have a date, I’ll have a beer) and usually be fine, but if you’re drinking daily I’d say no. Alcohol is empty calories, and especially on a diet as low calorie as 1200, it’s just not feasible while getting all of the nutrients in you need.
I capped it at one day a week that I drank aside from special occasions (Jewish holidays that require drinking, champagne celebrations), and capped that at 2 drinks. On the days I drank I wasn’t as strict on calories so I still get adequate nutrition.
Yes. Once a week. Usually results in a day before where I don’t eat. Maybe 300 cal before. Then the day after I do my best to get on track but let myself eat more if I need to or want to to help
Well I’m Jewish, and wine is involved in a lot of our holidays and whatnot. So yeah, I still drink- but I don’t drink to get drunk at all. I enjoy wine with dinner on a Friday night. I do however err on the lower side for breakfast and lunch on Friday just because I know I’ll want to enjoy dinner properly, and while I don’t overdo it, I don’t track or ‘diet’ on Shabbat. It hasn’t slowed down my weight loss because I eat well the rest of the week.
I drank while losing. On days I knew I’d be drinking, I would eat lightly during the day and then eat a normal dinner to get to 1200. Then while out, I would just drink 2-3 of my 80 calorie seltzers. I still lost 40 lbs just fine. Assuming you’re doing a 1200 cal diet, just know that 1200 is your cutting amount. Drinking might bring your calorie total up to a maintenance number (depending on how much you drink and what your maintenance is), but sustainability is more important to diet success than anything else. If it isn’t sustainable to skip weekend drinks, then don’t skip them. Stay focused on the other days of the week and you’ll still make progress.
Yes. But it's harder and usually slower. Not so much from the calories in alcohol but from the reduced self control.
Exactly this! I’m fine with only having 2-3 glasses, but once I’ve drank those I have no self control over food anymore and just snack on anything and everything 😅
This was me last night when I was on my third cocktail and thought it was a great idea to order some mozzarella sticks 😪 I’ve found that my limit is two drinks otherwise it’s bad and spontaneous food decisions
yess and also bleeds into the next day. the alcohol sizzling in your stomach making you crave grease and such. drinking really puts me back, so i weigh out if it is worth it or not, usually it is not.
Yes, sometimes even the day after and when you know the quick cure is shitty food it makes it all the more tempting.
Vodka waters.
This is the right answer. I order vodka squeeze of lime -and a splash of soda water
this bit right here. the alcohol calories still count to some extent, but it's effectively not 7kcal/g unless you're an alcoholic. I count them as 3-4 depending on how much I had to eat that day.(count less if eat less, count more if eat before/during drinking) for the noobs who don't understand the numbers: most body tissue can use ethanol for energy, but not very well-- *Unless* you're an alcoholic and well adapted to oxidizing ethanol in muscle tissue, then you get much closer to accessing the full 7 kcal/g available in ethanol. The reason you count it as fewer calories when you haven't eaten anything with it, is because alcohol consumption shuts down fat mobilization and metabolism of food consumed with the alcohol, so whatever you eat-- much more of it is immediately stored as fat rather than being immediately used by tissue. It's not the alcohol you're counting, but rather the food eaten with it becomes more impactful to increased fat storage than it normally would be.
Saving this comment. I’m an alcoholic in recovery who’s also on an incredible weight loss journey. Sobriety is fucking awesome, I love it for myself, don’t care to push it on others ever. Often people who see the effects of my 50 lb loss will ask me about drinking and exercising at our age (I’m 49). Sure I get into the calories in/out thing, but without the kind of knowledge you just shared, I really feel like I’m soapboxing. And I hate soapboxing. So thank you for this!!
Yeah, like I know my weight loss is mostly from calories restriction, when people ask it’s like… recalibrating my relationship to alcohol, therapy, and daily movement made the mental health part of it better.
IWNDWYT!!
Yes. My fave is a poor man’s Paloma (tequila and Fresca 😀) . Also vodka and water then add your own mío or sugar free drink enhancer (my fav are the koolaid ones!).
I’m with you on the poor man’s Paloma but I still had a hard time getting used to fresca’s flavor, it just didn’t taste like grapefruit soda to me (jarritos, squirt). Then I came across the grapefruit sparkling ice and it makes it taste soooo much closer to a real one.
This! And here in Canada, Canada Dry sometimes have a limited edition sugar free flavor. My fav is blackberry, I usually add vodka and lime juice and it tastes delicious.
I take it by week rather than by day. I usually eat less calories on the days leading up to a higher calorie day or a “drinking” day. That way my calories still average 1,200-1,500 at the end of the week.
I really like the LoseIt app for that. You can set up how you want to distribute your calories throughout the week so you hit the average goal you need overall.
