Alcohol Macros

micahfc

I know when counting alcohol (vodka or bourbon in this case), you divide the calories by 4 if your counting as carbs and by 9 if you apply it towards fats, for Macro counting purposes. But can I apply toward both at the same time? Example, if I were to have enough carbs left for only one drink, but then had enough fats to left to count for one more drink, would I be allowed to have 2 drinks, with one being counted toward the carbs and the other toward the fats?

kshama2001

Are you doing keto or something where it matters? IF not, I wouldn't worry about it. If so and you don't get good answers here, try the Low Carb group:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/394-low-carber-daily-forum

See also:

https://www.macrostax.com/tips/how-to-calculate-alcohol-for-macro-counting/

AnnPT77

Crossposted: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10825115/alcohol-macros

Like I said with more details on that thread, alcohol is alcohol, roughly 7 calories per gram. It's not carbs or fat, so I don't understand the impulse to pretend it is one of those and log it inaccurately. If you have the calories to fit it in, and no other reason not to drink it, just log it with one of the perfectly reasonable pre-existing database entries that has 0 fat, 0 carbs, 0 protein (for most spirits).

Sure, that means your macro totals won't balance with your calories . . . that's accurate. It's not metabolized like carbs or fats or protein.

Some drinks (beer, wine) have carbs in addition to alcohol. Some mixed drinks may have carbs, fats, protein (depending on the mixers). Most plain spirits are just alcohol, water, and some trivial inherent flavoring compounds.

sgt1372

As Ann said, cals from alcohol are NEITHER fat nor carbs and do not count in any way towards your macros.

To make it worse, alcohol has NO nutritional value whatsoever. Alcohol cannot be used by the body to build muscle and cannot be broken down by the body into dugar for ebery or dtored as fst for later use. It is brojen down into enzymes that in excess can result in serious medical problems, most notably damage to the liver.

BTW, I just checked and, while you can log the cals for alcohol MFP, MFP does NOT assign any carb, far or protein macros to it.

So, MFP's nutritional macro breakdown only applies to non-alcohol cals consumed AND to get an accurate macro breakdown based on the total cals consumed, you have to include and net out alcohol cals consumed byvincluding it as a separste "macro" category

ninerbuff

Alcohol is about 7 calories per gram. No nutrition and doesn't really do anything for the body.

But most notably alcohol INHIBITS any fat or carbs from being used as energy. Alcohol cannot be stored in the body so it has to metabolize. And during that time it's the only energy source being used. And if you drink it before bed, you can totally reduce the amount of stored body fat you have since body fat is the main source of fuel when you sleep or are at rest.

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