Alcoholic beverages contain sugar and calories, which can make it difficult to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight and affect your overall health. Not all drinks are the same, some contain more calories than a meal but with little or no nutritional value.
Two glasses of wine may contain more calories than a McDonald’s hamburger. Mixed cocktails are the highest in calories; a piña colada can have more than 500 calories.
If you are trying to lose weight and watch what you eat and drink, then you’ll want to opt for alcoholic beverages that are less loaded with sugar and lower in calories.
Alcoholic beverages with less sugar and calories
Light beer. A light beer of 12 oz (355 ml) has about 100-110 calories. Currently, there is also super light carb-free beer on the US market that contains 80 calories.
A traditional beer has approximately 150 calories. Craft beers are usually higher in calories.
Distilled alcohol. One 1.5-ounce drink of gin, tequila, vokda, rum, or whiskey (30 ml) 45% of alcohol has 97 calories, according to data from Medline Plus, medical encyclopedia of the National Library of Medicine.
Among the lowest calorie cocktails is the mimosa, in 4 oz there can be 45 calories or more; and Cubalibre prepared with low-calorie soda, in 8 oz there may be 100 calories or more.
Increase in waist and weight
Calories from alcoholic beverages can add up quickly and favor an increase in abdominal fat . “Alcohol intake is associated with larger waistlines, because when you drink alcohol, your liver burns alcohol instead of fat,” endocrinology expert and obesity researcher Dr. Michael Jensen tells webMD.
The UK National Health Service (NHS) notes that alcohol contains a lot of calories: 7 calories per gram, which is almost as much as a gram of fat.
The NHS explains that many drinks are made from natural starch and sugar . Fermentation and distillation of certain beverages are used to produce the alcohol content.
One way to reduce alcohol consumption is to plan ahead and have no more than 1 alcoholic drink each time; sipping water between drinks. It is also suggested not to drink on an empty stomach.
“If you are drinking white wine, why not add a splash of sparkling water to help the same number of units last longer?” advises the NHS.
In the United States, moderate alcohol consumption is equivalent to up to one drink a day for women and up to two drinks for men. A standard drink is 12 ounces of beer regular (5% alcohol), 5 ounces of wine (12 % of alcohol) and 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits (approx. 35% of alcohol).
You may be interested:
–10 ways alcohol affects your body
–Just one beer a day can reduce the size of your brain, reveals a new study
–Diabetes and alcohol: the consequences of drinking alcoholic beverages without controlling blood sugar okay
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