Need College tips!! (on how to not drink...)

soooo every time i go to college, i gain weight and im pretty sure it's bc of the alcohol. ive cut my drinking down to once a week maybe but it's so hard bc everyone's drinking all the time. and then the next day i feel bloated and gross and all i want is a juicy hamburger and fries...pretty much snowballs from there. anyone have any tips on how to say no or get the weight off?

and i know, i could just not drink, but let's be real its college...

I understand what you're saying.  Would it be possible to alternate water with your alcoholic beverages?  If you get it in a high-ball glass w/a lemon or lime, it will even look like a 'drink'.

It works for me, anyway! 

I know its hard since cheap beer is the norm at parties, but try switching to wine.  And also if you make a rule that for every beer/glass you have to drink a glass of water, its a great way to pace yourself and stay hydrated. Stay safe...! Good luck!

It also helps if you go out with a person or two who don't drink.. That way it's not "just you." Helps to have a support system in those kind of situations!

You can "not drink." It's all a matter of what's more important to you.

Last year while I was trying to lose weight, I wound up being doorman at my own keggers so I wouldn't have to drink.

You just want booze more than you want weight loss. That's your choice.

There's a few things I do. First, now that I am 21, drinking just doesn't seem quite as fun, but I still drink on occasion. Volunteering to be the DD almost every time we go out forces me not to drink and keeps my friends safe. Also, avoid mixed drinks! Instead of getting an Amaretto Sour (lots of calories), get a rum and diet coke or a little bit of flavored vodka mixed with water (not seltzer or tonic). It's a low calorie way to sip your alcohol instead of guzzling it.

 

drink light beer and order a glass of water with each beer... finish the water before you order another beer and water

Keep Coke or some other soda around... if you have a drink in hand then people usually won't try to offer you anything. And most of the time they won't even know what the heck you are drinking anyway.

Other than that I think you're gonna have to make a choice.. 

Don't drink with the aim of getting sloshed-to-the-floor-wake-up-feeling-disgusti ng drunk. Don't drink to the point where you are drunk/need to throw up. I only have a little to get buzzed enough and loosen up now.

Choose the lower cal drinks, like someone else said. Load yourself with water throughout the night. Where are you primarily doing your drinking? Friend's house? Frat parties? At clubs? You're going to want different techniques at different locations. At clubs you can definitely dance it off if you drink in moderation. Turn down free drinks guys offer to get for you. If you're drinking at a friend's house, don't get into chugging contests or drinking games. You can always say something like "I have a huge project due _______", "I need to be up early", "Stomach isn't feeling too well" - the lies are endless! :P

As for the hangover eating...if I don't overload on alcohol the previous night, it's usually no problem. But usually my friends want hangover food anyways, and we all go en masse to get Mexican food. Just make good decisions - pick lower cal options or make up claims that you're too nauseous to eat cheese or w/e.

i always be the sober driver!

Don't. Nobody is putting a knife to your throat. Many years ago, my husband regularly came home tipsy after attending Chinese New Year parties in Malaysia. XO Cognac is the norm there. Being the only "white" guy around, there was always a lot of pressure from the locals to get him under the table before they went there themselves. It's a male thing... When reproached, he would whine that it was "impossible" not to, in order to be accepted by the group.

I got mad a couple of times then told him that to me it was not only silly but unsustainable: Even if his liver could get through the celebrations, one day he would have kids to see him come home drunk...

He never got trashed again. He had a great career - still has - and never got fired or had difficulty working with people because of it. The "impossible" stuff is in your head. Get it out, and as dm84 says, sort out what's important to you then stick to it.

I went through college and university (9 years of it) and never got drunk once. We had great parties and great friends, lots of fun but very little booze (it was a European campus; in Europe you can legally drink beer at 16 and all the rest by 18). I never read anywhere that booze was a necessary part of education...

i am in college, so i know its hard, but a few things I have found helpful is to simply have non-alcoholic drinks handy. Many times, its not really the craving for alcohol, but more like the desire to drink because everybody else is sipping on something.

If you are at a party and you are playing a drinking game, have one drink, and then finish out the game with some kind of soda. You can even be sneaky/creative and put the soda into the beer can/bottle.

I forgot to mention the fact I am NOT a teetotaller. I am French. We have wine almost every day with dinner. I gave Champagne to my kids as soon as they could sip it when we had something to celebrate. My father used to put some drops of red wine into my empty egg shell when I finished my soft boiled egg faster than my older brother - I hated the stuff -  when I was about 5 years old, and we taught our three children to appreciate wine and to match the right ones with the right foods as soon as they were old enough to like it (about 16-17 as a rule)...

Wine is a pleasure and part of our culture. It never was meant as a mood enhancing drug... It's just one of its effects, and not the most important. 

i understand that you want to be able to have fun with your friends too, so not drinking would be hard.

i suggest a vodka-water-lime. wayyy low on calories. or raspberry stoli-water-lime.

Drink club soda and lime on the rocks.  It looks like a cocktail.  Or keep non-alcholic beer around and drink from a mug.  If you stay sober and see what it looks like when everyone else is getting real sloshed, you'll value your sobriety more :-)

 

Original Post by uniformlyunique:

instead of drinking, I smoke weed. It gives off the same feeling as alcohol does without calories. Unfortunitly, the muchies follow but that is when I bust out the grapes, apples and 100 calorie pack snacks. try that instead. good luck

 Wow.

um...no.  I really don't think this is the place to encourage people to do drugs.

I agree. I used to smoke in HS and was very skinny 'cause of that cause it fastens your metabolism but it's not a good thing to do. There's a lot of bad that comes from it and im so glad i dont do it anymore. It was just a phase i went thru, so glad it didnt lead me to try other things!

You need better drunken friends.

 Most of the time when we would get drunk, a drunken game of football, ultimate frisbee, or some other game we would make up (Drunken Olympics anyone?) would ultimately burn off most of the calories we would consume.

 Also put the school gym to use!

I'm also in college and my friends and I occasionally gather and have alcohol. The real answer is--just don't do it. Bring water or diet drinks and decide weight loss is more important. If you can't control yourself that well or don't want to, limit your drinks and how often you do it. Weight loss is important to me, but I'll still have two shots of vodka at an event if it's once every two weeks. Avoid beer and alcopops like Smirnoff Ice. If you drink hard alcohol bring a shot glass and measure how much you are having. In moderation, alcohol won't destroy a diet, but it does NOT help it, either, and if you can cut it out and really want to lose weight more quickly, don't have any. I choose to have a little bit every so often because I feel that a less than healthy treat at a gathering every once in a while can be allowed since I'm not trying to become the next world record setting athlete, just trying to drop some pounds and tone up a little.