I want to hear your story: (alcohol)

I have recently given up alcohol in an effort to help my weight loss along.  I seem to be stuck.

I am very interested to hear your story if you have done something similar.  Did it help you lose more weight?  How long after giving it up did you see results?  Ect.

 

Thanks for your time in advance.

i stopped drinking to aide my weight loss...i posted a thread about it here

I stopped drinking because I drank too much! It has helped some in my weight loss effort, but the other positive effects far outway anything else!

I stopped drinking because it brought back unhappy feelings and desires that Miss Moly gave up more than a year ago.

Well, I stopped drinking in excess.  I still have a celebratory beer or glass of wine here and there, but I don't go for the hard stuff more than like, twice. three. five times a year.

Actually, let's just leave it at I don't drink when I can't afford to and I use my judgement when it comes to getting plastered.  Sort of.

Edit to answer the question at hand; I traded in my casual drinks for ice water.  No more milk, egg nog, sodas, juices, mixed drinks, teas, or fancy coffees on a regular basis. 

from may-aug i didn't drink or smoke at all, exercised, etc. lost a resonable amount (40lbs). then i came back to college and i've drank (to the point of drunky) at least once every single weekend. i religiously stick to vodka + diet mountain dew and i've never had a problem losing weight (1-2lbs a week). i've pretty much continued my loss at the same rate as before (as of right now 27ish more lbs).

i think if you're smart about what you drink, there really shouldn't be a problem. oh, and avoid the drunk munchies at all cost!

I stopped drinking.. but wasn't really about weight loss. More that drinking usually ended up in me doing something stupid, getting hungover, depressed which in turn triggered my bit of an eating disorder. And if I didn't do something stupid, thus no depression, I would still be hungover and end up not exercising for a few days, and usually gave up on eating well those few days too.

i had been having 3 or 4 (very) full glasses of wine or mike's hard lemonade or something every night.  even though it was spread over 6 or 8 hours, it was still too much i think.  i scaled it back to maybe 1 glass of wine or beer a night, and alot of times none, and lost about 15 lbs.  that was at the beginning of 2007, and took me from 185 to 170 lbs.  and saved me some $$$$$!  then of course my weight loss stalled, but at least i didn't gain.  now i'm hoping cc will help me focus and lose!

I used to go out and binge drink every Saturday night. I found the morning after I weighed up to 5lbs less! (From dehydration I assume) After that my weight would return to normal, I never gained  from it and it didn 't seem to affect my  ;weight loss at all. I&nb sp;just used it as a  ;cheat/maintinance day. Now I& nbsp;haven't had alcohol for&n bsp;over a month (no part ies on because of exams) and I haven't been  ;loosing any faster without&nb sp;the alcohol.

I started my weight loss program and at the same time I gave up drinking alcohol. In one month, I've lost about 15lbs and I know that it's partly because I wasn't drinking. When you only have 1300 - 1500 calories a day to play with, alcohol just doesn't fit in if you want to eat well too.

I have a drink or two when I go out with friends but I have no alcohol at home.

For some reason, I have found it difficult to combine regular alcohol consumption (such as at least once every weekend) with successful weight loss. Not just because of the empty calories in alcoholic beverages, but also because of what drinking does for me in terms of the poor choices I make in terms of food. All too often, after an evening of drinking, I'm hungry, and believe me, I never gravitate towards food choices that are good for me. Not to mention that I tend to feel like crap the day after, so more often than not, it ends up being a no-exercise day.

Last year was the first time that I tried cutting back on alcohol intake, and it truly helped with my weight loss efforts--I lost 40 pounds. It wasn't the only influence that made my efforts a success, but I believe that it had to be part of my overall plan. Sadly, I regained 30 of those pounds in the fall and winter months, thanks to a combination of decreased physical activity and increased drinking.

So when I resumed my weight loss efforts this past February, I returned to cutting back on the drinking. It's not completely out of my life--I still like to go out one night every other weekend for a few--but I have found that moderation in this area has been crucial to succeed in losing almost 55 pounds this year. And as much as I would like to increase the frequency in which I go out drinking, I am aware that if I want to keep the weight off, that moderation in alcoholic consumption (which I choose to define for my personal situation as once every other weekend) must play as much a role as continuing an exercise regimen or monitoring what I eat.  

