Calories in alcohol

PH4T

I came across this link that says there are the following calories in these alcoholic drinks:

Lager (Pint): 230
Red wine(125ml): 85
Spirits (37.5ml): 72

If I was to normalise this by how much alcohol it takes to "feel merry" I came up with the following:

6 pints would be about 1500 calories.
A bottle of wine would be about 500 calories
6 shots would be about 430 calories.

So looks like larger is a no no, but wine and spirits are a much of a muchness.

Am I right here?

metamorphosis

PH4T wrote: »

I came across this link that says there are the following calories in these alcoholic drinks:

Lager (Pint): 230
Red wine(125ml): 85
Spirits (37.5ml): 72

If I was to normalise this by how much alcohol it takes to "feel merry" I came up with the following:

6 pints would be about 1500 calories.
A bottle of wine would be about 500 calories
6 shots would be about 430 calories.

So looks like larger is a no no, but wine and spirits are a much of a muchness.

Am I right here?

Looks about right - most pints of beer, cider, stout and lager will be 200+

Luckily i am a lightweight!

seamus

Yep, pretty much. If your intention is to get pissed, then the lowest-cal is a clear spirit (vodka) with a diet mixer. Of course, the cravings that you get for a chipper afterwards are not low-cal.

If you're not into spirits or wines, then Guinness is the next best thing. 6 pints = 1,020 calories. If you can afford that levels of calories of course.

cruizer101

Wine is probably best option in that case as, for myself anyway, spirit would probably have a mixer too, which will clock up the calories.

olaola

I'm not a major fan of light beers, but a bottle of Bud light or Coors light is 100 calories. So it's like buy two, get one free, as a usual bottle has about 150.

Blatter

Guys i'm no expert, but I don't think it's as straight forward as the OP is stating it. I don't think alcohol is digested in the body the same way as carbs, proteins and fats. This is obviously because it is a toxin. Take for example, if I eat all the pages in a large book consistently, which does have calories (not sure how many), I'm pretty sure that wouldn't lead to weight gain, it would just make me sick. Now I'm not saying that alcohol dosen't contribute to weight gain, it does. But i'm pretty sure it's effect is not proportional to the amount of alcohol calories. I reckon if I ate 1,500 calories worth of burgers and chips, that would sure as hell lead to greater weight gain than 6 pints of lager IMHO. I stand to be corrected, i'm just going on my own thoughts on the matter and things that i've heard on the subject (although not conclusively).

cruizer101

I'm not sure what the break down of energy is in the different drinks but lets say for beer there is going to be a lot of carbs making up that energy.
You could probably say that most of the energy content of spirits is alcohol, and you're right alcohol is processed in a different way.

I'm no expert either but my basic understanding is the liver processes alcohol into a usable energy form at a set rate, don't think this varies much between men and women or different people is fairly set rate, so this might mean the energy is released much slower, and so the body won't try to store it as fat.
Where as if you quickly get a large amount of energy your body will try to store some as fat.

You might even be able to consider alcohol as a low GI food :P

I am kinda guessing here from my limited knowledge, but I think it is safe to say if you are really trying to loose weight, best to limit your alcohol.

metamorphosis

Alcohol is used for energy before food is so what you eat after a night out and the next day will be far (usually) more influential on your weight rather the alcohol

seamus

SOCCER4LIFE wrote: »

Guys i'm no expert, but I don't think it's as straight forward as the OP is stating it. I don't think alcohol is digested in the body the same way as carbs, proteins and fats. This is obviously because it is a toxin. Take for example, if I eat all the pages in a large book consistently, which does have calories (not sure how many), I'm pretty sure that wouldn't lead to weight gain, it would just make me sick. Now I'm not saying that alcohol dosen't contribute to weight gain, it does. But i'm pretty sure it's effect is not proportional to the amount of alcohol calories. I reckon if I ate 1,500 calories worth of burgers and chips, that would sure as hell lead to greater weight gain than 6 pints of lager IMHO. I stand to be corrected, i'm just going on my own thoughts on the matter and things that i've heard on the subject (although not conclusively).

It's hard to say.

When you take in alcohol, your body breaks that down first, before everything else. This is why it's inadvisable to drink alcohol the night after or the night before exercise - it will limit the amount of fat burned by that exercise.
This is why it's also hard to link alcohol specifically to weight gain, because most (95%) of the excess calories consumed through alcohol will all be burned by your body regardless.

