alcohol = diet failure? any other options?

I am having trouble with my diet on the weekends. After working hard all week I tend to go out with friends on friday nights and have a few drinks...this only leads to late night snacks or greasy breakfasts. I know the usual advice would be to avoid alcohol and have fun in some other way...but it seems unfair. I'm so young, why should I have to be so strict with myself to keep my weight down already? please share comments.

Sun. Sep 25, 2:58pm

I Feel Ya!

Well, you have a completely understandable point- why shouldn't you be able to have a few drinks and enjoy your youth just because you're a little heavier? I went to college- I understand completely how those "few drinks" which aren't so bad end up leading to "drunk food"- burgers, all-night-breakfast diners, etc.- which does you in. Here's my suggestions, which helped me out while I was in school-

1) Drink light beer or the low-calorie liquors. Stick to diet soda "rum & cokes" instead of high-cal juice mixers, etc. Get the Sugar-Free Red Bull if you do Red Bull & Vodka. Try gin/vodka tonics, which has no calories in the tonic water (lime juice can make them quite tasty).

2) Avoid shooters. High-calorie mixers add up, and you also end up drunk which means you're not going to pass up on those 2 a.m. chili-cheese fries.

3) Drink a glass of water in between every drink. I know it sounds weird, but it's a LIFESAVER! You end up drinking less alcohol (great for your budget and for not being as drunk), and you actually end up feeling completely full by the end of the night. You're not going to WANT late-night drunk food, because you're stuffed with water in your stomach, and you'll ALSO feel less effects the next day because you kept yourself hydrated.

Hope it helps!

Sunday, September 25, 2005, 3:22 PM

"I'm so young, why should I have to be so strict with myself to keep my weight down already?"

It makes no difference how old you are. This is a pretty whiny comment. Either you are going to grow up and take responsibility for being healthy or not. A lot of the "young" people who eat and drink whatever they want in their 20s end up with a lot of health problems later on, including being overweight. The previous poster gave you good advice. I would just add, grow up! If you're old enough to drink then you're old enough to know that if you do and you eat greasy, fattening snacks late at night when you do, you're going to have weight/health problems.

Sunday, September 25, 2005, 4:23 PM

Ouch.

If you haven't been to any younger bars lately, there are lots of people around who eat and drink "whatever they want" and never gain a pound. At that age, most people's metabolism is higher and therefore they can be reckless with no visible consequences. As a larger person, it is unbelievably difficult to be surrounded by those people, and even harder to feel comfortable trying to meet someone new with that sort of "standard" around. As a young person trying to find a healthier lifestyle, the poster is ENTITLED to come here and vent their frustrations- whether you think they're self-indulgent or not. You should be supportive of their being here to TRY and make better choices- not critical! As a young person who's overweight, TRUST me- they're getting more than their fair share of criticism already.

Isn't this supposed to be a place where we can come and vent our frustrations about anything and everything in order to try and stay on track? Sometimes unhealthy eating habits DON'T make sense, but if we can vent those frustrations we stand a better chance of not eating to compensate when we're upset! This person came here for HELP, not humiliation- you need to either bite your tongue (find some better way of venting your hostilities), or try and word your concerns in a positive way.

To the poster- you can ALWAYS come here and talk about how you feel, even if it might not make sense to everyone. If it helps you stay on track, even if you have to wallow in feeling angry about your metabolism for a while, it's worth it. Whatever it takes to keep you living healthier! You've done the big steps of recognizing your unhealthy habit and of asking for help- now, just try to prevent the behavior and keep on trying. You'll get there!

Sunday, September 25, 2005, 8:09 PM

i almost posted about 15 times to this post but decided to be nice...but yay for the poster above me...this is a supportive forum, not somewhere that you can get kicks by making somone feel immature and incompetant.

to the original poster - i am young and feel your pain. i just make concious decisions to "behave"...let myself have a few mc ultras or low carb/cal drinks...avoid liqour if you can, but if you're doing beer, drink lots of water!!! good luck, you can do this! :)

Monday, September 26, 2005, 4:53 AM

I believe beer is an esp. poor choice of drink if you're trying to lose weight. I think something like vodka & club soda or wine would be better. Of course, getting really smashed on wine is going to get ugly in the morning.

