Yes there are certain drinks that are slightly better than others when it comes to trying to get that
balance right between having a great time with friends down the pub whilst also seeing progress
regarding your weight and fat loss goals.
Check it out.
HERE’s THE TRANSCRIPT From Today’s podcast:
Hey there, it’s Ricky Knight again on this third episode of the Fitter Body Ladies podcast and I put a recent message out to our email list and I think there was about six or seven different options there with regard to what to cover on the next podcast and by the way when I do cover today’s, doesn’t mean I’m not going to cover the others, it’s just what gets preference to come first. The six or seven different topics that were on there, all the normal, obvious things. The one that got the most votes, not surprisingly I think, as far as I’m concerned, is about alcohol.
Ricky Knight: So today’s episode is all about alcohol and how we can continue to enjoy having a few drinks, especially this time of year, with it being summer, and I think certainly over that Easter weekend, if everyone can remember the weather, everyone’s outside, barbecues, parties, so for those that are committed to say an improvement in body composition, or they’re on a diet, or they’re trying to get in shape, it can become really, really tough to … because you get this dilemma, you’ve got these two voices. There’s one voice saying, “Come on, you can do this, you can get in shape, be good,” all that kind of thing and then the other one is like, “Do you know what? Live for today. Come on, we’re with friends, we don’t get these sort of weekends very often, especially when you’re off the back of a really long, cold winter.”
Ricky Knight: So I want to share with you today some strategies that we also share with our members on a regular basis regarding this very popular topic and stuff that I guess myself, and Alex my wife, what we’ve done as well because we’ve gone through this ourselves. I remember when I was probably going through my most significant weight loss phase, which was back in 2012, just before actually training to become a personal trainer and entering the industry at the age of 35 and I remember … because it was the London Olympics, they were coming up and again, it was a good summer, there were lots of things going on, lots of people getting together, there was a real feel-good factor because of the Olympics as well and I remember when we were having barbecues and that, I remember going round to friends’ barbecues and family barbecues and there were a few little things that I was doing that were helping me stay on track.
Ricky Knight: So it just meant that I could continue to just relax, enjoy myself, eat good food and it not get in the way of my goal. So they’re the things that I want to share with you today, I’m talking about this from a position of someone that has gone through it and again, this is stuff that Alex, my wife, did. She continuously does as well. So these strategies do work, I think that’s what I’m trying to say here.
Ricky Knight: Okay, cool. Right, so one of the first things then, before we even talk about specific drinks, because there are some drinks that are definitely better than others when it comes to this, so before I even get into the specific drinks and strategies that you can use, it’s really, really useful for you to have a good idea about how many calories you need to be consuming each day if weight loss is your goal.
Ricky Knight: So what I’m going to do is, within the notes section of this podcast, I’m going to share a daily calorie calculator, it’s an online one you can just tap onto it, it takes about 30 seconds, you just input your information. So you just put your age, you put your weight, how much exercise you do on a daily basis and on a weekly basis and whether you’re male or female and then it will calculate for you. It gives you about four different options and so one is just if you want to maintain weight you have this many calories each day. If you want mild weight loss, which can be defined as just about half a pound each week, this many calories each day. If you want weight loss, which is working out at about a pound a week, then you have this many and if you want more extreme weight loss, which is at least two pounds a week, then you have this many calories. So it’s a really good tool, it’s a good starting point, because what gets measured gets done. Or, what gets measured gets improved.
Ricky Knight: So it’s important … because I know sometimes when I share this face to face with people, sometimes there’s just that rolling back of the eyes as if to say, “You’re telling me I’ve got to count calories for the rest of my life?” It’s like, “No, no, that’s absolutely not what I’m advising.” But if I cast my mind back to 2012, I did then. I probably calorie counted for about six to eight weeks but then after that, I got used to knowing how many calories were in what foods. I got used to knowing based on my weight and my age how many calories I could have each day. I got used to knowing how many calories certain drinks had. So once that’s in there, once that’s programed in there, you’ll always know then that a certain portion of rice is that many calories and you’ll always know that a plate full of veg is hardly any calories and this sort of thing.
Ricky Knight: That’s your starting point. You’ve got to have a starting point. You need to know based on your age, because everyone’s different, how many calories you need to be having each day in order to reach your goals. Now let’s say for example, because I just had a quick look at an example here, just to try and bring this to life a little bit. So for a 75 kilogram lady that is 45 years old, with the intention of the weight loss, so at least a pound a week, so between one and two pounds a week then it calculates that that person would need about just over 1,300 calories a day. Now, for the more extreme weight loss, the two pound a week weight loss, that’s like 500 less, so that’s just over 800 calories a day.
