5 Ways Quitting Drinking Helps You Lose Weight
There are many reasons that you may want to quit drinking. Not only will you feel better and improve your relationships with others, but you may also find a number of other, kind of surprising benefits. Sure, you will be able to focus on your career and success and your money situation will improve because you aren’t spending all of your money on booze, legal issues, and apology flowers but did you know that quitting drinking can help you lose weight, too? It’s true and here are five of the ways that can happen.
#1. You Save on a Ton of “Empty” Calories
Drinking is different from eating. You may forget that there are calories in alcohol or you may forget exactly how many drinks you have had in an evening. All of those drink calories start to add up. While you are drinking you might be snacking on salty foods in amounts that are hard to keep track of. No one brings a measuring cup to the bar with them to portion out the pretzels or nuts. The more salty foods that you eat the thirstier you might feel but since you are drinking you aren’t going to stop and order a bottle of water so that you drink more alcohol.
#2. Drinking Can Trash Your Metabolism
So, you are drinking away your hunger instead of actually eating a meal. Do that three or four times and your body gets the idea that maybe you are going to starve soon so it would be better to hold on to every calorie that comes your way. This can be a vicious cycle and in the end you are stuck with a sluggish metabolism which makes it harder for you to lose weight.
#3. Hangovers and Motivation are Not Close Friends
If you drink in excess on a Friday night, you are unlikely to have the motivation to get up and workout on Saturday morning. The more Friday nights you have per week, then the more bleary, nope, can’t go Saturday mornings you are going to have as well. Every time that you blow off a workout is another potential pound that you put on.
#4. Drinking Clouds Your Judgement
You are drinking with your friends when suddenly someone mentions how the pizza place on the corner will give you free food if you eat the giant pie by yourself. Suddenly, there you and two other people are with a table top sized pizza in front of you and you guys swear you are going to do it. This may not happen all of the time but you are probably going to find yourself agreeing to less than healthy foods more often than not.
#5. Facing a Drinking Problem Shows You Your Strength
If you have ever made the decision to quit drinking no matter what and failed, then you know how hard it can be. There are temptations everywhere. Friends and family may derail your efforts sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose. But, if you can stick to your decision and manage to walk away from alcohol once and for all, you know what you are actually capable of. You have seen your inner strengths and you have been tested, repeatedly. You can use that strength that you know you have now and use it to change your eating and exercise habits. Maybe you start small and make little changes here and there or maybe you go all in like you did when you stopped drinking and make wholesale changes across the board. That’s entirely on you. This is your life. You know what works for you. But, you make the changes and the weight starts to disappear because you are working and working hard. Your health and happiness are entirely worth it.