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Alcohol and Weight Loss |
| M. Miller, RD |
| 2007-12-10 |
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Does the Booze Help or Hurt?
Diet-savvy Americans know the basic “do’s” and “don’ts” of dieting. Do eat fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. Don’t eat fried foods, saturated fats and candy. Then there are the diet gimmicks, the foods that are rumored to help melt the pounds more quickly, like dairy products, peanut butter and other fads that circulated among dieters within the past few years.
Alcohol is the latest weight loss myth, likely the result of recent research examining the health benefits of wine. Whether in the form of beer, spirits, wine or mixed drinks, alcohol ranks as one the most popular American drinks. Nearly 61% of American adults report regularly consuming alcoholic beverages. The idea of alcohol as a weight loss agent is certainly attractive. After all, is this one case where dieters can, figuratively speaking, have their cake and eat it, too?
Alcohol and Calories
Many people don’t realize that ethanol, the form of alcohol in drinks, yields 7 calories per gram, more than carbohydrates (4 cal/gm) and almost as much as fat (9 cal/gm). Most alcoholic drinks don’t sport nutrition facts advertising their caloric contents. To determine how many calories are in alcoholic beverage, multiply the beverage amount, in milliliters (remember, 30ml = 1 fluid oz; 8 fluid oz = 1 cup) by the percent of alcohol inside (half the proof value), and then multiply the product by 5.6.
Take a one-ounce shot of 140 proof whiskey, for example: 30 ml (1 oz) x 0.7 (percent of ADVERTISEMENT alcohol inside) x 5.6 yields 118 calories. Compare that to one ounce of Pepsi, which yields a mere 15 calories, and appreciate how many calories are hidden inside that glass.
Some quick calorie counts:
- A single shot of liquor: 115-200 calories.
- A serving of gin and tonic: 280 calories.
- Frozen, creamy mixed drinks: as much as 800 calories.
- A 12-oz can of beer: 100-200 calories.
- 4-oz glass of wine: 60-160 calories.
Alcohol as Replacement for a Meal
This may lead the average alcohol-loving American to the next question: Can alcohol be used as replacement for a meal ? Since alcohol contains calories, why not substitute an alcoholic drink for the boring tuna fish sandwich brown-bagged for work the next day? Or better yet, why not substitute it for the Slim Fasts that are already replacing the meals in an attempt to lose weight?
There are many problems, however, with using alcohol to replace meals. Although alcohol contributes calories, it offers virtually no other nutrients (with the exception of red wine, which contains antioxidants). Whereas the Slim Fast shake would give your body protein, essential fatty acids and a host of other vitamins and minerals, alcohol offers only one item on the menu: empty calories. Even worse, long-term alcohol use interferes with the body’s use of folate and B-vitamins and with nutrient absorption in the gut.
Additionally, most meals serve 2 functions: they supply the body with the calories it needs, and they suppress hunger. Alcohol only provides the calories. In fact, ethanol lowers blood sugar and affects other chemicals that can result in making you even hungrier.
Alcohol also affects the metabolism in a way that would make any health-conscious individual think twice before replacing meals for a gin and tonic. Most people know only two things that happen to alcohol once it’s inside the body: the drink somehow makes the night a lot better, and the morning after a lot worse. The body, however, takes alcohol a lot more seriously than most people do and treats it like it would a drug: it shuttles the alcohol off to the liver for detoxification as quickly as possible. The byproduct of liver metabolism of ethanol is acetate, which is released to the rest of the body and converted to acetyl C o A, a byproduct of energy metabolism that then enters the same metabolic pathways as sugar and fat to yield calories.
The problem with using alcohol as a weight loss agent is that because the body recognizes ethanol as a drug, the liver will preferentially metabolize the alcohol first. Drinking alcohol, in other words, delays the body from burning off fat and sugar since it’s concentrating first on the ethanol. As a result, these more important nutrients get stored in the body as fat. In one recent study, people who consumed an alcohol-containing beverage for breakfast demonstrated decreased rates of fat and carbohydrate metabolism. Shifting the body’s metabolism towards this trend will end up sabotaging weight loss efforts. Additionally, some of the alcohol can be converted directly to fat.
Alcohol and Low-Carbohydrate Diets
Many alcoholic drinks are carbohydrate-free. Low carbohydrate dieters, therefore, may want to include the booze on their list of permissible foods. Dr. Atkins, the initial promoter of low-carbohydrate dieting, opposed including alcohol as part of the diet. His reasoning is the same as the one mentioned above: Alcohol, although it may not raise insulin levels to stimulate weight gain, stops the body from burning fat. Keep in mind, though, that while ethanol itself is carbohydrate-free, many mixed alcoholic drinks are loaded with sugar.
The idea of alcohol acting as a weight loss agent is attractive, but it’s likely that the opposite is true. Aside from providing empty calories that convert to fat and interfere with fat breakdown in the body, alcohol fails to suppress appetite and leads to greater weight gain. Additionally, alcohol can also break down the resolve to stick to a diet, also affecting weight loss outcomes. In fact, numerous studies report an association between heavy alcohol drinking and higher body weight or BMI. Important to note, however, is that there’s some suggestion that moderate wine drinking can improve weight loss outcomes. One study showed that women who drank moderate amounts of wine were thinner than women who drank no wine at all. While there may be some benefit to wine and weight loss for the fairer sex, adding other forms of alcohol to the diet regimen may be counterproductive.
The gut hanging over that belt isn’t called a “beer belly” for nothing. |
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