Want to drastically cut down for weight reasons

[Mouse24]

I’m desperate to change my drinking habits , currently drinking 6/7 bottles per week mainly Prosecco or Pinot .
im just stuck in a habit 2 bottles Wednesday and 4 throughout the weekend .
When I drink I binge eat . I have come to the realisation that I will never lose weight while I am drinking like this .
i am very overweight.
Any suggestions how to cut down to maybe 2 bottles per week?

I think if you are up to two bottles on one night 3 times a week, but manage to not drink the other nights, you might be better to stop completely.
Some people just can’t moderate.
I think you may have one bottle but then struggle once it’s gone, this could lead you to going out to seek another bottle to drink so it might just be best to stop.

If you are only drinking 3 days a week, albeit a lot in one go, you just need to do on those days what you do on the other days that you don't drink. What do you drink on those nights? How do you keep yourself distracted?

The first thing I would do is cut out the mid-week drinking as that's usually easiest. Then you might want to consider if you do some weekends completely alcohol free. Most people will struggle to moderate if they are used to binge drinking. So you might think, I'll just have a glass or two on Friday, but not the whole 2 bottles. But then after you have glass 2, you'll say fuck it, have more to drink and then eat unhealthily as well.

Personally, I found it was much easier to stop altogether than to try to limit how much I drank, but deciding on a set period to be alcohol free did help. So if I wasn't going to drink one weekend, I didn't drink anything. You do that already most days of the week by the sound of it, so you just need to replicate that on the days you currently drink. This might mean, in the short term, changing up your routine - staying in rather than going out at the weekend, having an early night with a cup of tea rather than a dinner party, etc.

I also find it easier to abstain completely than cut down.

There's lots of help out there. "Willpower" alone doesn't usually cut it. Why do you think you drink so much?

You need to change your life and how you live it. It might be just a habit so maybe buy this and start the evening with it - when I do sometimes I go on to have a glass of wine but often I don't bother as its just habit: www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/search?&searchTerm=nozecco
Disclaimer here and say I probably drink 1 bottle a week, maybe 2 on a socila week and some weeks I dont drink at all so with the amount you are drinking I think you need to cut down bit by bit ( though I see you have alcohol free days - Monday, Tuesday & Thursday?)

Hope my advice is better than my spelling of the brand!

Hi OP I'm similar although possibly less in the week- might join you as need to cut down too and overweight as well.

Thanks for replies .
Ive picked up this habit from lockdown Plus I’m perimenopausal I shouldn’t be drinking at all as I’m on citalopram and I know boozing causes anxiety low mood poor sleep ect .
Also boredom a massive factor, kids have their own lives now and although I holiday a few times per year don’t really do much else in the evening it feels like wine is the only thing I look forward too 😞.
I will definitely try the alcohol free wine .

Yes definitely x

Try stopping completely for a couple months. Having a end date may help as you know it's not forever. Then at the end of the two months, maybe extend it if feeling better/losing weight? Or you could just buy one or two bottles and tell yourself that's it for the week. Not having it in the house helps. But stopping completely for a while will help you break the habit.

Do try the Nozeco - put it in a wine glass or champagne glass too - make it special.
So you want to lose weight and you are a bit bored in the evenings? That's a perfect combination - finish work, put on an audiobook/music, stick your headphones in and walk for an hour. You will really appreciate your dinner and having walked for an entire hour to burn off between 250 and 450Kcals depending on your weight ( good news the more you weigh the more calories you burn!) you will be much less lightly to replace those calories bu eating rubbish food/alcohol.
Good luck and check in regularly with us - looks like you already have a buddy in @Orangesandlemons77.
Remember if you always do what you have always done, you'll always get what you have always got.

Huge respect for @Mouse24 and anyone else trying to cut down. Is there anything you can do in the evening that would help with the boredom?

Don't drink alcohol, don't drink alcohol free wine. Just stop. It will take several days to get over the hump, but you can do it.

I think actually you are in a great place to have kids who are living their own lives. Make the most of that free time. Can you actually leave them home alone? If so, go for a walk, join the gym, sign up for a class. I also found that doing things on the weekend evenings made it harder to drink. For example, I started going to a sound bath once a month on a Friday evening. Sounds wanky! But it started at 7pm and went til 9pm and they served herbal tea after, so by the time I'd done the sound bath and had a tea, last thing I wanted was a drink, I was ready to go home and go to bed.

so @Mouse24 how are you doing?

It’s your body, your choice, but many people find stopping completely is much easier than trying to cut down. I would suggest doing some reading about alcohol: The Unexpected Joy of being Sober, by Catherine Gray, Alcohol Explained by Wiiliam Porter, and the Sober Diaries by Clare Pooley are all very helpful.

When I was trying to stop drinking, I read the Alcohol Experiment by Annie Grace - it talks you through a 30 day period of not drinking. (I think you can also sign up for emails etc but then they try to sell other stuff to you).

I read chapter 1 many, many times!! But I’m now nearly 15 months without having a drink, and my mental well-being has improved beyond measure, to the point where I’ve just started to taper off Citalopram completely

It’s worth just being curious for that 30 day period, and then seeing what happens. Good luck!

I was so tempted last night to drink .
I normally order take away on Friday so I ordered my rice and curry earlier than normal then watered the garden and had an early night .
I woke up at 7 this morning ( I normally rise much later on Saturday ) so feeling pleased with myself. .

I fell into bad habits too OP and as I have three relatives who are alcoholics, I was starting to get really worried. A very simple step for me was getting the DrinkAware app and religiously logging my alcohol intake and then (a bit like a game!) competing with myself to lower the intake the following week.

It depends on what motivates you but for me it's been really good. At one point I was drinking about 4 bottles of Prosecco a week and I now drink 1 bottle over the course of a weekend. I really enjoy looking at the trends/history section of the app and seeing the amount slowly decline. I'm sure there's lots of other apps like this too, but this simple thing of seeing in stark reality how much I was drinking meant I couldn't be in denial any more.

Well done! That is an excellent start and we are all here for you.
Post any time you want/need to do so.
You have made a change - use your earlier start to get out there for a walk - it's a beautiful day and this can be the start of something great and a better life for you.

Checking in on you @Mouse24 Let us know how you are doing.

I think you need to push it out by filling the gap of 'things I look forward to' up with something else.

Also, where do you buy your wine? Is it far from home? Do you drive? If you can avoid buying it so that it's not in the house, that's an obstacle, when temptation comes. If you're a drive away from it, park your car a bit further away from the house. It makes the journey a bit harder; another obstacle. The more obstacles you can create, the better. I made a batch of biscuits last week, and hade to put the biscuit tin in the shed to stop me eating them all before my partner (who I'd made them for) got home. The shed's only at the end of the garden, but it was obstacle enough.

@Was126orbustandmaybebust thanks for asking .
No booze last night but unfortunately I did have some wine at a bbq on Sunday ( 3 large glasses of Pinot ) .
It’s so hard when everyone’s drinking 😩.

Look at how far you have come - 3 large glasses at one BBQ as opposed to 6/7 bottles a week.
Just keep going - each day you don’t drink is a great one - try to resist whenever you can. Whatever else don’t give up trying 😇