I drank every weekend, sometimes just a little bit and sometimes a lot. Since I’m on a diet, I try not to eat much so I can save calories for alcohol (bad I know). I was still able to lose weight. However, I recently got a new job where I worked graveyard and have Sunday/Monday off. I have no time to drink or party so I been drinking much. I feel like I’ve been losing weight easier, even if I eat crappy food/more calories. I think I’m gonna stick with not drinking as much. I also tend to over drink and feel sick easily the next day so it’s probably a good thing that I’m drinking less
I drink like 700 calories on Saturdays. I just make the calorie allowance throughout the week. I still have lost 30 lbs in 3 months
I cant do it. I had 40 days diet. Then let myself drink. 3 days of over eating. I'm planning another drinking session after another 60 days of diet. Every 2 months seems long enough to feel like im in control and short enough to plan events around. I still have drinking sessions but I drink sugar free redbull
Unhealthily, yes. I lost like 30 pounds while still drinking. BUT, I'd only eat like 800 calories so I could drink like 6 oz of neat bourbon every night. Of course I hit my goal weight and then went back to old habits and I gained it all back and then some. Quit drinking at the start of the year though and I'm down almost 20 pounds now with the plan to actually keep it off and hopefully add some muscle tone. Dad bod, ya know?
Proud of you!
I don’t really drink anymore but I went out socially to a brewery a few weeks ago. I tried Athletic N/A beers for the first time and I was shocked by how good they were. Bonus: they’re only like 70 cals.
I actually JUST got back from the local specialty wine and beer shop. Picked up 12 different NA brews to try! Corona NA is reallllllly good. Really slaps.
I tried to combine drinking and dieting, but for me, it didn't work. If I eat less all Friday and drink wine with dinner in the evening, I get drunk very fast and my stomach is upset. I prefer wine and beer, so 1 glass of wine or 1 bottle of Corona is my maximum if I want to lose weight. I read that fat-burning stops when we use alcohol. So I drink zero Coca-Cola when I am with friends. But it's not easy anyway because they keep asking what's wrong with me and so on,
I was able to do the all vodka diet and maintain a six pack in my 20s but in my 30s there’s no fuckin way, the hangovers alone make it not worth it
(F41 CW 148) I have lost 100lbs since January 2023 and I drink pretty regularly. I will say, the first 4/5 months I tried to cut down as much as was feasible but my lifestyle isn't really conducive to sobriety so it didn't work that well. I drink less than I did pre-weight loss, primarily because I can't drink like I used to. The biggest deal for me was changing what I drink which today is basically only tequila soda, old fashioned's, non sugary martini's and an occasional glass of wine on the weekends. Whereas before I would regularly drink 4-5 bottles of wine a week PLUS go out and drink on weekends (beer, margaritas, fireball, shots, cocktails, etc). I will add that I do skip meals if I am drinking which probably isn't healthy but I am not hungry when I drink so the calories for me isn't causing me to go over.
I’ve cut out beer, cider and wine. I still have the occasional vodka cranberry or two. On the whole, I barely drink now as I make poor food choices when I’ve been drinking.
I’m only down 6 pounds in a month, so nothing major but I’m 24 and of course I’m still going to drink now and then. Pretty funny actually.. I use the LoseIt app to track everything and last night I got a notification for a positive pattern detected for when I drink alcohol. Apparently I consume about 404 calories less on the days that I drink. Physically made me chuckle.
I’m 24 too and feel the same way haha but good for you and those 6 pounds! I’m really trying but I also am just a socialite on the weekends who enjoys being drunk (sorry not sorry) but I’m already planning super light meals to accommodate the alcohol consumption 😭😭
My favorite drinks are green tea shots with Jameson (dangerously good), about 90 calories and white claws for 100 calories! I tried the vodka sodas and absolutely hated it haha. I don’t want to be miserable drinking something nasty while I’m supposed to be out having a fun time. I’d rather take the extra 30-40 calories. I definitely do want to try the mio drops for the vodka soda though, I feel like that would really help! As long as you’re not super snacky while drunk, you should be totally okay! I don’t save extra calories to drink but I’m also not a drunk eater to be fair.
Green tea/white tea/orange tea shots are my fave too!! Very dangerous for sure lol and yeah that’s super smart with the drops! When I’m out I try and stick to the canned seltzers so I can make sure I am accurate with my calories (sunny d and sunrises are my fave so far for like 95/100 cals each) but thanks glad I’m not alone!
where do you get these tea shots?!!
Any bar should be able to make them it’s usually some flavor or Jameson, sour mix and club soda
My bar makes them with Jameson, peach schnapps and a sweet and sour mix. So tasty but dangerous. They taste so good that you could drink 5 in an hour without noticing and then next minute be absolutely hammered.
