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Real Life Diet Questions Answered

Janet Aylott
Nutritionist

Posted 05 Dec 12

How can I tackle my cravings for alcohol at the weekends?

I am trying so hard to lose weight. Thanks to NC I have a healthy relationship with food that I haven't had for years. But every Friday or Saturday night, sometimes both, i buy wine and drink most of a bottle. I hate this as its slowing my weight loss. Have you any advice for beating cravings for booze please?

Our expert says...

It's great that you've developed a healthy relationship with food through using NC - what we now need to do is find a similar approach to help with your cravings for alcohol.

The first thing you need to think about is why you buy, and drink, the wine at the weekends? Is it because you've had a stressful week, is it because you're having a night out, is it because you're hosting friends? Whatever the reason is that you drink, the important thing is to link it back to your relationship with food and try to introduce a 'moderation' trigger.

It's fine to include wine as part of your diet but it is important that this is in moderation, as with everything else in your diet. Are you entering your wine intake into your Food Diary? This is good way to understand the impact the wine might be having on your weight loss - just seeing how the calories impact may be enough to help you to cut down?

If you're already doing this and it's not helping, then how about trying to change the triggers you have for drinking? Maybe cut down to only going out one weekend night, instead of two, or change the associations you have for wanting to drink? Swap a bottle of wine for going for a run or to the gym - maybe doesn't sound like a fair swap but you will get the same buzz from exercising, and will be burning calories rather than consuming them.

The final thing I would say is to change your buying habits - if you're drinking your wine at home (rather than when you go out), try not to buy it in your weekly shop, or just buy less. If it's not there to drink, the habit may be broken. It's exactly the same process as you will have gone through with food - changing your relationship with wine, as you did with food. You can just have one glass, rather than the whole bottle!
 

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