Drinking Alcohol to Shrink? This is when that innocent little drink starts messing with your internal fat incinerator. Ethanol has no nutritional value, so your body burns it off first. That means any remaining calories in your stomach. And the more fattening the foods you eat, the easier the calories are to store. Researchers found that women who had one or two alcoholic drinks a day were actually less likely to gain weight than those who shunned the sauce. And they did it while consuming more calories overall (from food and drink) than both heavy drinkers and teetotalers. Researchers believe that the bodies of long- term moderate drinkers somehow adapt to metabolize alcohol differently than heavy or occasional drinkers. They use more energy, burning the calories in the drink. Researchers are still working out the specifics of how and why this happens, but they've figured out that for women who drink up to eight ounces of an alcoholic beverage a day, those calories simply don't end up as extra fat. Women who bank their daily drinks for weekends or girls' nights out don't qualify for the free- calorie plan (and among the 1. Instead of learning to disregard those nutritionally empty calories, your body automatically stores them. It's akin to tossing old clothes you don't wear into the back of your closet, only your body doesn't have the good sense to hide the junk. It tends to store the fat front and center, in your belly. If you're used to having three or four drinks every week as part of your diet, you're probably compensating for them with fewer calories elsewhere. The Archives study found that these women also exercise more, which knocks off additional calories. In real life, you're likely to be handed far more than that by a bartender or waitress. And we're not much better when left to our own devices. Kerr, Ph. D., a senior scientist at the Alcohol Research Group in Emeryville, California. So a bottle of light beer may be your best bet.
Drinking Wine Before Bed Could Help You Lose Weight. It could be that wine simply discourages. Resveratrol: The New Weight-Loss. Resveratrol and Weight Loss. Forget having a piece of fruit before bed, pour yourself a glass of wine. Find out why vino might be the ideal snack to stop late night cravings. Wine As A Bedtime Snack Helps With Weight Loss Keep The Beer, Lose The Belly. One drink means a 1. No matter how that adds up, I'd slipped past moderation, and I'd also seen my weight creep up 1. Blame it on a cocktail of deadlines, stress, inactivity, and also fun. A 2. 01. 2 CDC study found that about one in four men exceed the moderation guidelines an average of five times a month. That kind of drinking can make your belly bulge. Within minutes of your sipping a drink, your fat metabolism can wane. Because your body treats alcohol as a toxin, removing it becomes the top priority, says Angelo Tremblay, Ph. D., a professor of kinesiology at Laval University in Quebec. That can cause your body to stop burning its usual stored carbs and fat for energy and instead utilize the alcohol. The double whammy: Any other calories you take in, whether they're carbs from your brew or protein from buffalo wings, end up as stored fat. The average man needs an hour to metabolize 0. In a UC Berkeley study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people who downed an ounce of alcohol from two cocktails showed a 7. And in a study from Switzerland published in the New England Journal of Medicine, male participants who were given two beers' worth of alcohol with each of their three meals experienced a slowdown equivalent to roughly 4. That's one reason I decided to abstain for four weeks. Beyond its caloric load and impact on your fat burners, alcohol can disrupt your sleep pattern, mess with your appetite, and foment a cascade of other weight- gaining processes, according to Donald Hensrud, M. D., an associate professor of preventive medicine and nutrition at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and a coauthor of I. If you can tough it out (or even feel better) while losing weight, then you can transition to more- moderate measures to maintain your weight. Waist size aside, two drinks a day may actually be healthier than none at all. If you graph drinking and mortality over a given time period, a J shape forms. Men at the bottom of the J have two drinks a day and are less likely to die during that period than teetotalers are. After two drinks, the number of deaths starts to rise. In fact, excessive alcohol use is the third- leading cause of preventable death, after smoking and obesity. A toast, then, to moderation—and to finding the truth about drinking and dieting. Week One. To help me navigate the tricky shoals of abstinence, I check in with the coauthors of Almost Alcoholic—Robert Doyle, M. D., a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Joseph Nowinski, Ph. D., a psychologist in Hartford, Connecticut. First we strategize: The easiest way to change bad habits is to replace them with better ones. We identify specific danger drinks: the post- work decompressor, the social lubricator at a party or bar, the glass of wine that enhances dinner, and the nightcap that takes the edge off. Then we figure out replacements. They also advise keeping alcohol hidden so I'm not reminded of what I'm missing. Things start out well: I replace my post- work drink with a 1. The novelty of not boozing makes the first week flash by in a sobriety- fueled binge of productivity. Result: I drop three pounds without sacrificing any of my favorite foods. Alcohol Wrecks Your Sleep. Scientists know that alcohol sabotages sleep quality and that good sleep is critical to weight loss. Sleep is not like a light switch, says MH sleep advisor W. Christopher Winter, M. D., medical director of the Sleep Medicine Center at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. Because alcohol is a sedative, it