Ricky Knight: So just for the ease of this calculation, I’m just going to base this on 1,200. So let’s assume then that 1,200 calories a day, which when you work it out over the course of a week is 8,400 calories over the week that you can consume in order to see between one and two pounds a week worth of weight loss. Now that is also based on someone that is just doing very light exercise one to three times a week, so you can appreciate that this does change the more energetic that you are. If you’re getting in 10,000 steps a day for example, in between workouts three times a week and that sort of thing can really, really help but I’m just basing this on someone that isn’t particularly active.
Ricky Knight: So that’s where the figures come out at. So there’s your starting point. Now, if you know, and honestly I still do this because, as I say, you just condition yourself, but if you know then that you have a party coming up … So as an example, myself and my wife Alex, weekend just gone, we went to surprise my little brother, he’s 40, it was his 40th birthday, we couldn’t make it to the main thing in Northampton, but we surprised him in Barcelona. So that was something that we knew we had coming up. I knew that we were going to have a few drinks, I just knew it. So on the day itself, this was on the Friday, so on the Friday itself, I cut down on the amount of calories, portion sizes with regards to my food, I made sure I was eating dense protein, so just lean chicken and veggies, I had that for a meal, it was low calorie days, so I’m almost just going less so that I’m allowing room then for the liquid calories that I’m going to be consuming in the evening.
Ricky Knight: So this is something that you can do, you can even do it two days out if you didn’t want to have an extreme day. So let’s say a couple of days out, if it was using that earlier example, 1,200 calories a day, let’s say for the previous two days, let’s say you went down to 800 calories. So there’s almost like a 400 calorie deficit for those two days, so that’s 800 calories deficit for those two days, leading up to then, the night itself. Then you know that you’ve got this 800 calories in the bank and so you can then factor in the drinks that you’re going to have, if you reckon how much you’re going to have, but you don’t have to be super strict with it, but just keep an eye on then, if you’re making better decisions regarding the drinks that you’re having and you’re not having unnecessary calories, then it’s a really easy way for you to then go out and enjoy yourself without feeling guilty about doing so and without feeling like it’s going to get in the way of your diet plans or your weight loss progress, it won’t.
Ricky Knight: This isn’t something that we recommend you do every day but I’m just talking about what to do if you know that you have a night once a week, once every couple of weeks, then this is a way that you can just manipulate things so that you do not halt your progress. But as I say, it only works if you know what the amount of calories that you need to have on a daily basis are and then you stick to that. You just get used to that and you start eating foods that are just significantly better for you.
Ricky Knight: So when I said veggies earlier, I mean that. If you have high protein, high vegetable type of lunch or dinner, you start cutting out … because a lot of the carbohydrates in general, they’re quite dense in calories, so you want to just be strategic with regards to when you fit those in. So for the couple of days before you’re having a night out, you might want to then cut back on carbs for a couple of days.
Ricky Knight: The other thing then to factor into this, that very often doesn’t get talked about, because normally this can happen over the course of a weekend and over the weekend, Friday night few drinks can turn then into, certainly if you’ve got a really nice weekend regarding weather, Saturday night, spill over into Saturday as well and then all of a sudden, Sunday, you’re recovering, or you might then want to pop down to the pub and have a few more drinks on a Sunday lunch and then you’re recovering, and you start … the decisions that you make regarding your food become quite poor. So let’s assume that the Sunday is a recovery day, I know back in the day when I used to drink a lot, Sundays used to be eating really crap food.
Ricky Knight: Again, so you’ve got all these empty calories from the alcohol that you have from the night before but then when you factor in the takeaway, if it’s a pizza and all that kind of thing, that’s where all of the extra calories, unnecessary calories come in. Even on the night itself, you must know it when you have a few drinks and you just get to that point where you’re craving just a bit of salt and junk food like the kebab at the end of the night, all that kind of thing.
Ricky Knight: So I definitely would encourage you to try and make better decisions regarding that and so I think just planning the food for the next day then becomes really important. So just making sure that in the house you do have some tasty food, maybe some food that you’ve already cooked throughout the week, but you already know what you’re going to eat the next day. I think that’s what I’m trying to say.