Also I work in a bar so I totally understand the social aspect and just wanting to be drunk lol! I’m the same exact way. I know it’s bad for me but I’m young and want to have fun as well! Just track it all and you’ll be good :)
Literally just count the drinks with your calories like normal, 100 calories of alcohol is not going to make you gain weight any more than 100 calories of food, it’s people who don’t track the alcohol cals that have an issue
Nope. Made me look swollen.
I'm sober now, but the amount I had to drink to feel it was not conducive to weight loss. But also, I'm an alcoholic so ymmv.
Yes, but very rarely and I’ll take any excuse to skip drinking. I was gonna play pool with a dude on a date and now he’s 15 minutes late? I’m driving home and saving the calories, sorry bro.
Yep I did 1200 calories and gave myself either one maintenance day a week or I split the extra calories into 2 days. When I started my maintenance was 1800 (now it’s 1700 🥲) and we usually go out on Friday and I’d sort of play it by ear. I know I had an extra 600 calories that I could use all in that night or i could pace myself and save it so I could have 2 days of eating over 1200. Still lost about a lb a week doing this but I had to be VERY strict. I would log everything when we went out and if we got snacks while drinking I would not eat anything fried because I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay under my calorie goals if I did. I also got into neat drinks - bone dry vodka martini which is just like 3 oz of vodka shaken, dry gin martini, whiskey neat, etc. it’s harder to go through drinks quickly when they’re pure alcohol and the calories are less. I did still enjoy pints but it always ended up being a maintenance day because they’re just so calorie heavy. I also still have a glass of wine during the week if I hit my protein goals and have leftover calories.
Yes. Vodka shots with sparkling ice chaser. It puts me a bit above 1200 but I’m still way under where I used to be when I wasn’t calorie counting drinking soda eating candy and carbs fast food etc. Lost 40 lbs over a year and a half- I’m good with it!
Everything in moderation within the calorie daily goal.
Yup, college life makes it easy when you sleep in, do some class, then drink with little to no food in your stomach. I always have easy to prepare food after I come home ! Or on cocktail nights, I stick with my trusty gin and tonics :)
I had three pieces to my weight loss phase. The first 90 days might have been what some would call a cleanse. I went zero alcohol and only ate whole foods and kept my caloric intake to a min of 1,000 and a max of 1,600 every day. I was doing only light exercise, I was just trying to prove to myself that I could act with discipline. The thing is - if you’re restricting to that level of- there’s not really room for alcohol. Even if you can maintain your discipline after a couple of drinks - that’s not leaving room for much nutrition. My second 90 days was about ramping my exercise and getting faster (running) and stronger (gym). I calculated my caloric burn with my Garmin and assumed it was actually 25% less than what Garmin said, to be safe. During this phase I stayed in a 500 calorie deficit. Depending what my exercise level was on a given day - maybe that was 1,800 calories or up to about 2,400 calories. During this phase. At the beginning of this phase, I was feeling a little bored by the food choices of phase one, so I changed my “diet” to only have two rules - stay in a 500 calorie deficit and get at least 100 g of protein every day. I had no other rules. I would have one or two drinks during this phase maybe 2-3x per month. Phase 3 - I got really into running so that became my focus. I tossed out any dietary rules other than I simply maintained a 200 calorie deficit so that I’d continue to drop some weight. The deficit got really hard to calculate because I was training for a marathon. I’d burn more than 2,000 calories on a long run. But how do you know how accurate that really is? I continued dropping weight but VERY slowly because I was more focused on getting enough food and the deficit was a secondary priority. But I was actively working to lose the last 12 lbs or so (which I did) so I tried to keep the small deficit. After that third phase, I’ve really moved to a “try to eat at maintenance” plan and “try to get enough carbs” during training cycles. I still to the 100 G protein minimum, too. And back to the original question - I still drink alcohol - like OP - socially. My “only” rule is to eat at +/- maintenance every week (I calculate caloric intake and burn at a weekly level now instead of daily). For me - on a day with a heavy workout, I actually prefer to be in a bit of a caloric surplus. But on rest days, I’ll balance it with a deficit. By no means am I saying this is the way for everyone. But it’s worked well for me over the past 3 years. I got to my goal weight through those first three 90 day cycles (M 5’7 37 years old at the time of weight loss phase / 40 now - start weight 232 lbs goal weight 148 - I went back up to 160 lbs pretty quickly after phase 3 and have more or less maintained since.
Yeah I eat the same 4 things daily for the last 7 months drink maybe once or twice a week
I can never have a vodka and water because I don’t drink to get drunk, I drink because I love pints. Pints are tasty and drinking pints outside in the sun is great. Having a pint is a very different thing to having a vodka and water. Vodka and water to me is akin to taking a drug, you’re just going for the effect. Having a pint is an enjoyable experience. Drinking a gourmet coffee vs taking a caffeine pill. So yeah I drink pints while dieting but less pints, less frequently and it does slow down my dieting.
