Is it ok to drink zero sugar wine while trying to lose weight?

I drank some alcohol during weight loss, though not much, since it's calorie dense and I value getting reasonable overall nutrition, which is already more challenging on reduced calories. I've drunk somewhat more alcohol in the 9+ years of maintenance since, with more calories available now for various calorie-dense but nutrient-sparse foods. Anytime I've logged the alcohol calories, plus not let it keep me from accurately logging food, sticking to calorie goal, or being normally active, my bodyweight has behaved as predicted.

Obviously, allocating lots of calories to alcohol isn't a superb health choice, but you didn't suggest you were going to drink lots of wine. Also, I suspect that getting most of one's calorie intake from alcohol could have different effects on body weight than small amounts of alcohol alongside generally adequate nutrition.

Generically, I don't see why there would be meaningful difference between sugar-free wine and regular wine, in terms of its effect on weight loss. Sugar is much-demonized in some some parts of the weight loss and health blogosphere. For someone without a relevant health condition, the key issue in reality would seem to be avoiding eating so much sugar that a person either drives calories above a reasonable level in order to get the sugar plus needed nutrition, or short-changes other nutrition in order to stick with reasonable calories while eating that much sugar. Sugar calories aren't as special as some claim, IMO. AFAIK, the health conditions that require careful attention to sugar/carb intake would also dictate careful attention to alcohol intake.

I don't think I've ever had sugar-free wine. It seems like it wouldn't taste very good, but that's a prejudice, not an observation. If you like it, it doesn't matter what I think.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

I don't think I've ever had sugar-free wine. It seems like it wouldn't taste very good, but that's a prejudice, not an observation. If you like it, it doesn't matter what I think.

Haahaa yeah, i'm a bit of a wine snob, I must admit - as soon as a wine has a purpose other than tasting as amazing as possible, I'm immediately not keen.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Alatariel75 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

I don't think I've ever had sugar-free wine. It seems like it wouldn't taste very good, but that's a prejudice, not an observation. If you like it, it doesn't matter what I think.

Haahaa yeah, i'm a bit of a wine snob, I must admit - as soon as a wine has a purpose other than tasting as amazing as possible, I'm immediately not keen.

Yeah, I'm definitely a hedonist, in this and other ways. I'm also not passionate about reducing sugar, though I know some people want to work really hard at doing that, presumably for good reasons. Given that some lower sugar types of regular wine have maybe only around 1-3 grams of sugar per 5-ounce pour, no-sugar wine doesn't really attract me. I'd sample it out of curiosity if presented, but I'm not motivated to buy a bottle.

During weight loss, I wasn't going to routinely drink lots of 5-ounce pours in a day anyway, because of the negative impact on satiety and nutrition on the one hand, or calorie goal on the other. Other people may have different tradeoffs.

Thinking purely in calorie terms, that approximate 1-3g sugar per 5 ounces is 4-12 calories. Meh.

The alcohol in that glass, at maybe 10% ABV on average, is going to be about half an ounce of pure alcohol. Without a specific gravity for alcohol of about 0.789, I'm thinking half an ounce of alcohol is just a touch over 11 grams, so at roughly 7 calories per gram we'd be looking at maybe 77 calories from the alcohol (which IMO technically is poison, just a fun one), as compared to the 12 calories from sugar (which although overconsumed culturally isn't IMO technically inherently poison). If I did that math right - which I don't always do - I'm not going to worry about the sugar, if I decide to have the wine.

But that's just me. Yup, calorie-arithmetic nerd.

Very very good point and details! I just had a look, and the calorie difference between 0 sugar wine and normal wine is really pretty negligible.