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"I&amp;amp;#8217;m 25. I run three miles a day, at least five days a week. I make healthy food choices: I go for egg whites in my omelets, always hold the mayo and have borderline romantic feelings for leafy green stuff. So why is it that, no matter how hard I work out, I can&amp;amp;#8217;t lose the extra 10 pounds that have taken up residence on my thighs since college? Sure, my metabolism might be a teeny bit slower now, but my eating is infinitely healthier (I used to have a major fast-food habit). Or is it? I started a food diary to keep track of every bite of food or sip of a drink I put in my mouth&amp;amp;#8212;and noticed that alcohol was showing up an awful lot. My tally: about a drink or two a night and more on the weekends. Thanks to a work schedule of special events, networking parties and fashion shows, I actually drink more than I did at my quiet all-women&amp;amp;#8217;s college in the suburbs. I did some googling and found out that I was sucking down about 2,000 liquid calories a week. Suddenly I was thankful I hadn&amp;amp;#8217;t gained more weight. So, at 167 pounds&amp;amp;#8212;the slightly higher end of normal for a 5&amp;amp;#8217;10&amp;amp;#8221; woman like me&amp;amp;#8212;I decided to give up booze for six weeks to see what would happen. My mission was simple, my mission was vain: I wanted to lose weight, and if that meant the dissolution of my social life, so be it. WEEK ONE My friends predicted failure&amp;amp;#8230;but I lost three pounds. When I began telling my friends about my impending sobriety, they were all extremely skeptical. &amp;amp;#8220;It&amp;amp;#8217;ll never happen,&amp;amp;#8221; said one. &amp;amp;#8220;You like to party way too much.&amp;amp;#8221; Was she right? Would changing my habits be too tough? Well, it took several failed attempts&amp;amp;#8212;I had one exceptionally weak moment with a pitcher of mojitos&amp;amp;#8212;but I finally managed to start in earnest. And by the end of week one, I&amp;amp;#8217;d dropped three pounds. I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t believe that the loss was anything more than normal weight fluctuation. But according to experts, at least part of it could be attributed to eliminating alcohol. &amp;amp;#8220;Whenever you take in extra calories, even liquid ones, they&amp;amp;#8217;re stored as fat,&amp;amp;#8221; says Tamara Vitale, R.D., assistant professor of dietetics at Utah State University in Logan. Without more exercise or activity to burn them off, eating or drinking a mere 100 extra calories a day could mean a 10-pound weight gain in a year. And one five-ounce glass of wine has just about 100 calories. (Side note: Did anyone else know that a serving of wine is&amp;amp;#8212;gulp&amp;amp;#8212;just five ounces? My balloon wine glasses hold at least double that amount, and I&amp;amp;#8217;d been filling them to capacity.) WEEK TWO Down another pound. A week into my no-drinking diet, I found myself thinking about a glass of Tuscan Chianti or a supremely refreshing Hoegaarden every time I passed a wine store or bar. But good things were starting to happen. I swore I spotted some definition in my abs, no longer buried under fatty padding. I also noticed that my eating patterns were changing&amp;amp;#8212;I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t ravenous before bed, and my usual 3 P.M. sugar cravings were no more. Why? &amp;amp;#8220;Alcohol calories are digested like simple carbohydrates,&amp;amp;#8221; says Lisa Young, Ph.D., an adjunct professor of nutrition at New York University in New York City and author of The Portion Teller Plan. &amp;amp;#8220;That means they&amp;amp;#8217;re processed quickly, causing your blood sugar to spike, then crash. And that crash can make you hungrier the next day.&amp;amp;#8221; Being tipsy (or hungover) also lowers your inhibitions around food, says Young. That&amp;amp;#8217;s why you&amp;amp;#8217;re much more likely to down an entire plate of nachos while drinking than you would be if you were sober, rested and properly hydrated. WEEK THREE Holding at 163 pounds. I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t lose any more weight, but I was starting to develop an appreciation&amp;amp;#8212;no, a love&amp;amp;#8212;for a hangover-free existence. I was more productive at work and my apartment was sparkling clean. &amp;amp;#8220;Did you go to a spa?&amp;amp;#8221; asked my manicurist. She raved about my clear skin, rosy cheeks and bright eyes. C&amp;amp;#8217;mon, could my nighttime habits really make that much of a difference? &amp;amp;#8220;Drinking a lot ages you, and fast,&amp;amp;#8221; warns Debra Jay, a Grosse Pointe, Michigan, addiction specialist and author of No More Letting Go: The Spirituality of Taking Action Against Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. &amp;amp;#8220;Think about it: We buy beauty products to hydrate our skin, which makes it look more youthful and healthy. But alcohol dehydrates our cells, leading to skin that will crease and look dull.