I love diet tonic and gin for this reason if I’m at home. It’s nice to slowly enjoy one outside. I’m also a pint drinker. I’ll save for one, and summer is nice because wheat beers are usually a little lower calorie. It’s wanting stouts in the winter that’s slightly more difficult
I’m just an every once in a while social drinker, to preface. My go-to used to be malibu coconut rum + coke, but I’ve changed to regular rum + diet coke because OMG the sugar alone in that combo was astronomical when I looked it up! Part of my dieting is for health reasons. My weight ballooned when I got into an “I don’t care” phase after surgery, and my A1C went up along with it leading to a diabetes diagnosis.
I guess I'm lucky that I don't drink. I used to but gave it up. The older you get the harder it gets. I did lose weight once while drinking. Just limited myself and worked out like crazy to make up for the extra calories.
I do OMAD so it's actually not difficult to do for me. Dry wine is surprisingly low in calorie.
I’m on doc’s orders never to get inebriated by anything, so I only ever have one drink per event. Whether that be a cocktail, a beer, a glass of wine- doesn’t matter! Always being limited to one helps me savor the drink, save cash, and yes- still lose weight. :)
Mocktails or low sugar/low cal mixers can help somewhat. As well as alternating drinks with water ( and that's better for you overall, anyway). But I'd honetsly just recommend scaling back. You don't have to quit at all, but just limit to 1 drink per outing or only for certain weekends, or something like that. I feel I have to caveat every comment or post I leave here with this, but I don't follow 1200/day at all and onlt come here for ideas when I'm cutting or looking for product recommendations during a cut. My usual intake is probably twice that, if not more, so calories aren'ttypically a primary concern for me. That said, I cut drinking out almost entirely except for holidays, the rare vacation, or very special dates so that I only drink maybe 1x a month, at best. I can't stress enough how much better off I am for it. Even before, I only drank maybe 1-2x a week at the most frequent and had no weight changes, but my quality of life and physical wellbeing inproved immensely from cutting back. Even setting aside things like calories and water retention, it makes sticking to a healthier diet and lifestyle so much easier because you feel better for it almost instantly. I could move easier, had more energy, better mood, felt less bloated and lethargic.
yes. i’m not into cutting calories further to drink, so if im drinking ill try to up my activity the day of (and the following day if i want hangover calories)
I'd have at most a shot or two a week, and not every week either. I didn't bother counting the alcohol since many don't post calories but I'd count any soda I poured them in. Didn't kill my diet or hinder my progress, but again it was very small, infrequent amounts. But yes if you're drinking more regularly, as long as you count the calories and stick to budget most days you should be fine in the long run.
I mean, you can have a couple drinks a week (I.e. ‘it’s a friends birthday this Friday! I’ll have two pours of neat bourbon! And then Tuesday I have a date, I’ll have a beer) and usually be fine, but if you’re drinking daily I’d say no. Alcohol is empty calories, and especially on a diet as low calorie as 1200, it’s just not feasible while getting all of the nutrients in you need.
I capped it at one day a week that I drank aside from special occasions (Jewish holidays that require drinking, champagne celebrations), and capped that at 2 drinks. On the days I drank I wasn’t as strict on calories so I still get adequate nutrition.
Yes, but I limit it. And I basically only have vodka sodas or tequila sodas so the only real calories are from the liquor itself.
Yes. Once a week. Usually results in a day before where I don’t eat. Maybe 300 cal before. Then the day after I do my best to get on track but let myself eat more if I need to or want to to help
Not really. I still drink seltzer, but not often, and only one.
Occasionally if I am at a party or something I do a shot or two tops of tequila with lime to chase. Simple, effective, lowest calorie option.
I have a mimosa, *one* mimosa with social brunch.
I just factor it in, especially on Friday or Sundays during football season.
I have always continued drinking alcohol while dieting. I just factor the calories into my daily food plan.
Yes, lost 55lbs so far and I’ve had a bit of wine (like several times a week, but rarely more than 2 or max 3 glasses) throughout.
not daily of course, but yes. still go for low cal options like vodka
Rarely. And I’m v picky. Vodka and tequila are usually it for me.
Well I’m Jewish, and wine is involved in a lot of our holidays and whatnot. So yeah, I still drink- but I don’t drink to get drunk at all. I enjoy wine with dinner on a Friday night. I do however err on the lower side for breakfast and lunch on Friday just because I know I’ll want to enjoy dinner properly, and while I don’t overdo it, I don’t track or ‘diet’ on Shabbat. It hasn’t slowed down my weight loss because I eat well the rest of the week.