To Beer or Not to Beer

For the record, the picture in yesterday's post was not current. It was from 2 summers ago at my going away party (a bring your own theme party where my theme was a slumber party). Also, the beer in my hand in no way indicates my actual preference for beer. My dad drinks blue, the party was at his house, and when I am with him I also drink blue so that we can have that special bond. Also also, I've tasted American-style blue, and it is not the same as the blue that you can purchase in Canada, so don't judge me based on that either.

Now that that's cleared up, I have some serious decision making to do. You see, after a huge deadline today, my friends and I are going out for a celebratory evening tomorrow. These types of evenings usually involve copious amounts of alcohol, most commonly in the form of beer. Last time I went out was 3 weeks ago, and that night I drank my signature rye and waters instead of beer, which was pretty easy because we were at a Legion which aren't typically known for their selection of quality beer. However the place we're going tomorrow does have good beer. I was home for Christmas, and this means that the last time I had the BC beer that I love so much was almost 2 months ago. Hence, I am faced with a dilemma...

To beer or not to beer...

I looked up the calories, and one pint of my favourite pale ale, from everything I can find is somewhere between 150 - 200 calories, with between 10 and 15 grams of carbs. Pretty much everything else is negligible. The only real calorie recommendations that I have are on Spark People and they tell me to eat between 1200 and 1550 calories daily. I generally tend to stay pretty close to the 1200 mark. This means that even eating normally I have about 350 calories to play with. So I started crunching some numbers. I can eat extra healthy during the day (including making the delish home made pizza that I had planned for dinner) and still manage to stay under 1450 calories, while having 2 pints of beer. I calculated the beer at 195 calories each, for a grand total of 390. Pretty generous based on my web searching.

I still feel like it's wasted calories, but I also feel like I don't want to deprive myself of something that I really enjoy. I've had chocolate very sparingly over the past month and that hasn't ruined me. But alcohol seems different, because it's so many empty calories. If I was back home and wanted a night out of drinking I would just have the rye and water and not think twice. A couple of those at 70 calories each and I'm laughing...but in BC the beer I have access to is so much better. I think I'm going to do it, but I would love some input. Do you drink when you're trying to lose weight? How often, how much?

On a good note I've lost another 2 inches this week, bringing my grand total for the month to 11. I'm pretty stoked. I also tried on the torchbearer uniform and it looks SO much better. I can definitely wear it proudly now. I'll post pics as it gets closer to the date (8 days!!).