Alcohol and Weight Loss; Is it possible to have both?

No matter what your friends may tell you about liquor versus beer, I’d rather you know the cold hard facts before you pick up your choice of adult beverage at the store this weekend.Alcohol consists of simple sugars, much like a coke or candy – they provide quick energy, but have no real beneficial nutrients. Alcohol is also metabolized differently than other foods and beverages. Normally, your body gets its energy from the calories in carbohydrates, fats and proteins, which are slowly digested and absorbed. However, this digestive process changes when alcohol is present. When you drink alcohol, it gets immediate attention (because it is viewed by the body as a toxin). When the body is focused on processing the alcohol, it is not able to properly break down foods containing carbohydrates and fat. Therefore, these calories are converted into body fat and are carried away for permanent storage on your body. This is NOT good for our fitness goals no matter which way you spin it…Now, I completely understand even as your trainer that you’d like to splurge occasionally. This brings me to part 2. Deciding which alcohol to drink…There are thousands of drink combinations to choose from so I want you to keep it simple. Remember that these drinks are plain and simple EMPTY calories. Nutritionally speaking that basically means that the simple sugars are full of calories but they are empty because your body gets little to no nutritional benefits from vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc… On top of that fact, alcohol blocks what little nutrients are floating around in your gastrointestinal system when it is present. For example, a 4 oz. glass of red wine contains only 95 calories and a 12 oz. glass of beer 110 calories, a mixed drink like a margarita contains around 550 calories. A few mixed drinks could blow nearly your entire calorie budget if you’re on a 1,200-calorie diet. People who routinely drink too much alcohol often develop nutritional deficiencies because alcohol blocks the absorption of vitamins such as folic acid.What are more important, calories or carbs? You might have thought that drinking liquor is more diet-friendly because it has no carbohydrates, while both wine and beer do contain carbs. But you need to watch calories, and liquor only has a few calories less than beer or wine. Plus, it is often mixed with other drinks, adding even more empty calories. Hard liquor contains around 100 calories per shot, so adding a mixer increases calories even more. If you are going to mix liquor with anything, opt for a club soda, instead of fruit juice or regular soda. Sweeter drinks, whether liquor or wine, tend to have more sugar, and therefore more calories. In that respect, dry wines usually have fewer calories than sweet wines so keep that in mind also.Lastly I want to post a chart of drink calories that I found on one of my favorite diet tracking websites, Sparkpeople.com. Most of you guys are already using this awesome free website, but if you are not I highly recommend it! See below, and remember:Everything is ok in MODERATION!

DrinkServing Size Calories

Red wine5 oz. 100

White wine5 oz. 100

Champagne5 oz. 130

Light beer12 oz. 105

Regular beer12 oz. 140

Dark beer12 oz. 170

Cosmopolitan3 oz. 165

Martini3 oz. 205

Long Island tea8 oz. 400

Gin & Tonic8 oz. 175

Rum & Soda8 oz. 180

Margarita8 oz. 200

Whiskey Sour4 oz. 200

#alcohol #weightloss