No alcohol?

[tobee]

Can you prove what difference no alcohol to your weight loss? Or heavily cutting down? How long did it take you to notice a difference? Or were you combining with healthy eating anyway?

[tobee]

To clarify, what difference do you think alcohol consumption makes to you personally and I might expect?

[idontlikealdi]

Depends how much you drink and where else you cut calories from?

I do ww and save points for wine and still lose.

[tobee]

Hi again. I just wondered because if I eat in a certain way for a week it makes a difference but when I've totally abstained from alcohol for a week it doesn't seem to so I wondered if with alcohol it needs to be longer term to notice?

[Cricrichan]

Alcohol makes a massive difference. I lost a stone doing dry January a few years ago and recently lost weight by slashing my alcohol intake. When I did dry January it took about 3 weeks for me to notice.

[Heratnumber7]

Alcohol = sugar. It does make a big difference to how much weight you lose.

[AcrossthePond55]

Alcohol is the first thing I drop when I want to lose. It's empty calories and I'd rather 'spend' those calories on something else, like a bit of chocolate.

I also notice that if I exceed my calories a little bit with sweets or crisps I usually won't show a gain. If I do it with alcohol, I'll show a gain, even if I've only had one glass of wine. Not sure why that is.

[Lokisglowstickofdestiny]

Alcohol makes your body retain water, it will therefore contribute more to weight gain than food. It is the ultimate in empty calories. 250ml glass of wine has more than 200 calories, I'd rather eat them.

[tobee]

Thanks for these replies. What do you drink as an alcohol (wine) replacement? Unfortunately I don't really like fruit or herbal tea. I think the thing that I'm after is the sugar in alcohol as opposed to the alcohol itself so sometimes I have Diet Coke but I know people say that is problematic.

[AcrossthePond55]

I drink San Pellegrino water, either plain or with zero calorie flavour enhancer if I want something sweet. For me it's mostly the bubbles that I crave rather than the sweet.

I'd rather chew glass than drink a diet soda, I think they all taste pretty rank. But with the flavour enhancer I can control the amount I put in and for some reason it doesn't have that chemically taste and aftertaste that diet sodas do.