When you take beers and other strongly-flavoured alcoholic drinks into account, you have both the alcoholic content and the starchy or sugary content on top of that. When you drink 6 pints of beer, your body processes the alcoholic content and then once it's done with that it has a small stockpile of starch and sugar to break down too.
This is why vodka is about the best - it's effectively just alcohol and water.

I imagine the biggest problem with gaining weight in regards to alcohol is this "queueing" of stuff. You drink 6 pints and have a burger and chips afterwards. But by the time you go to bed, your body hasn't finished with the alcohol and by the time it gets to the lovely mountain of carbs and fats you've given it, you're asleep and don't need very many calories so you will store large amounts of this for later. Alcohol intake also increases appetite, so you tend to eat more when you're drinking. They don't serve wine in restaurants just for the huge mark-up

Lantus

Alchohol is your enemy for a number of reasons. Firstly it has absolutley no nutritional value what so ever. zilch. zero. The body cannot make any use of it and deals with it like a poison. Empty calories tend to get metabolised as fat very quickly unless your engaged in intensive exercise which while your drinking isn't very likley.

Theres a double whammy though because any food you are eating while drinking also tend to get converted to fat more easily. This is because the body stops processing food in the normal way and prioritises the removal of the alchohol from the body which it see's as a toxin. So those garlic and cheese mayo chips are going striaght onto the hips/belly/ass (delete as appropriate.) while your body try's to rid itself of the booze.

Drink enough and you become dehydrated and hung over. This encourages even more eating the following day and prohibits exercise and well being.

On the whole it's a real curse to anyone wanting to lead a healthy lifestyle or lose weight and should be the first thing you say goodbye to except in very controlled moderation. We have a real problem in IRL/UK due to our love affair with booze and that doesn't help either.

olaola

I wish people would stop trying to complicate things (sounds like excuses to me IMO) More or less, minus a few percent, it's about the balance between calories in and calories out.

Blatter

olaola wrote: »

I wish people would stop trying to complicate things (sounds like excuses to me IMO) More or less, minus a few percent, it's about the balance between calories in and calories out.

Do u have scientific research to back this statement up? This is all we want, evidence to support this claim.

Frogdog

Think I'll be sticking to my Guinness!

Can't handle lagers anyway, the worst hangovers of the lot.

Blatter

Did some research myself and found these interesting paragraphs

Although alcohol is an energy source, how the body processes and uses the energy from alcohol is more complex than can be explained by a simple calorie conversion value (8). For example, alcohol provides an average of 20 percent of the calories in the diet of the upper third of drinking Americans, and we might expect many drinkers who consume such amounts to be obese. Instead, national data indicate that, despite higher caloric intake, drinkers are no more obese than nondrinkers (9,10). Also, when alcohol is substituted for carbohydrates, calorie for calorie, subjects tend to lose weight, indicating that they derive less energy from alcohol than from food (summarized in 8).

The mechanisms accounting for the apparent inefficiency in converting alcohol to energy are complex and incompletely understood (11), but several mechanisms have been proposed. For example, chronic drinking triggers an inefficient system of alcohol metabolism, the microsomal ethanol-oxidizing system (MEOS) (1). Much of the energy from MEOS-driven alcohol metabolism is lost as heat rather than used to supply the body with energy.


[SIZE=-2](1) Lieber, C.S. The influence of alcohol on nutritional status. Nutrition Reviews 46(7):241-254, 1988.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-2](8) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health. DHHS Pub. No. (PHS)88-50210. Washington, DC: Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1988. (9) Gruchow, H.W.; Sobocinski, K.A.; Barboriak, J.J.; and Scheller, J.G. Alcohol consumption, nutrient intake and relative body weight among U.S. adults. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 42(2):289-295, 1985. (10) Colditz, G.A.; Giovannucci, E.; Rimm, E.B.; Stampfer, M.J.; Rosner, B.; Speizer, F.E.; Gordis, E.; and Willett, W.C. Alcohol intake in relation to diet and obesity in women and men. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 54(1):49-55, 1991. (11) World, M.J.; Ryle, P.R.; Pratt, O.E.; and Thomson, A.D. Alcohol and body weight. Alcohol and Alcoholism 19(1):1-6, 1984.[/SIZE]


Btw, here's the link http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa22.htm

olaola

Your body is more or less a closed system, there are variables. But the vast majority of weight loss can be attributed to making a deficit through in taking less calories and exercise. It's not rocket science. Making it more complicated here doesn't help anyone.

