Sensible Eating : Wine and Beer
Holiday season is here, it is also party time. Drinks at the parties like ice cold beers, colorful cocktails, and a variety of wines are dancing around for your attention. How tempting is that glistening beverage?
A glass of wine, about 5oz, or a can or beer, has about 90-140 calories. Therefore, if you only drink occasionally, and you are not pregnant or trying to conceive, and you are not planning to drive, nor if you are taking any medication or have any liver or heart disease, you can try to fit that drink into your diet, carefully.
Many researches studied the benefits of red wine suggested that moderate amount of red wine lowers the risk of heart attack for people in middle age. Red wine is a particularly rich source of antioxidants, flavonoids which could increases HDL cholesterol and prevent blood clotting. So, what is mean by moderate amount? How much can you drink? The American Dietary Guidelines suggest only one drink a day for women, and two drinks a day for men. It’s also suggested that 2 days a week should be alcohol free. By one drink, we mean a 12 fl oz Regular Beer (5% alc.), 14 fl. Oz Light Beer (4.2% alc.), 5 fl oz of wine (12% alc.), or 1 ½ fl oz of Spirits (80 Proof). All of the above contains about 14 grams of alcohol. Note that each gram of alcohol contains 7 calories.
Nevertheless, if you never drink, it is not advised to start drinking because there are many other ways to increase HDL cholesterol and to protect your heart, and excessive alcohol intake is known to contribute to obesity, high blood pressure, high blood triglycerides, stroke, heart and liver disease, some cancers, and even impotence. Additionally alcohol tends to stimulate appetite and inhibit self-control making it harder for you to say no to those tempting high caloric treats during your weight loss plan.
Many enjoy drinking beer at the BBQ party or while watching sports on TV. One bottle or can of regular beer equals to one can of regular soda or 1 cup of pasta which is about 140 calories and 13 grams of carbohydrates. So, if you are trying to get rid of your big belly, you might want to consider switching to those lite beers.
Lite beer usually has 1/3 less calories than regular beer. Beer companies now promote Lite beer as low as 64 calories per 12oz bottle, that’s 40% less calories than average regular beer. If you drink one beer per day and you pick a regular beer over a lite beer, and you never do exercise to get rid of those extra beer calories, you will accumulate 15 lbs fat versus 7.3 lbs of fat from drinking the lite beer. In order words, no matter what you choose, try to watch for portion size (avoid those big mugs and jars!) AND, remember do some extra workouts after you drink to get rid of those calories which can turn into fat on your belly. If you are a 180 lbs Male, you will need to walk about 17 minutes for each bottle of regular beer you consume.
Do note that if you are concerned about weight, try to avoid Cocktail drinks. It is because the juice, soda, and syrup mixed with hard liquors add extra calories to the drink. Each drink can easily go up to over 200 to 300 calories. Watch out that if you choose to use diet soda to mix with you drinks, without those sugars, you save some calories, but, the alcohol can be absorbed into your bloodstream more easily.
Drink sensibly and do not mix drinking and driving!
Monday, December 01, 2008
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