Going out drinking - minimising the diet damage!

[chubbychecker]

Hey, I'm just starting a diet and I'm about to hit my first obstacle.

Every Thursday I go to a trivia competition with friends at the pub, incidently Ben Terry from biggest loser is usually there too in another team. Often we win vouchers to spend on pub food, so i'll always have something like calamari or fish and chips. We get garlic bread for the table. What's worse is that is that we buy rounds for each other. Sometimes we get dessert after that too!

With my previous successful diet I had one fat day a week, based on a theory that it would keep my metabolism higher. So I could make Thursday my fat day, go all out and be accused of having a worm by the other people in my trivia team because I eat and drink but lose weight. That would be ideal, but frankly I don't deserve it this week as I've only been dieting since Monday.

The other problem is that I'm going out to a friend's birthday drinks on Friday night. Meaning for two nights in a row I'll be somewhere that will encourage me to drink alcohol.

I'm going to drive back home from both of these events, giving me an excuse to drink less. What tips do you have for limiting the impact of drinks on your diet?

[onthedecrease]

it really is best not to drink at all, when i go out i drink sugar free cruisers of alternate between a coke zero and coke zero and malibu. Try calorie king and have a look at how much all the drinks are worth to you, in the end it might make you decide not to drink at all. I definatly think its best that you dont have a "fat day" as you put it IMO as that just leads to bad habbits- but its entirely up to you. I just aim for the 80/20 rule, 80 percent good and 20 not so good, if theres something i want to eat il have it but in moderation and as long as it fits into my cals for the day, with all my exercise I have a substantial deficit so can afford to eat back my cals a bit more. Hope this helps

[fi_112]

A few things can help:

-Drink extra water all day
-Do EXTRA cardio the day of the drinking and the day after (sweat it out )
-Drink vodka, lime & soda (with fresh lime if poss), or vodka and diet coke
-Don't eat the crap food! Order a salad or something instead. If you're just going out for drinks, have a vege-full dinner before you go.

I think driving is a good idea! Oh and apparently white wine and lo-carb beers aren't too bad either.

Good luck! xx

[chubbychecker]

Thanks for the tips guys,

but today i just got proscribed antibiotics, so I can't drink anyway! A very good excuse that everybody has to respect. So if you are ever in a situation where you will be under pressure to drink, you could tell a white lie about antibiotics. But in my case it's the truth.

I agree that the calories for alcohol would be largely not worth it, but if i do drink I think that the advice about eating healthy aside from it (no peanuts, drink water etc) and exercising to make up for it would mitigate the damage.

As for the fat day, I'm not sure who decided to call it that - probably me or my sister. I was initially concerned that it would lead to bad habits, so I decided to only have one fattening meal at dinner time in order to maintain discipline. Usually I didn't enjoy that meal all that much having lost the taste for it. Did it keep my metabolism running faster? I don't know, but I kept losing weight for the whole diet. Maybe there is already a thread about having a day off the diet and it's benefits and pitfalls.