I have noticed two things about alcohol as I have been watching calories:
#1 - Alcohol has a lot of calories
A glass of wine has about 150 (a small glass of wine!), a bottle of beer between 150-200, a pint of beer 250+... so when you're trying to reduce your consumption these add up in a real hurry, even if you're just having one or two.
#2 - A drink or two makes me more likely to cheat on my diet and eat stupid calories
Lowered inhibition (and intelligence?) ... extra bowl of ice cream or helping of chips! Or cookies. Mmm, cookies.
But wait...
Imagine my surprised to find that there was a study that showed that women who drink tend to be thinner, and have lower rates of obesity!
Say what?
The only explanation I can think of is that it's actually the opposite - women who are thinner are more likely to have drinks bought for them! Maybe?
Ultimately, the only sure way to lose weight is to count the calories going in and make sure they're less than the ones going out. If the other tricks worked, we'd all be skinny by now... and if drinking worked I'd be VERY skinny!
3 comments:
"The only explanation I can think of is that it's actually the opposite - women who are thinner are more likely to have drinks bought for them! Maybe? "
From the article:
"The study involved 19,220 women over the age of 38 who were of normal weight."
So uh...no, I don't think your hypothesis is likely :)
Also from the article:
"The scientists controlled for a suite of obvious factors that could have separately contributed to the women's weight, such as age, smoking, physical activity and other lifestyle and behavioral habits. But even after accounting for these potential confounders, the link remained between higher alcohol consumption and a lower risk of being overweight or obese."
It doesn't say it explicitly but I wonder if they controlled for income? If you can afford two glasses of wine per day, you can also afford gym memberships and diet plans.
I'm thinking those women that drink but tend to be thinner watch how much they eat on the days they drink. Ever find you run into runners that don't drink that are judgemental about those that do?
I don't know very runners that don't drink... could be because I hang out with triathletes though! ;) Those people will eat anything.
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