LeewayPlan your week around the nights out

What a night out actually costs you

Most people guess a night out costs them a few hundred calories. It's usually between 1,500 and 2,500 — and almost none of it is the part you'd expect.

A worked example

An ordinary Saturday. Dinner out, a few drinks, something on the way home.

What	Calories
Two drinks before dinner	360
Starter, shared	250
Main course	800
Two glasses of wine with it	320
Dessert	450
Two more drinks after	360
Something on the way home	600
Total	3,140

Against a normal day of around 2,000, that's over a thousand calories of surplus from one evening — and more than half of it is liquid or came after you'd already eaten.

The two things that cost most

Drinks. In that example they're 1,040 calories, which is a third of the night and more than the main course. They're also the only part nobody counts.

The bit at the end. Alcohol makes people eat more, later, and worse. Whatever happens after the restaurant is frequently larger than the restaurant was.

How to cover it without staying in

Your body doesn't reset at midnight — that's just where the calendar ticks over. If your target is 2,000 a day, that's 14,000 for the week, and nothing requires it to come out in seven equal slices.

So take 200 off Monday through Friday. That's a snack, and genuinely unnoticeable. You've banked 1,000 before Saturday starts, and the night costs you almost nothing against your week.

Three things that help on the night

• Don't arrive hungry. Saving calories all day is the classic mistake — you drink faster on an empty stomach and eat more than you saved. It backfires every time.
• Alternate your drinks. Half spirits-and-soda, half whatever you were having. It halves the biggest line on the bill and nobody notices.
• Decide about the end of the night at the start of it. The decision you make at 11pm is not the same decision you'd make now.

And the morning after

You'll be up a few pounds. That's salt and water, not fat — you'd need a 3,500 calorie surplus for a single pound of it, and you didn't do that. It's gone in a few days.

What actually does the damage is the Sunday where you decide you've ruined it and write off the week. Go back to your normal target the next morning. Not less as penance. Normal.

Leeway is a planning tool, not medical or dietary advice. Calorie figures are typical estimates and vary by brand, measure and recipe. It isn't suitable if you have, or have had, an eating disorder or a disordered relationship with food. If you're unsure what a safe calorie target is for you, speak to a GP or registered dietitian first.