suppresses dreaming. Then when it's metabolized, your brain wakes up, causing fragmented sleep and nightmares. A study from the University of Michigan Alcohol Research Center found that heavy drinkers sleep less than non- drinkers (4. During deep sleep, your body carries out a series of restorative hormonal and metabolic functions. Without it, your energy system can misfire: You feel hungry when you don't need food, and you make poor diet choices. In a French study, people consumed 5. The Fix: Ax the nightcap. Your body needs time to process alcohol before you go to sleep. You could savor one drink when you return home from work, says Dr. Winter, and sip another with your meal, ideally several hours before you hit the hay. Instead of self- medicating, talk with your doctor about why you're having trouble falling asleep. Week Two. The recycling guys are going to love me: I guzzle seltzer even when I'm not thirsty. Having that can in my hand or within reach keeps me in a comfort zone. This means the replacement strategy is working, says Dr. But I'm still having a tough time replacing both the flavor and the buzz of wine and beer. Doyle offers surprising solutions: Eat more local food, and try diverse cuisines. He likens it to exploring regional wines. He also encourages me to find other indulgences, such as dark chocolate and cheese. Result: Boom—I drop another 4 pounds! Alcohol Leads to Wings. Beer goggles work on food too. When you've had a few drinks, fatty foods seem even more attractive. Alcohol triggers a release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which makes you feel good. And f. MRI scans of social drinkers show decreased activity in brain circuits involved in detecting threats, along with increased activity in circuits involved in reward, says Lorenzo Leggio, M. D., Ph. D., of the NIAAA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. At the same time, your body also releases ghrelin, an appetite- stimulating hormone, and galanin, a neuropeptide that may lead you to eat more fat. The result is called hyperphagia—an abnormally increased appetite. You go for the guilty- pleasure food, and the alcohol washes away the guilt. A 2. 01. 3 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study found that men ate 4. The Fix: Slow the rate at which alcohol enters your bloodstream. A recent Northern Kentucky University study points out that having food in your stomach can help slow the absorption of alcohol by as much as 5. That means your lard furnace may remain more active. The takeaway: Drink only after you've started eating a meal, says study author Cecile A. Marczinski, Ph. D., an associate professor of psychology at Northern Kentucky University. When dinner's done, you're done. That can also help you avoid the weight- loss witching hour. When you're tired and drunk, you risk an appetite meltdown with no . So try the old trick of chasing each drink with a glass of water. The water adds volume so your stomach feels full, and it helps slow the absorption of alcohol so you're less likely to end up trashed and eating garbage. Also, decide what and where you'll eat afterward before you start drinking, says nutritionist Cynthia Sass, R. D. My exercise circuit releases feel- good endorphins, and my diverse diet keeps dinner lively. I'm also eating more cheese as dessert, pairing domestic and international blues and aged cheddars with apples, pears, and walnuts. My nightcap is now a square of dark chocolate. Like red wine, dark chocolate triggers a hit of dopamine and contains resveratrol, a heart- healthy antioxidant. Instead of surfing wine. I cruise chocosphere. Cluizel and Valrhona, and made with single- origin beans from exotic places like Madagascar and Venezuela. Doyle was right: Exploring new foods is fun. Result: Up a pound—cheese and chocolate! Alcohol Is Loaded with Calories. Alcohol packs 7 calories per gram, second only to fat (9 calories); by contrast, protein and carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram. But metabolizing alcohol so it can be used as a fuel burns 2. That means the actual energy yield from alcohol is closer to 5 calories. Then you add in the mixers. There are no blurred lines when it comes to excess: According to a Danish review, exceeding two beers a day increases your risk of . In a five- year study also from Denmark, men who averaged one daily alcoholic drink were 2. Another study, in Nutrition, found that moderate wine drinkers tended to not gain any weight after six years, while those who drank beer and spirits more heavily did. Red wine may interfere with the way fat accumulates in fat cells and may also reduce the size of fat cells, say researchers in Spain. Plus, the resveratrol might affect the expression of a gene that controls the formation of body fat, reports Nutrition Reviews. The Fix: . For beer drinkers, the keys are, again, moderation and water. When you enter a bar, order a pint of H2. O and drink it, he says. That way you won't pound your first beer. Keep alternating beer and water. Sip mindfully to stretch your drink.) Note that craft beers tend to have more alcohol and calories per ounce than regular beers do, says William C. Kerr, Ph. D., a senior scientist at the Public Health Institute's Alcohol Research Group, so . I carry around a highball glass with seltzer, rocks, and a lime—a concoction that looks like a gin and tonic. If people do ask why I'm not indulging, I blame my doctor: . I've been sleeping much better, having vivid dreams, and waking up energized and clearheaded. Result: After cutting back on cheese and chocolate, I drop 3 pounds. My total weight loss is 9 pounds. The kicker: Many of the experts I interviewed admitted that they drink a glass or two of red wine most days (but not every day). So I'm getting ready to reintroduce wine with meals. In moderation, of course.
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