&amp;amp;#8221; No, I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t at the level of major wrinkles or everlasting dark circles, but even occasional binge drinking hurts you, Jay says. Need more proof? Just take a closer look at pictures of yourself from a night out on the town, when your eyes are bleary, your makeup&amp;amp;#8217;s smudged and, let&amp;amp;#8217;s be honest, you look like you&amp;amp;#8217;re fighting off a bad cold. WEEK FOUR Another three pounds, gone! For the first few weeks, I had stopped going out with my friends altogether in favor of staying in with Netflix. Soon, though, I got bored and started heading out to bars anyway, sipping on Diet Cokes or soda water with lemon. I missed my vino. But, seven pounds thinner, with my arms less wobbly, I found the courage&amp;amp;#8212;and energy&amp;amp;#8212;to continue. Truth is, I&amp;amp;#8217;d been sleeping like a baby. Experts confirmed that as little as one or two drinks at night can disrupt your sleep. Why? &amp;amp;#8220;Your body is working to rebound from the depressive effect of alcohol,&amp;amp;#8221; explains Jay. &amp;amp;#8220;We have a natural stimulant in our brains called glutamine. Alcohol suppresses this chemical temporarily, so your body tries to produce more of it to compensate. Then, as the booze leaves your system, you feel this blast of stimulant that makes you sleep fitfully.&amp;amp;#8221; And this lack of sleep not only weakens your immune system, makes you more vulnerable to depression and messes with your concentration&amp;amp;#8212;it also makes you hungrier. Studies show that women who aren&amp;amp;#8217;t well rested consume a few hundred more calories a day than those who do get enough sleep. Maybe my solid eight hours a night was helping to curb my appetite even more. WEEK FIVE I weighed 159&amp;amp;#8212;down another pound. Before my sobriety stint, my near-daily runs did little&amp;amp;#8212;if anything&amp;amp;#8212;to Gisele-ify me. But suddenly I was seeing results. The reason: It was probably my increased energy level. I used to drag myself to work out. Now my regular runs became longer, faster and&amp;amp;#8212;don&amp;amp;#8217;t kill me&amp;amp;#8212;downright exhilarating. A three-mile run that would normally leave me feeling fatigued now stretched into four miles, easy. I had so much energy that I even walked a stunning 40 blocks (that&amp;amp;#8217;s two miles!) home from work a couple of times, just because I felt like it. And the lean muscle I was putting on from my workouts was helping me burn even more extra calories every day, automatically. WEEK SIX One more pound lost. After six weeks, I was astounded at the results of my experiment: My skin looked clearer, my face was less bloated, I had tons more energy and I had lost nine pounds. The skeptic in me still tried to chalk it up to monthly hormonal fluctuations, but even accounting for possible PMS-induced water weight, it was clear that cutting out booze had helped me get back into my favorite Helmut Lang pants. The experiment was now officially over, and I had to make a decision. Should I continue the no-alcohol life? I did feel more energetic, and I liked my new weight. But I had to be honest: Despite my love for my slimmer thighs, I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t interested in going through a lifetime of delicious dinners and cocktail parties without a single drink. So I decided to compromise. Instead of returning to my old ways, having a few drinks each night out of habit, I would make it a treat, just a glass of wine or two a week. I also vowed to skip the daiquiris and frozen margaritas&amp;amp;#8212;at 600 calories or more, they&amp;amp;#8217;re far more fattening than wine, light beer or wine spritzers (all between 80 and 150 calories per drink). If you&amp;amp;#8217;re a mixed drink gal, it&amp;amp;#8217;s also good to know that what you drink with your liquor counts. Tonic water actually has about 80 calories per serving, and mixers such as Coke, 7Up and sugary juice often add 100 calories or more. Nine weeks after I changed my drinking habits, I decided on a whim to weigh myself again. I was shocked: I weighed 152. That means I&amp;amp;#8217;d lost 15 pounds. Fifteen pounds! Without dieting! I almost fell off the scale. I haven&amp;amp;#8217;t been this slim since my first year of college, and I like it. I like it way more than the few (OK, lots of) glasses of wine I had to give up to get here. And unless I pick up that fast-food habit again, it looks like I&amp;amp;#8217;m going to be wearing my size 6&amp;amp;#8217;s for a long, long time. Ashley Baker is the associate editor for style at Glamour. Her favorite wine is pinot noir."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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