The First Health Blog Service

Alcohol Makes You Fat

March 19th, 2006

Pure ethyl alcohol has seven calories per gram (see the Alcohol Calories Factbox). Alcohol is therefore almost as high in calories as pure fat, so it will tend to slow down weight loss. Pure alcohol provides no other nutrients. This means that alcohol does not help you lose weight on a diet. But you can still drink alcohol (in moderation) while on a diet if you know what you are doing..

Alcohol Calories Factbox:

Pure alcohol has 7 Calories per gram. This compares to:

* Pure fat - 9 Calories per gram
* Pure protein - 4 Calories per gram (average) and
* Pure carbohydrate - 4 Calories per gram (average)

Most light beers have about 100 calories per 12 ounces.

Most regular beer has between 120 -150 calories (average) per 12 ounces.

Most table wine has about 100 calories per 5 ounce glass.

One ounce of typical distilled alcoholic beverages — gin, rum, vodka, whiskey — (mixers add calories) have :

100 proof:

82 Calories and
11.8 grams alcohol and
16 grams water

80 proof

64 Calories and
9.3 grams alcohol and
18.5 grams water

Source: USDA Nutrient Database

Dieters, of course, have plenty of calories stored in their fat cells — so they don’t need to get more calories from food or alcohol.

However, in order to avoid triggering hunger, dieters do still need to get all of the other nutrients that come from food; and they need to get these nutrients in normal amounts. This can be difficult to do when they are not eating much food in order to try to lose weight.

Can you drink alcoholic beverages and still lose weight when you are on a diet?

The answer is yes — but there is a technique involved.

First, make sure you are on a diet that provides at least normal (DRI) amounts of all needed nutrients. Normal amounts of nutrients are necessary to prevent hunger. Most popular weight loss diets are not very good at this. (Here is why normal amounts of nutrient are necessary and why most diets fail.)

Second, make sure that your diet does NOT give you enough calories to maintain your current weight.

(Effective diets must do both of the above or they cannot be effective for long.)

How does this technique make drinking alcoholic beverages possible?

A properly designed weight loss diet, using ordinary supermarket foods and supplements, will be able to provide all necessary nutrients in the right amounts to prevent hunger — and at the same time it will provide only about 1200 calories.

Almost anyone will lose weight steadily if they eat less than 1500 calories per day. That leaves up to about 300 calories that you can use for wine, beer, or mixed drinks without destroying your diet.

Obviously, any alcohol calories are unnecessary and will slow your rate of weight loss. But sometimes this can be an acceptable trade-off.

Entry Filed under: Food