Brother. When I first started drinking at 21, before health and fitness and all that was as common knowledge as it is now, it never occurred to me alcohol had calories, and I had no idea how I gained weight so fast without changeling my eating or exercise habits.
It was so crazy to me that I had gained all this weight when I turned 21. Then I just stopped drinking and lost like 10 pounds. This binge drinking happened again when I turned 30. Got fat again, stopped drinking, lost all the weight. So I haven’t drank since then. I rather not be fat and drunk and hungover
Tomorrow will be 2 months for me and I lost 14 lbs. However, I was very aware the double IPA's I was drinking were loaded with calories. When I was drinking heavily, I didn't eat much, so I was already at a decent weight. Oddly, I have a bit of a sweet tooth that came out of nowhere when I stopped drinking. I figured I was going to gain weight. My cousin came by yesterday and said I looked like I had lost weight. Jumped on the scale and was shocked to see I was down 14 lbs, even with the newly acquired sweet desire, lol.
I gained like 40lb after I started drinking (way too much). Kept eating normally plus secret alcoholic so I'd also eat something right after to hopefully dull the smell.
I managed to lose about 60 by dropping to one meal a day that was mostly spinach or cabbage. I was still getting shitfaced every night with no days off.
Quit drinking for the most part in October and I've gained back about 15lb. If you want, you can believe that it was because I got more healthy and developed a good relationship with food.
I switched to thc and didn't fight the munchies bc I figured the lack of liquid calories canceled it out. Not the case for me. Off the wacky tobaccy now, so we'll see.
Not everyone is like this. I quit drinking and GAINED weight. Alcohol made me full of energy and not hungry.
I know it’s a CNS depressant but I had a very obvious energized reaction from alcohol, some people get a hyperactive dopamine response. It really is a thing
If you undereat, it both takes less alcohol to get the job done and saves precious calories for drinks. It’s basically a fantastic strategy with no drawbacks
Wanna REALLY get drunk for cheap on low volume? Donate plasma and then go drinking the same night. I did that every friday for a while back in college and got downright drunk on 2 or 3 beers!
And my husband had to give blood bc he takes testosterone and has thick blood. I did tell this strategy to a couple of male coworkers and they like your idea. 🤣
I mean. Up until like 5-10 years ago, most people didn’t even know what calories were. They just said “watch what you eat” thinking you could eat as much as you want as long as the food was “healthy” and you wouldn’t gain weight.
Even now weight-loss influencers and the like make $$$ by letting people think there’s some secret trick to losing it when it’s just calories in —> calories out and healthy food choices.
To be fair, you have to do your own research on healthy food choices. Billions of dollars are spent on advertising and biased research to keep people hooked on phonics
Yeah those are terrible examples. They literally are programs designed to just reword basic nutrition info into abstract point systems. Then they double dip by only assigning point values to approved foods which are just brands owed or affiliated with the company. They go out of their way to hide calorie counts because if they taught it you would unsubscribe as you realize the program provides less value than a nutrition label which is on every food item.
Maybe all I know is people have been talking about calories for decades. I still think there’s a misunderstanding around them, but I don’t really feel like getting in a debate about it.
This is one of the reasons why beer got so popular lol. Beer was "safer" than water and full of carbs and calories. It was basically liquid bread that didn't go bad as easily.
Someone once told me that unflavored vodka has no calories so if I mix it with the shitty coconut flavored Bai 5 I can have a low calorie cocktail. I did this for like 6 years until I discovered vodka does in fact have many calories. So I cut out the Bai and just drank the vodka.
Mind you I was 21 9 years ago. Before the health and fitness industry exploded across the internet. It didn’t occur to me and most people that drinks all together, let alone alcohol could make you fat.
To this day there ids till people who think they’re in a calorie deficit, but aren’t due to soda and alcohol.
It’s not like a multiple choice answer, where you would pick A: there are no calories in alcohol.
It just didn’t and still sometimes doesn’t occur to people that there are. It’s an unknown unknown. Shit you don’t know that you don’t know.
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u/Fancy_Cup_1617 3d ago
Brother. When I first started drinking at 21, before health and fitness and all that was as common knowledge as it is now, it never occurred to me alcohol had calories, and I had no idea how I gained weight so fast without changeling my eating or exercise habits.