Deficit Drinking: How To Lose Weight Without Giving Up Alcohol

Unlike a big chunk of the fitness industry, I’m not here to judge your lifestyle choices. I’m definitely not here to debate the pros and cons of teetotalism. You do you, my friend.

My job is to help you achieve your fitness goals without enormous sacrifice, to help you embed healthier habits into your life without being restrictive or disruptive. So let’s get into it.

What kind of drinker are you?

Many of our members’ drinking habits fall into one of two categories:

1. Mostly teetotal in the week but tend to overindulge on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday

2. A few drinks most evenings, but not often to excess

If you recognise your habits in either of those categories, then these tips can help you.

Why restriction doesn’t work

It is easy for personal trainers to say, “you can lose X pounds/kgs in X weeks if you give up everything you love and live like a monk.” But it’s not sustainable.

At best, you’ll follow it for four weeks, then binge and regress even quicker. This is why fad diets do not work—if you’re losing weight through harsh restrictive dieting, then you’ll rebound when you inevitably loosen the reins. These stories always end with a weight gain higher than the initial weight loss.

To create permanent and sustainable change, you must make smaller lifestyle adaptations that allow you to lose fat and keep it off.

So how can you drink and still lose weight?

It all boils down to calories in versus calories out

Weight loss or maintenance (always) boils down to calories. If you expend more calories in a week than you take in, you will lose fat. 

The problem is that many people can stay in a caloric deficit on weekdays, but then go overboard on the weekend. By Sunday night, they’ve ended up in a caloric surplus for the week as a whole, despite any calorie controlled days earlier in the week.

When this happens, it’s easy to get disheartened. You feel like you’re working your ass off in the gym, tracking your food intake well, but you’re moving nowhere, or worse, you’re going backwards.

Here are a few tips to keep making progress and enjoying those drinks as well.

Five tips for drinking in a deficit

1. Choose low cal drinks

It seems obvious, but switching the pints for a gin and slim or a vodka, lime and soda will effectively halve your calorie intake per drink. 

Or if you’re hardcore (and in no way a social drinker), just stick to the tequila shots at only 69cal a pop! 

Either way, Google the calorie count in the drinks you usually choose on a night out— what’s the damage? Knowledge is power.

2. Account for the calories you’re going to consume in alcohol

If you plan to go hard on Saturday, account for this earlier in the week. If you estimate you’ll drink around 1500 cals in booze, then you’ll need to eat around 300 fewer calories each day during the week.

Likewise, if you’re a casual daily drinker who enjoys a few glasses of wine in an evening, track these alongside your other calories to ensure you stay under your target.

3. Avoid the hangover food

This is where many people can double their calories intake from one drinking session. A Full English, followed by Dominoes then Ben & Jerry’s, all consumed from the sofa is a big calorie intake. Throw in the loss of a day’s exercise, and your hangover day starts to cost you big time.

When you combine this with the 1000+ calories from the night before, there’s almost no way to compensate for this blow out. You’d have to practically starve yourself during the week—which I do not recommend and will not help you tone up, build muscle or get super fit.

Unfortunately when you’re trying to shed the pounds, you can have the night out or the naughty meals, but you can’t have both.

4. Avoid two big nights on the bounce

If you’ve been paying attention so far, this one doesn’t need explaining. If you’re serious about shifting some timber, don’t do two consecutive big nights often. 

5. Recognise when it’s time to chill and make the most of it

A blowout now and again is ok. If you’re on holiday, a stag or hen do, long weekend away with old friends, go for it. Don’t be that person who’s telling everyone what’s in their drink. Let your hair down. 

Just like when you adjust your calories in the week for a weekend night out, you can help mitigate the effects of a blowout holiday by tracking your calories before and after. 

Want a coach and community who will never judge you for your lifestyle choices? Get to know the Another Round coaches.

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