The "drunk food" is also the killer, and since you're interested in just having fun drinks with friends, maybe would be an easier place to make changes. The poster above gave great advice about the water. Is there any low-cal, but still filling snack you can substitute at the end of night when you hit the dinerst? Toast? A wrap? chicken breast sandwich?

Monday, September 26, 2005, 7:37 AM

To the second poster - just an FYI - tonic water is NOT calorie-free!!!! It is soda pop!!! Regular soda pop!! With just as many calories as a Coca-Cola! Fancy restaurants and bars sometimes hafe diet tonic water, which is calorie-free, but most do not. Be careful with the vodka tonics, they add up just as fast as a rum and coke!

Diet coke, diet red bull, diet tonic are all good mixers. However, I completely disagree with the poster who said that beer is bad for weight loss! A Bud Light, for example, has 120 calories and a Coca-Cola has 160! Michelob Ultra has about 80 calories. Surprisingly, Guinness is a low-cal beer as well. Look up nutritional info on low-cal beers on Yahoo or Google; they're lower-cal than wines and fruit juices. It pretty much depends how you drink them, though. If you're someone who'll go out and have 5 or 6 beers, but might otherwise split a bottle of wine with a friend - about 2.5 glasses each - and be done, then the wine is probably a better idea, unless you're eating cheese and crackers with it or something.

If it's the next morning that's really a problem usually, because of fried foods, etc., make plans ahead of time to meet someone for brunch somewhere that isn't greasy, like Panera or Einsteins, or make a plan to bake an egg-white quiche with lots of veggies together, or something to that extent. You'll be way less likely to end up at a greasy bacon-and-eggs joint if you make specific plans to do something else!

Monday, September 26, 2005, 10:09 AM

I think planning is truly the key. When you know or suspect that you'll be going out for drinks plan your whole day and a half around it. At least at first. This may seem like a big hassle, but if you can make a routine out of it, it won't feel odd at all. 1st plan your day leading up to the event. Eat very low cal lite meals, and only drink water. Then when you go out, you can have 2-3 drinks of whatever you like. You'll feel the effects, because you didn't eat much during the day and you'll only be getting 2-3 drinks worth of calories. Pace yourself with your drink(s) and drinking water is very good advice. If you go out to a diner, order a low calorie drink you can occupy yourself with like tea, seltzer, maybe coffee? Try very hard to not order food. Then if you steal a friend's fry or have a sip of someone's milkshake, you haven't had the whole thing yourself, but you've still gotten the taste you crave. If you go out for breakfast the next morning order a side of fruit and an egg. I wouldn't recommend this routine everyday.
I know it is super frustrating to have to plan this when it seems like your friends do not, but there are some things that I try to keep in mind:

1. weightloss boils down to calories in/calories out, yes you want to be healthy about it, so most days you'd have a balanced diet, but on a booze day, try to bring the food calorie count down so you can raise the booze calorie count but stick within your alotted calories for the day.

2. look at the habits of "skinny" friends. There are always some exceptions, but I find my "skinny" friends to be fickle eaters. It seems like they eat whatever they want, when they want, but their whatever tends to be a smaller portion than mine, and their whenever works itself out to be a lot less often than mine would be.

3. try to adopt some of your "skinny" friend's habits. Example: "Skinny" friend goes to a diner after drinking and orders a burger with cheese and bacon and everything with french fries. My "skinny" friend would eat 3 bites of the burger and about 5 fries and pass the rest off, not out of strength just because she didn't want the rest. Challenge yourself to not need or want the rest.

4. Organize your priorities. Highlight what is important for you to do, and what is imortant for you to consume. Make sure you do those things! Make sure you don't waste your day or your calories on things that are not important to you.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005, 11:31 AM

What Great advice!!
Also... if your out... DANCE with your Friends!
Who cares what you look like... have fun and burn some calories!

Wednesday, September 28, 2005, 10:41 AM

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