The allure of an ice cold frosty glass of wine is difficult to refuse for many, especially after a stressful day at work or when the kids have been driving you mad all day. With 78% of women in the UK drinking alcohol every week, 16% of whom drink more than the recommended 14 units and 4% drinking more than 35 units a week, for men these numbers of just slightly higher for each, it is clear that most Brits do enjoy a tipple or two.
Most people know that alcohol contains a lot of calories and when you are trying to lose weight you should consider the amount of alcohol you are consuming. With a large glass of wine containing around 228 calories, a pint of beer 182 calories and a single measure of spirit around 60 calories (remember you are probably pouring yourself 2 or 3 measures at home!), it can be one of the easiest ways to drop hundreds of calories from your diet. But calories are not the only way alcohol makes you fatter!
Alcohol interferes with normal metabolic pathways including fat burn, which can lead to fat accumulation in your body.
While alcohol contains less calories than Fat, alcohol is your body's preferred fuel source, which means you must burn off all your alcohol calories before you start burning calories from the food you eat, thus inhibiting your fat burn.
Alcohol's ability to inhibit your fat burn is by way of two mechanisms in your body, both which involve the creation of an excess of NADH, a compound produced from alcohol.
NADH can be used to make new fatty acids and glycerol, a simple sugar, or it can enter the electron transport chain, where it is used as energy, displacing fat metabolism and directly blocking the normal fat-burning process in your body. This blockage can result in a fatty liver, fat buildup in the blood and an increased risk for a heart attack.
To give you an idea of how much activity is required to burn off popular alcoholic drinks here's a quick low down:-
A regular (175ml) glass of wine = 16 minutes of running
A Pint of Lager = 18 minutes of running
A single measure of spirit = 6 minutes of running
You can use this calculator on the Drinkaware website to see how many calories your alcohol of choice contains and what activity it takes to burn it off.
As you can see, although drinking alcohol in small amounts shouldn't be a problem, if you drink high volumes often, your body will burn less of the fat it has already has and more and more fat will accumulate while it burns off any alcohol that you consume. Along with the negative health affects of drinking too much alcohol, if you are trying to lose weight, alcohol should definitely be on your list of things to reduce.