Ricky Knight: So whether that is, as I say, you have some steak with some veggies, or you have some nice fresh fish with some oven-roasted veggies, these are the things that you can do that are just much better choices regarding the food, you have a nice green smoothie lined up for the morning and you already know all the fruits and veggies, that you going to stick into that and you almost look forward to it but it’s all good, nutritious food that can one, really, really help with your hangover and again, it’s all lots of good nutrients into your body which can just help with the hangover but then you’re making those better decisions, you’re sticking to your daily calories and say it’s that 1,200 figure, you already know that you’re not going to go over 1,200 calorie the next day and so you’re back on track. So these are the things, as I say, that you can do to ensure that you continue to see progress without compromising on the … I guess the desire to have a few drinks at the weekend, certainly when the sun’s out.
Ricky Knight: So, with all of that in mind, there are definitely better choices to be had regarding the drinks then that you have on the night. Cider is not the greatest, even though a nice glass of certainly the nice, flavored pear ciders and everything, full of ice, that is so refreshing on a hot day, it’s packed with calories. The average pint of cider is about 220 calories, so definitely bear that in mind when you’re making the choice regarding the drinks, it’s probably not the greatest choice.
Ricky Knight: Glass of wine typically 175 ml, is about 160 calories. Champagne, if you’re feeling a little bit exotic and you want to go for a nice glass of champagne, bearing in mind that champagne glasses, I’m assuming that you would have this in a champagne glass, that works out only about 90 calories, it’s just going to affect your bank balance instead of your waistline but as I say, that is mainly because it is a drier wine, but also, they are much smaller glasses.
Ricky Knight: Probably the best bang for your buck though, regarding drink choice, is spirits. So if you had a shot of spirit, let’s say it’s vodka, you’re talking 60 calories. So if you then had vodka with, say soda water, and then a nice dash of fresh lime or fresh lemon just to take that vodka taste away, then you’re looking at that being about only 70 or 80 calories and so if you’ve got yourself a bit of deficit in the bank, like that 800 calories I was talking about earlier over the previous couple of days, then you can have a fair few vodka and limes over the course of an evening without it getting in the way of any progress. So on the face of it, that’s a really good choice.
Ricky Knight: Or your diet sodas as well. So a really nice one is like a Moscow Mule in fact, a bit of a cocktail type drink, where you have your shot of vodka, if you then put in some zero sugar ginger beer, which you can get in any of the supermarkets, again, dash of lime, lots of ice, that’s a really, really refreshing drink, Moscow Mule, and only works out about 80 calories. Again, the key thing there is your zero sugar diet sodas. So things like your Diet Coke, Coke Zero, all those sorts of things.
Ricky Knight: The purists out there, the purist fitness professionals will be like, “No, you can’t do that.” Well actually, the pursuits wouldn’t even be advising alcohol in the first place, so as I say, this is not for everyday usage, this is just things that you can do to just help relax and unwind while you’re still trying to see progress regarding your goals.
Ricky Knight: So they’re the drinks though, they’re the ones that you probably want to be choosing because remember, if you go for the cider option, there’s not too much room there. It’s not going to take very many ciders for you to go over the calorie intake there and you got to remember with any of this, that at the end of the day, as long as you are under … over the course of the week, under the amount of calories consumed that you need in order to see progress, then you will see progress, you’ll still see weight loss.
Ricky Knight: I think the problem with alcohol is that they are just empty calories, there’s absolutely no nutritional value to them, they’re just liquid, empty calories but as I say, as a one off, if you’re having a good time with friends, then this is a way that you can just manipulate things and maybe just … It will help you if you go through this process … In fact, there’s absolutely no downside at all in just clicking on the link and just getting your daily calories anyway. Just do that, full stop. Even if you forget everything that I’ve said about alcohol but if you just get that and then start for six to eight weeks like I did, start tracking your portion sizes and start tracking how many calories … Okay, so a palm-full of rice, that’s that many calories, and then you just start getting used to it. As I say, you don’t have to stick with it forever but it’s just a way that could really, really help you to then start seeing the progress.
Ricky Knight: Unless there is some kind of medical mystery, it’s really, really unlikely … If you’re not losing weight, it’s not likely to be anything other than you’re consuming too many calories each day. As I say, a lot of the time, it’s the grazing throughout the day on foods and it’s the empty calories from alcohol that can tip it over.
Ricky Knight: So give it all a go, I hope that helps. Don’t worry, the other things that people requested, that you ladies requested, I’m going to be covering in future episodes but hopefully this one regarding alcohol, certainly given the summer months that we have ahead of us, hopefully that will help. So until next time anyway, have a great day and we’ll catch you soon.