If you can find any studies that disprove 'diet & exercise' as a proven method to lose weight, I'd love to see them.

Blatter

olaola wrote: »

Your body is more or less a closed system, there are variables. But the vast majority of weight loss can be attributed to making a deficit through in taking less calories and exercise. It's not rocket science. Making it more complicated here doesn't help anyone.

If you can find any studies that disprove 'diet & exercise' as a proven method to lose weight, I'd love to see them.

I never said that diet and exercise isn't a proven method to lose weight, how is that relevant anyway?. This thread has nothing got to do with weight loss in general, it's about calories in alcohol, as the title suggests. Alot of the People on here are interested in the science behind how alcohol is digested by the body, now you made the following statement

olaola wrote: »

I wish people would stop trying to complicate things (sounds like excuses to me IMO) More or less, minus a few percent, it's about the balance between calories in and calories out.

The (adequate) source I provided completely contradicts this. I asked you to back your statement up with evidence, i'm still waiting.

seamus

SOCCER4LIFE wrote: »

The (adequate) source I provided completely contradicts this. I asked you to back your statement up with evidence, i'm still waiting.

Well not really. Your link suggest that those who drink alcohol with an equivalent calorific content to carbs tend to lose weight. Which does indicate that there's more at play when you consume alcohol.

The bit you quote appears to make a rather odd statement, but it's probably not what they meant. They appear to claim that you get less energy from an alcohol calorie than a carbohydrate calorie.

This is fundamentally impossible - a calorie is a measure of energy. Saying that a calorie from alcohol is less than a calorie from carbs is like saying that a tonne of bricks weighs more than a tonne of feathers.

However, what I *think* they meant is that although there is a calorie in a certain amount of alcohol, the human body is not capable of deriving that full calorie of energy from the alcohol.

olaola's fundamental point is correct because it couldn't be any other way - if you burn more energy than your body derives from the food you eat, it has to rely on internal stores and you will lose weight. It cannot be any other way, it's based on the laws of thermodynamics.

However, that's not to say that the energy required by the body is ever fixed or that the rated energy content of foods is attainable or accurate.

moonage

olaola wrote: »

Your body is more or less a closed system, there are variables. But the vast majority of weight loss can be attributed to making a deficit through in taking less calories and exercise. It's not rocket science. Making it more complicated here doesn't help anyone.

Exercise doesn't make much difference to weight loss.

Switching to the correct diet (low carb/moderate protein/high fat) is the key factor. And you'll never be hungry on it, unlike the traditional Weightwatchers-type diet.

A calorie is not just a calorie. It depends where it comes from.

Blatter

seamus wrote: »

Well not really. Your link suggest that those who drink alcohol with an equivalent calorific content to carbs tend to lose weight

Look at the other study I gave, it seems to suggest otherwise ''alcohol provides an average of 20 percent of the calories in the diet of the upper third of drinking Americans, and we might expect many drinkers who consume such amounts to be obese. Instead, national data indicate that, despite higher caloric intake, drinkers are no more obese than nondrinkers.''

Of course this completely contradicts Olaola's statement... ''More or less, minus a few percent, it's about the balance between calories in and calories out. ''

seamus wrote: »

However, what I *think* they meant is that although there is a calorie in a certain amount of alcohol, the human body is not capable of deriving that full calorie of energy from the alcohol.

Seamus, I'm sure that's exactly what they meant;)

Blatter

moonage wrote: »

A calorie is not just a calorie. It depends where it comes from.

+1

rocky

I'll just leave this link here:

http://www.leangains.com/2010/07/truth-about-alcohol-fat-loss-and-muscle.html

menoscemo

It's a pretty safe bet that the body burns more calories than normal in order to process alcohol. So Alcohol calories are not the same as other calories consumed.
There is also of course 'Vasodialtion'. Basically the alcohol goes straight to the blood and dilates the vessels (specifically blood vessels near the surface). This is why we get red faces and feel warm when drinking. Basically a lot of calories are lost through bodyheat. It is like turning on the radiator and opening the window.

Crasp

You are all getting lost in the biochemistry of alcohol metabolism! Are you all forgetting that lager is only ~7% alcohol? How many calories are in the other 93% is the question...

Ever wonder why they call it a beer belly?

Blatter

Crasp wrote: »

You are all getting lost in the biochemistry of alcohol metabolism! Are you all forgetting that lager is only ~7% alcohol? How many calories are in the other 93% is the question...

Ever wonder why they call it a beer belly?

Mainly water. And other stuff.