The Drinks Count Too
What 15 years of food logs taught me about the calories I kept leaving out.
For years I tracked everything I ate. Logged meals, snacks, protein shakes, the handful of pretzels at 10 PM. I’ve written about what that data taught me about protein and staying lean at 64. I built a whole system of accountability around what went into my body.
Except the drinks. Those I’d eyeball. Or skip. Or log one when there were two.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the gaps in my food log tell a more honest story than the entries do.
The Log Has Gaps
I’ve been logging food in the Lose It app since 2010. If you’ve read my previous articles on tracking and nutrition, you know the data goes deep. Here’s what I haven’t written about until now: what that data shows about my drinking. And more importantly, what’s missing from it.
In the summer of 2019, I was drinking on 85-93% of my logged days. By November of that year, it was 100%. My marriage was collapsing, and the Old Fashioneds were the only thing that made the evenings quiet.
Then December hit. Three logged days for the entire month. I didn’t stop drinking. I stopped counting.
The Crater
My marriage ended in 2020. I moved out in May, finalized the divorce in August, started a new relationship the same month. I was in survival mode and the drinking showed it.
The data from that summer: 90% of days with alcohol. An average of 445 calories per drinking day in Q3 alone. Seventeen days in July where the alcohol exceeded 400 calories. That’s two to three strong drinks minimum, on top of whatever I wasn’t logging. For months, I was pulling 600-800 calories a night from bourbon and cocktails while telling myself I was being disciplined about my diet.
I moved to Puerto Rico the following year. The drinking stayed heavy. Two or three at home most nights, a couple more if I went out. Then Nashville, where I moved in with a roommate who drank every night. Minimum two drinks sitting on the couch on any given Wednesday. The log from Q4 2022 shows only 16 total days tracked out of 90.
The Number You Haven’t Calculated
Here’s the math most men over 40 haven’t done.
A single Old Fashioned is about 180 calories. A whiskey pour is 110-140. A glass of wine is 130-200. A beer is 150.
At two drinks a night, seven nights a week, you’re looking at roughly 2,500 calories a week from alcohol alone. That’s 130,000 calories a year. The fat equivalent of about 37 pounds. At three drinks a night, it’s closer to 190,000 calories, or 54 pounds.
Your body has to do something with those calories. They don’t disappear because you didn’t log them. The protein you’re eating, the reps you’re grinding out, the miles you’re walking, all of it fighting against a number you’ve never actually added up.
During my worst stretch, the real number was probably north of 150,000 alcohol calories in a single year. I was training hard, eating what I thought was enough protein, and wondering why my body didn’t look the way I thought it should. The drinks were the reason. I just wasn’t willing to see it yet.
What Changed
I met my wife in March of 2023. Within a few months, the drinking had dropped to levels I hadn’t seen since I started tracking. There was no program, no intervention, no one quoting scripture at me about the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Something showed up in my life that made the drinking less necessary. The pain that the bourbon had been managing for three years was finally receding. I didn’t need the anesthetic anymore because the wound was actually closing.
I still drink. Old Fashioneds on the weekends. Whiskey on a weeknight sometimes. Red wine with dinner. In 2026, I’ve had alcohol on 58% of my logged days, averaging about 1.2 drinks and 270 calories each time I drink. Compared with the worst years, the total volume is down about 75%.
My wife’s influence on my life goes deeper than the drinking. Her faith shaped mine. She helped build the life that made the bourbon less necessary. The drinking didn’t change because I got religious about it. It changed because the life underneath it changed.
And that’s the part most men get wrong. They try to white-knuckle the habit. Cut back through discipline. Set rules about weeknights or drink counts. I tried all of that during the worst years and it didn’t stick. What stuck was fixing the thing the drinking was medicating. The habit didn’t break. The need for it shrank.
The Cost
A friend had stayed fit for years while drinking five or six a night, until the food and alcohol finally caught up with him. That’s how it works past 40. You get away with it until you don’t. By the time you notice, the compounding has already been running for months—or years.
You already know if you’re drinking too much. You don’t need someone to tell you that. You need to open your food app tomorrow morning and log last night honestly. Then do it again the next day. And the day after that. For 30 days.
At the end of 30 days, total the alcohol calories. Divide by 30. Multiply by 365.
I tracked everything except the thing that was doing the most damage. It took fifteen years of data, healing, and one woman to make me face it.
Your body is the first thing God gave you to steward. Start with the number you’ve been avoiding.
Vic built and sold ScreenRant.com and GameRant.com, then rebuilt himself in his sixties.
He writes at TheRedeemedSecondHalf.com for men rebuilding the second half of life.