The Truth About Weight Gain And Alcohol
by: HenryJohn |
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Most of us are pretty reluctant to give up something we like - or have got used to. We enjoy a beer or a glass of wine. Alcohol puts us in a good mood (in the beginning) and all our troubles seem less of a problem. It puts a gloss over the trivia of daily living and the world seems a better place. We feel we can cope with life. If we drink too much, the depressing effect that alcohol has, brings us down to earth with a bump, and we live in the land of regret for a while until the clouds pass over and reality stares us rudely in the face again. Whether we drink a lot or a little the choice is always ours - until the spectre of addiction appears, but that's another issue.
We make choices based on our likes and dislikes. We choose to do something because we have facts that influence our decision, but we sometimes make some bizarre choices and stupid decisions. In fact, it's said that most of us take decisions based on 5% of the available information. No wonder we get ourselves into a mess.
Let's take alcohol. We all think we know all about alcohol, after all we know what it feels like to enjoy it and what it means to have too much, but do we know what it does to our body? Do we really know if it makes us fat? It is a common belief that it does, but is it true?
The most important thing to realize with alcohol is that it contains a lot of calories - which is probably why people believe it makes you fat. Alcohol is a nutrient like, protein, fat and carbohydrate, and as such it provides us with energy, lots of it. It contains nearly the same number of calories per gram as fat. Fat has 9 and alcohol has 7. Protein and carbohydrate have 4.
The interesting thing about alcohol is that it contains no carbohydrate (apart from a few sweet drinks) which means that your body can't store the energy it provides. Faced with this dilemma it converts this new energy into something called acetate.
The energy the alcohol provides isn't wasted, in fact the body uses it first. It actually uses it in preference to the energy that has already been stored away as glucose and fat. So to say that alcohol makes you fat is not correct. What it does do is to prevent you from losing weight because it uses 'acetate energy' in preference to your stored energy which is a very different thing.
If you're trying to lose weight then you should also be aware that alcohol stimulates your appetite. If you're trying to lose weight the last thing you need is a stimulated appetite. It also removes inhibitions and melts your resolve... 'one more cookie won't hurt' and you're on the way to trashing all your efforts to lose weight.
Drinking alcohol can become a habit. If you want to lose weight then you should think of breaking that habit and learning a new one - a slim habit. A useful slim habit would be to either not drink alcohol at all or to get into the habit of drinking very little. If you do losing weight will become a whole lot easier.
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About the Author
Henry John is a well known author and commentator on diet and weight loss and has a particular interest in behavior change and its role in achieving permanent weight loss. Learn more about how to lose weight permanently. Click here.
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