Hey there,

before asking my questions I want to point out few things:

- I eat very well. I have very good "singers diet" (I guess it can be called like that). I don't eat almost any sugar, fast food, fat etc... don't smoke... don't drink alcohol pretty often... no coke or similar drinks... I eat pretty much healthy food, lots of vegetables, fruits etc... lots of water... So I guess my nutrition for vocal health is the best possible that it can be.
- I avoid losing my voice through singing. Whenever it hurts of it feels uncomfortable I stop.
- I exercise (fitness)
- I do everything possible to keep my voice in best shape!

Now, after saying that... all this helped me get some stamina or singing endurance, call it what you like :)

But still, I have this big problem that I lose my voice very fast in unhealthy environment...

For example, I was practicing few new songs last month, they were pretty demanding to sing, but I learned them pretty good... For last few weeks I sang them great! And yesterday, there was some acoustic show of my friends where I was to sing a couple of songs and play on guitar in between their two sets as a guest. I was so happy that I will sing my new learned songs.
But then, when I arrived to the gig, the environment was so uncomfortable to my voice... It was full of cigarette smoke, the music was pretty loud so when I had to talk with some friends I had to talk a bit louder then normally, and I just drank one beer (with a lot of water after it) but I guess it also had effect on my vocals.
So basically I was there only 1 hour before I was to sing but my voice was pretty wasted by then, and I chose to sing some easier songs because my throat was not the healthiest at the time. I still sang those songs pretty good and was very well accepted by audience, they all told me I stole the show (I'm not so full of my self every day, it's only sometimes hehe) but I am now pretty unhappy that I trashed my voice in only one hour through passive smoking, drinking one beer, talking over loud music... but usually those are things you can't skip if you go to friend's gig...

So basically question is: anyone has any tips on how to do it? protecting your voice from "passive" (or should I say un-intentional) abuse... How do you do it when you go to a loud party where you are about to sing a bit later on? What can we do to prevent ourselves from loosing our voice there...

;)

if you haven't been around cigarette smoke for a while it can really screw you up. recently i was in japan, and their cigarettes are different, i think they are stronger. they don't have laws about smoking in restaurants, people were smoking around me. when i went to bed my throat was very itchy, and next morning i had a ******* sore throat like i was sick, and it took a week to go back to normal. its conditioning, if you are around unhealthy things your body gets used to it. BUT, when i say "gets used to it" it doesn't mean that the damaging affects aren't happening, THEY ARE, its that your body stops whinging about them. unfortunately its one of those things where, if you want to peform, you will have to put up wtih it. all you can do is try to minimise which you already know (stop talking loudly, go outside a lot for air, drink a lot of water) the more you perform in smokey bars the better you will get used to it, but it aint exactly the healthiest thing, so like you already do, make sure you keep your healthy lifestyle in check with correct foods etc.

btw dude, be careful about the whole "low fat" stuff. make sure you DO eat fat, but its gotta be from a healthy source (butter, milk, coconut, nuts etc)