Alc is something that I can't give up. It's mainly a social thing for me, so I've decided that on those days I'll exercise harder or keep my other calories low so I can afford that once or twice on the weekends. I could do it last year and still lose 5 pounds a month...my main vice now is the food served at the cafeteria at my school. I eat the HEALTHY stuff off the menu and I've still been gaining weight even when working out...:(

Personally, I blame alcohol almost entirely for my weight gain. I went to london this summer (=I can legally drink in public) and went absolutely insane! When I got back all sorts of heavier, I gave up the hard stuff almost immediately and started to lose... but I don't think I could ever completely give it up... just save it for special occasions. I still drink wine and beer sometimes... but usually I'll only have like 1 glass a night 3 night a week

Alcohol is definitely a detriment to weight loss. I do not want to give up my wine but I am because I've found that it definitely impedes the progress.  That's not to say that I'll be a saint but have cut way, way back.  From what I understand, your body will burn alcohol before it burns fat so in other-words, you may not gain from it cuz your body burns it first but you will not lose either and because of the bad food choices we make when drinking, that's what really adds up to FAT

I find that I want to find "good" reasons to drink (ie: good for the heart) but no matter how much I rationalize it's better for my weight loss if I don't drink at all.

I drink a lot, and i've not cut down whilst i've been losing weight, and its really had no effect at all, i still lose about 2 lbs a week, and unless this stalls i have no intention of cutting down or giving up.

it sounds like im going to say what most of the other replies said, but i figured one more wont hurt. when i first began losing weight i didnt stop drinking, but i cut back to one night a week and it was one the weekends(im in college), and i would only drink light beer or vodka/rum and diet soda. i still lost about 2lbs a week! now my lifestyle since then has COMEPLETELY changed, im a fitness freak now. and ive found that the day after a night of drinking, my endurance isnt as high as usual for cardio. so i drink very very very rarely, if at all anymore. i actually enjoy being sober now for a few reasons: my friends are hilarious when they're drunk, i think i kind of act like an idiot when im drunk, i feel safe knowing that no one will drive anywhere because im sober, so i can drive anyone anywhere, and the next day, most people have memory loss. its awesome being the one to tell all the funny stories of the night before! anyway, good luck, and if anything it DEFINATELY wont hurt!

it sounds like most people have given pretty good advice on this question. the only drawbacks i see (if you're smart about managing your calories what with the drinks and all) are, like janeiro said, the drunk munchies (which by the way my friends and i call the drunchies! lethal!) and the lack of motivation to get in exercise the next day, especially if you're hung over. i always feel tired and spacey the morning after drinking so i have to really force myself to go to the gym, but other than that... it's more my eating habits than my drinking habits that have slowed down the process.

I don't get the munchies when I drink.  If anything, the thouht of food makes me sick.  But then again, drinking fills me up like no other.

I quit drinking because I am an alcoholic and cannot drink normally/ responsibly but I must say that it certainly aided weight loss for me. Before I even started dieting seriously, just cutting the alcohol calories out of my daily caloric intake helped me lose about 10 pounds in less than 2 months. Alcohol has so many carbs and too much sugar unless you drink straight vodka (which I wouldn't recommend) that it inhibits weight loss unless you drink and don't eat which is no good either. Quitting drinking will definitely help you out in the wieght loss department if you continue to stick to your diet while you do it.

 

Good Luck!!!

Original Post by cellulitedelight:

I don't get the munchies when I drink. If anything, the thouht of food makes me sick. But then again, drinking fills me up like no other.

 

BINGO for me too. No food and drink mixing my tummers can't handle it.

i drink 2x's a week, sometimes more, but stick to vodka or whisksy and diet soda or sparkling water.  sometimes i drink quite a bit, but im still losing weight.  it hasnt effected my loss at all.  just make sure that you are allotting calories, or excercize for the alcohol and drink plenty of water. 

I love the occasional beer or rum and diet, but after struggling for months to lose weight even with a "perfect" diet and excercise, I figured something had to be to blame. When I asked my doc, she told me that not only does alcohol sabotage any weight loss efforts because of its calorie and carb content, but it actually physically slows down your metabolism. Alcohol has been proven in various studies to wreak havoc on your central nervous system and your blood sugar, so the metabolism thing makes sense to me.

But, for those of us that like to have a beer or two on the weekends, does that mean we're screwed? Not really. Her advice to me? If you have a beer, follow it up by excercising the next day, as early in the day as you can.