Drink-How bad is it?

Skitbra

Just wondering how bad drinking is for gaining weight.
Is it the actualy drink that's bad or the usual eating that comes with it?
If you drink 10 pints in a night how much is that likely to put on?
Is guinness worse/better than others?
Which is the least fattening?

Transform

How much do YOU drink?

How often?

Whats your current weight, height, etc?

You will make more progress without the booze and all drinks are the same when it comes down to drinking too much.

Finally - 10 pints would take the average person 2 hrs to walk off or a run at 11kph for 70mins approx.

10pints for a woman - total, total disaster!!!!!

Skitbra

Transform wrote:

How much do YOU drink?

How often?

Maybe 3 nights a week.
Around 6-10 pints.

Transform wrote:

Whats your current weight, height, etc?

16st 5'11'' male

Transform wrote:

You will make more progress without the booze and all drinks are the same when it comes down to drinking too much.

Finally - 10 pints would take the average person 2 hrs to walk off or a run at 11kph for 70mins approx.

10pints for a woman - total, total disaster!!!!!

I've been drinking pretty much this way for a while. Have noticed no significant gain/loss in weight. So if I quit drinking I would lose weight?

blah

I remember I saw something interesting on this programme the other week,

"There are 350 calories in 2 pints of beer (roughly the same amount as found in a King Size Mars Bar). "
Which should give a bit of perspective, what would you think of eating 3-5 of those 3 times a week?

http://www.rte.ie/tv/howlongwillyoulive/week2.html

Skitbra

blah wrote:

I remember I saw something interesting on this programme the other week,

"There are 350 calories in 2 pints of beer (roughly the same amount as found in a King Size Mars Bar). "
Which should give a bit of perspective, what would you think of eating 3-5 of those 3 times a week?

http://www.rte.ie/tv/howlongwillyoulive/week2.html

Cheers for the reply. That kind of gives me an idea of how much it is.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Smellyirishman

What is the score with spirits? I drink very very rarely and I know even if I drank beer it would have minimal effect on me, but I am not a fan and tend to stick to whiskey. Equally as bad? Worse? Opinions?

Just out of interest.

Dragan

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson194.htm

worth a read there folks.

bustershark

The problem with alcohol is not only due to the calories contained in it, but the effect it has on the digestive system. Alcohol is metabolised extremely quickly by the body, requiring no digestion. Without going into the technicalities of it, it supercedes food in the digestion hierarchy and so any food in the system is more likely to be stored as fat rather than digested properly.

TerrorFirmer

Dragan wrote:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson194.htm

worth a read there folks.

Good link, thanks. I usually drink Vodka and dilute when I'm out - which is about once a month so it doesn't exactly make awhole lot of difference regardless - but its still interesting to see the values for the difference drinks...amazing the difference a few pints a week could actually make.

Chucky the tree

Also guiness is the worst drink for gaining weight. If you need beers stick to the lite ones. Only problem is you will look like a nonce.

Easygainer

I'll summarise the downsides of drinking.

-You miss meals and eat **** when you go on the piss. (Lowers blood sugar therefore you crave carbs, hangovers and sleeping in = no breakfast)
-You become dehydrated which leads to catabolism (eating of muscle) as well as storing other food as fat due to digestion process mentioned above.
-There are 7cals/g - nearly as much as fat, and as you are drinking at night moreoften than not, it is less likely you will exercise it off.


You can take obvious measures to counteract some of this. Drink water, don't go overboard and have decent food when you come home that night as well as having a shake and water or something beside bed for morining.

daveirl

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sully-gormo

How bad is Alcohol if u drink plenty of water and dont gorge on rubbish food? At the weekend I had 2 nights out with 5/6 pints of cider(bulmers) each night, how bad is that? I didnt gorge on take aways but i didnt drink enough water either.

Sangre

Cider is full of sugar aswell as alcohol so its worse than beer for weight gain. Its about 240 calories a pint of cider.

blorg

Drink is full of calories, and as others have said it tends to cause related problems (junk eating, etc.) I find this site quite good for keeping track of intake. The overwhelming majority of calories in 'dry' drinks (beer, dry wine, vodka) are coming directly from the alcohol and so you can work it out; going from a standard to a 'light' beer of the same % vol gets you very little reduction. The exceptions would be things like dessert wine which has a substantial addition from the sugar content. Having said that, a general consensus seems to be (from best to worst:) (dry) wine -> spirits -> beer. Of course with the spirits you will have to avoid sugar-rich mixers.

shoegirl

Depends on what exactly you drink - most beers are around 175 for a bottle and 200-300 calories for a pint.

So if you drink 10 pints in one night you are looking at an intake of around 2000-3000 calories.

