trmcgeehan

I keep all living expenses on Excel, and at the end of the year, I add them all up. I just added up our total expenses for 2005, and was shocked to find we spent $1,300 on booze (mostly wine) This ain't easy, 'cause we live in a dry county. Some of it we served to guests, but we drank most of it. So here's how I broke it down: $1,300 at $10 a bottle means we consumed 130 bottles in 2005. Each bottle serves an average of 15 drinks, so that's 1,950 drinks. Each drink is an average of 100 calories. 100 calories x 1950 drinks is 195,000 calories. Divide 3,000 (the number of calories in one pound) into 195,000 calories and you get 65 pounds. So the wife and I theoretically each gained 32.5 pounds in 2005.
So for 2006, we stopped drinking cold turkey. This will save us $1,300. And we will each be 32.5 pounds lighter next December. I am 6'1" and weigh 180 now, so by next December I will weigh 147. By December, 2007, I will be a slim, trim 115 pounds. This significant weight loss should really help me cycle up those steep Kentucky hills, don't you think?

spunky

Fifteen drinks per bottle......? You must use awfully small wine glasses. Or maybe I just use really big ones. We're talking water goblets at my house. Seriously....congrats on the quitting alcohol. I rarely drink myself anymore and it makes a huge difference on the weight loss and your energy levels. Good luck.

C Law

I must use big wine glasses also. I get about 5 glasses of red wine per bottle, probably about 8 per bottle with white wine.

My goal also is to cut out the wine. One to two glasses per week is my plan. Looking back on last summer, I was probably averaging a couple of glasses per day, which wouldn't be bad except I just found out my wine glasses are freakin' huge.

NomadVW 

Small glasses allows you to drink the ~18-19 glasses per week each that those numbers would give you.

VW

mtnroads

I quit drinking a couple years back and found that for awhile I craved other things and ended up consuming almost as many calories. Alcohol has a lot of sugar and if you want to cut the calories out make sure you don't just replace it with sweets and snacks. Still, it is a worthwhile endeavor. Last year I finally made progress (lost 12 lbs) by watching ALL my calories and biking more. BTW, it is 3500 Cal per lb, not 3000.

DannoXYZ 

It's actually 3200 calories you need to burn to lose 1-pound of fat because about 10% is lost in the processing of fats into energy (ATP).

On the ingestion side, 3% is lost in the conversion, so you need to eat about 3600 calories of fats to gain 1-lb of fat. Carbs lose about 35-40% in the conversion to fat, so it takes about 5500 calories of carbs to gain 1-lb of fat on the body.

juf2m

Wow, and all this time I thought it was 3,500 calories to a pound, regardless of the source! Hmmm.

Anyway, I have actually developed a taste for red wine this past year (I never used to drink much at all) and have been averaging about 4 oz a day....I try to think of it as health food, along with the dark chocolate!

Portis

Alcohol is a lot like marijuana in that it creates huge cravings for food. I think people fail to realize the binging on food that often occurs after having a few drinks. I pretty much quit drinking a year ago. I used to be a daily drinker but now seldom drink.

I didn't notice any real weight loss when i quit drinking. Of course i really don't have much to lose. I was pretty much at my minimum weight when i quit. I did notice that i had more money to spend on other things when i quit drinking a 6 pack or more of beer every evening.

lillypad

It is more like 3500 calories per pound of body weight, not per pound of body fat. One pound is equal to 454 grams at 9 calories per gram would work out to be 4086 calories if it were pure fat. However the body also stores water along with the fat in the adipose tissue. The water, of course, supplies 0 calories and when this is accounted for you get about 3500 cals.

va_cyclist

Anytime I stop drinking beer I drop 5 lbs. like THAT (snaps fingers). Wine is only slightly better. 130 bottles of wine in a year isn't so awful -- it's a little more than two bottles a week, which is pretty easy to consume if you're having a couple of glasses a day or serving guests.

Congratulations on going cold turkey. You'll probably save more than $1300, since as Ranger points out, alcohol increases appetite. You'll also save on gas from no more out-of-county liquor runs.

Wulfheir

This is exactly why i've switched to drinking rye on the rocks.

smoke

this entire thread is just sick. i'm a chianti fiend. quitting drinking? i'll drink to that!