So all alcoholic drinks contain a significant amount of calories per serve, and we often have a lot more than just one serve! But how much damage does this do for your weight loss efforts? Well, in an ideal dietary plan you'd reduce your calorie intake by 250-500 calories per day to achieve a good amount of healthy weight loss per week. If this is your target then you can easily see that 1-2 drinks per day puts pay to any good nutrition plan you might follow during the day. Simply said: 1-2 alcoholic drinks can seriously halt your weight loss.
Another way to look at the effect alcohol has on weight loss is to compare the equivalent time you would need to spend doing fitness training to burn these calories off! We'll assume someone has an average fitness level and is of average weight:
So you can see there's a lot of work to be done if you have a few (or more) drinks. Think of all the blood, sweat, tears, and hard work that can go into a great fitness session....and how easily it can be reversed by drinking alcohol. Also, alcohol contains no essential nutrients and reduces the absorption of Vitamins A, D, E, K, folate, B I, and B2. As well, alcohol does not contribute to muscle glycogen, so you may be left short on carbohydrates, which you need in order to train hard.
What about the calories in low carb beer?
Low carb beer has been very popular in the US, and some brands have been released onto the Australian market, but how much difference will a low carb beer make to your calorie intake? Will low carb beers help with weight loss? An example here is called 'Pure Blonde', made by Carlton Breweries:
Pure Blonde is a full strength beer (4.6 % ABV) that is not made in the US "lite beer" style. Pure Blonde retains a full flavoured, clean and crisp taste profile and is made in an easy drinking style. The combination of a great tasting beer and low-carb content is surely the answer many health and lifestyle conscious beer lovers have been seeking.
Sounds good, but does the beer live up to the marketing hype?! Pure Blonde contains 0.9 grams of carbohydrates per 100mL - a significant reduction to a standard full strength beer that on average contains around 20% more energy (usually 3g / 100mL). So you definitely save some energy intake by going low carb: approx 25 calories per drink.....but this really isn't much!
Why not? The energy in beer and other drinks is from the alcohol. You're MUCH better off going for light beers as the energy saved from the reduced alcohol content far outweighs the low cab idea. As I said, most of the calories in alcoholic drinks comes from the alcohol at 7 calories per ml, not sugar / carbs at all!
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