Apparently it takes a reduction of 3500 calories to lose 1 pound of weight and vice versa to gain it, so i'm guessing that you are active enough to maintain your current weight or else being economical with the truth.
On the most raw level it would appear that you are consuming at least 3600-8000 calories per week on beer. I wouldn't like to be your liver!

To answer your question though, if you take 3600 calories a week off your diet every week, with no other changes, you would definitely expect to lose weight.

I myself often enjoy 4-6 bottles of beer at the weekend. Cutting this down to 1-2 beers has made it a lot easier to keep my weight down.

blorg

Apart from cutting down, switch to wine and take up exercise. 15k cycling roughly equals 1 bottle of wine (around 550 kcal.) Exercise also helps with the hangovers.

Calories in alcohol are overwhelmingly due to the alcohol content; Guinness is relatively low in alcohol at 4.3% and so while it is slightly higher than some other beers at the same ABV* it actually has a lower calorie content than something like Stella Artois at 5.2%.

*just read here a suggestion that Guinness contains just one more calorie per ounce (30ml) compared to Miller Lite; it really is no worse than any other beer.

blorg

shoegirl wrote:

Apparently it takes a reduction of 3500 calories to lose 1 pound of weight and vice versa to gain it, so i'm guessing that you are active enough to maintain your current weight or else being economical with the truth.

He may not being too economical with the truth or even particularly active; the heavier you are the more you can eat while maintaining your current weight. 16 stone with only light activity and you would maintain that weight on 3,000 calories a day, which is 20% more than the 2,500 "recommended" male calorie consumption.

The great news about this is that the heavier you are the more effective exercise is _and_ the easier it is to lose weight. Besides the calories directly burned, exercise will also boost your metabolism.

You are dead right that cutting alcohol should lead to a reduction though. But it's important to include exercise as well.

sosh

hey, im pretty new to this site and was wondering if i could get a few opinions bout my consumption of alcohol.

im 19, 6 ft, 11 and a half stone.
I am very active and play Rugby 3 days a week and do weights at home twice a week. In the past year or so i would generally tend to go out 2 nights a week, with an average consumption of 10 pints and the occasional shot or 2, generally binge drinking! As a student it is costing me alot of money, but more importantly im worried about the effects it may be having on my body. In the past 3 months i have gone from having a toned physique to nothing! But still i weigh the same... why is this?
If i was to continue this binge drinking trend in the coming years do i generally have anything to be worried about or, because of my regular activeness does it compensate in some way?

Appreciate any replies

cheers

Chucky the tree

YOu lost your muscle weight but replace it with more fat, thats probaly the reason you weight(scales wise) hasnt changed. Your body fat % has gone up though.

rubadub

Calories from drink are overestimated. This is due to the way they are calculated, they burn fixed amounts of food, drink, fuel in "calorie bombs", then they measure the energy it releases. This does not mean your body can make use of all these calories. e.g. petrol has a high calorific value, that why they burn it for fuel, same goes for alcohol, lots of energy comes off its combustion, so it is also used as fuel.

There were studies done where one group too on excess "empty" calories in the form of soft drinks, the other with alcohol of the same calorific value, the soft drinks group put on much more weight/fat.

Doctors will advise not to drink on an emtpy stomach-
why is this?- because you end up absolutely pissed if you do so.
Solution?- Eat on the empty stomach, and drink half the amount you usually would, result?- you eat less that day to attain the empty stomach, and you drink far less yet get the same level of drunkeness you want. So you save money on drink (& food) and you imbibe less cogeners (hangover inducing chemicals) so you also have less of a hangover

daveirl

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rubadub

It may metabolise it fully, (I am not saying it is pissed out non-processed). I am simply saying the method used for calculating calories is inherently flawed.

Many seem to think it is calculated with people, it should be, but is not. I used to drink like a fish, almost every day, in my early 20's. I was taking 1000's of extra calories on board each week yet did not gain much at all, when I stopped drinking I did not loose much either. I know a few mates who did the same with little or no effect.

I agree it is not helping loose fat, but on many fitness forums people simply say "just give it up", which is not an option for many, or they just don't want to, I gave up my chinese, and chippers, but never my drink. The good thing is when you loose weight the effect snowballs, you need less to get to your "preferred level of drunkness", since your body mass is less. Since you drink less you take on less calories and loose more again. If you are eating less, again it takes less to get drunk.

Guinness has a bad rep for some reason, undeservedly. Spirits mixed with full sugar soft drinks are the worst. Best is straight vodka, but drink water in between or mix with diet drinks.

In fact there was an australian study showing drinking spirits with diet drinks gets you more drunk! so you need less spirits so are saving calories on 2 counts.
http://diets.aol.com/newsandtrends/diet-drinks
http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=761662006