How to navigate Alcohol While Trying to Lose Weight
Drinking while trying to lose weight is the toughest thing to manage for many. Drinking represents keeping up your social life while still trying to live healthily.
Learning to manage alcohol for many is the difference between success and failure when losing weight. The ‘beer belly’ didn’t get its name from not drinking beer.
You can still drink while losing weight. Often a lot of the weight gain from drinking comes from the lack of inhibitions after we have a few drinks.
How many times have you started to make bad decisions, food or otherwise, just because of a few drinks?
Don’t let discipline go right out the window the second you have a drink. I know easier said than done.
Tip 1: Eat before you start drinking.
If you’re hungry and then you start drinking, you know that midnight taco run is going to happen.
A meal higher in protein will help keep you full. Listen to your body. Not that drunk voice in the back of your head.
Tip 2: No sugary drinks
Sugar plus alcohol is going to stop your weight loss. The obvious sugar drinks are the ‘beach’ drinks. Daiquiris, margaritas, piña coladas. Overlooked sugar drinks are the alcohol and coke/soda/red bull/fruit juice. These drinks contain just as much sugar!
Tip 3: Beer & wine in moderation.
Depending on the beer it has between 100 – 200 calories. Red wine has about 135 calories per glass (that’s 5oz) How easy is it to drink 5 beers in an evening out? Or an entire bottle of wine? At only 1 beer an hour (unlikely) that’s easily an extra 500-1000 calories.
If you’ve been sub 200 calories per day for the entire week, which is about where you’d want to be to lose weight without going crazy, then had an extra 1000 calories on Saturday night you’d be right back where you started the week off.
Now add a few extra calories from the food you snuck in while drinking. It’s easy to see how eating less during the week and eating in excess on the weekend can still cause weight gain.
Tip 5: What to drink
Alcohol with zero calorie mixers. Or just alcohol.
Tequila and a couple limes
Vodka and soda
Vodka and LaCroix
Tip 6: Stop drinking until you’ve reached your desired weight.
Once you’ve reached your desired body weight and can maintain your healthy body weight, adding alcohol back in is much easier than trying to lose weight while continuing to drink alcohol.
Alcohol seems to stop all progress both in losing weight and gaining muscle.
Besides the calories, alcohol messes with sleep. Poor sleep leads to reduced decision making, and lack of energy. Lack of energy = no exercising. A crappy cycle will mess up weight loss. Even if you’re not drinking, poor sleep will stop weight loss progress.
Alcohol is a double whack to weight loss. Excess calories and reduced sleep.
Keep alcohol in check and the weight will come off!
Reminder: at some point, you HAVE to change something about how you are living. If you want to lose weight, you have to make changes. There is a difference between making something work for your lifestyle, and completely refusing to make ANY sacrifices or ANY changes.
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