A lot of people enjoy drinking alcohol, some of them just a drink or two once or twice a month, and some of them a great deal more often. If you have a weight loss plan in mind, but are wondering how alcohol will affect it, then you should carefully consider the following points. Each person is different and you will have to make up your own mind about how much alcohol that you drink, if at all, to still be able to reach your weight loss goals.
The first thing that you should know about drinking alcohol while losing weight is that for most, alcohol makes you make poor decisions. For instance, if you hit a bar on the weekend after a great week of diet and exercise, and then decide to order a pizza, you may ruin your entire diet and exercise efforts for the week. If you are going to drink, then you need to keep this in mind and make a plan for what will happen if you realize that you are hungry while you are drinking and how you will prevent yourself from going overboard.
The next thing that you should know about alcohol is that it contains a lot of calories. Drinking a 12 ounce beer at the beer can add around 120 calories to your caloric intake for the day, and ten of them will give you a whopping 1200. Mixed drinks are even worse, with some mixed drinks containing hundreds of calories all by themselves. Some people prefer to do shots if they are on a diet, but even straight shots can still add a few hundred calories depending upon how many you have. Carefully consider how much you are going to drink if you decide to do it, and prepare for it with extra exercise or reduced caloric intake during the day before you head to the bar.
For most people, it is simply a bad idea to drink alcohol while they are trying to lose weight. It requires a lot of extra willpower and commitment if you are going to drink while on a diet, or are trying to exercise, and the hangover the next day, or the amount of money you blew on a night of drinking may be piling on even more reasons to overeat. Everyone will have to make their own decision, but most health experts recommend no drinking when you are dieting or exercising.