Beer Question

martyc91

If I am +/- 100 calories of my daily calorie goal; what impact will drinking beer have with my weight loss? Is beer intake allowed within your daily calorie goal? Thanks!

yetirider

Mate I've had beers at different times and when I've worked them under the calorie limit I've lost weight. The tricky thing with drinking is that it's often followed by snacking.

WifeMomDVM

Beer can be allowed - but remember when your liver is processing alcohol... it can't process anything else so if you eat while drinking beer - those calories will be stored as fat.

Interestingly enough an article in "Cooking Light" at my mom's house said that women should limit themselves to only one beer a day and men to two a day.

In general - consuming alcohol is going to slow your weight loss efforts.

Ely82010

The liver metabolizes everything at all times.It is not a selective process, just the way that it is being handled and stored by the liver. Please read the information below.

Metabolizing Alcohol

When you drink alcoholic beverages, some of the alcohol is converted to fat, some is burned as energy, and a small amount is excreted unchanged in your breath and urine. The liver metabolizes about 90% of the ethanol. About 5% is excreted into the urine. And the lungs excrete about 5% during exhalation (breathing out). Alcohol excretion by the lungs is the basis for breathalyzer testing.

The average person metabolizes about 1 standard drink (10 grams of ethanol) per hour. Heavy drinkers have more active livers and may be able to metabolize up to 3 drinks per hour.

When you have a drink, your body converts a small amount of the alcohol consumed into fat. The rest is converted by the liver into a substance called acetate. Acetate is released into the bloodstream and is used as your body's primary source of fuel. Burning alcohol as fuel may seem like a good way to remove alcohol from your body, but your body is burning alcohol instead of body fat. Any unburned acetate is stored as fat. People with liver diseases will metabolize less than 1 drink per hour. A chronic alcoholic’s liver can burn out and no longer metabolize alcohol, or anything else, efficiently. This is known as alcoholic cirrhosis. In alcoholic cirrhosis, the liver cells become badly scarred. This scarring has the effect of blocking blood flow through the liver, impeding exchange of metabolic chemicals into and out of the liver cells and damaging the cells ability to function.

Alcohol and Appetite

Many Americans begin a meal with an alcoholic beverage when dining out. One of the first questions a server asks is, “Can I get you something to drink?” The combination of alcohol and a high-Calorie meal is especially fattening, because alcohol stimulates appetite. One study showed an aperitif (an alcoholic drink taken before a meal to increase the appetite) increased Calorie intake to a greater extent than carbohydrate-based drinks.