A lot of people do this resolution thing at the beginning of each new year - a lot of times with mixed results. I generally don't do well at 'cutting back'. I do better when I find a class of food that I can completely cut out. A few years ago I cut out all sweetened tea and sweetened drinks and lost 40 pounds over the course of about 6 months. If anything was ever easy weight loss, that was.
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Well, toward the end of last year I took a look at how much alcohol I drink. I am by no means alcoholic. According to the studies, two beers per night is a healthy dose for an adult male. That 2-beer level is about the point in the studies that ETOH has the greatest blood-pressure and cardiac risk lowering effect. Beyond that it tends to raise blood pressure and cardiac risk.
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So, I average about 2 drinks a night - sometimes a couple more - sometimes none - and this has been my daily dose for a long time. But here's the shocker - 2 beers per night over the course of a year is right at 100,000 calories! That's one hundred thousand calories.
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That is equivalent to 28.5 pounds of fat calories that I have been having to expend to keep from getting fatter, and as I get older I can see the point in the future where I would lose that battle completely.
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As I said earlier, I don't do well at cutting back on anything, so I just made my resolution for this year to drink nothing but water - no tea - no coffee, no alcohol - no flavored water - only clear H20. For the first week or so I had a caffeine headache (I drink far more coffee than beer) but so far I haven't missed the alcohol at all. What I have missed is the green tea. But I'm getting used to it and it looks like it won't be a very hard resolution to keep.
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Anyone out there want to do this H20 only resolution with me and see what cutting out 100000 calories over the course of the next year does for us?
I'm kinda doing the same. Water is now my primary drink, although I will have juice or a soda a couple of times a month.
ReplyDeleteIt makes a huge difference. I lost 40 lbs. a few years ago doing almost the same thing!
good luck.
Sorry. You're on your own on this one. It's not that I'm that attached to my Samuel Adams--I probably drink less than a case a year--but I drink my coffee and green tea plain anyway, they've got antioxidants that I want, and you just wouldn't like me without them anyway.
ReplyDeleteAnd I just don't have that much weight to lose, anyway.
Not only do I have weight to lose, SB, but I have a lot of weight to not gain. 28 pounds per year is a lot of lard and it gets harder and harder to stay ahead of that lardslide!
ReplyDeleteYou could get the antioxidants from vitamin C and dark chocolate...
Also, I figure it's just a year ... If I don't like it, I probably have between 40 and 60 more years to drink whatever I want ;-)
Beer?! This is madness.
ReplyDeleteActually for Lent, several times I have given up alcohol several times.
Ok, sounds good. Nothing but water. Im sure its do-able.
ReplyDeleteHa! Give up MARTINIS?
ReplyDeleteNooooooooooooooooooo!
When you drink a beer or two, do you really know how many calories you are consuming? Aside from light beers, there are no nutritional analysis statements on your favorite brew...until now.
ReplyDelete"Does My BUTT Look BIG In This BEER? Nutritional Values of 2,000 Worldwide Beers" will change the way you look at beer.
My data came from nutritiondata.com
ReplyDeleteAccording to them, 12 oz of Budweiser is 146 kcal (which is slightly below average for regular beers).
2 of those per night for a year is about 109000kcal. If you assume that you drink a Bud Light (110kcal) sometimes, that drops the calorie total to around 100000kcal/year
I don't know Pat;
ReplyDeleteA fast-track to sobriety just doesn't sound healthy to me... <;-)
D.R.
I just lost a few pounds while fighting off the flu. I need to pound some beerage to get back up to weight!
ReplyDeleteIt's a good thing that you have proved it by yourself that drinking 2 beers per night, really does contribute a lot of calories to the body. Moreover, you better stick to drinking natural water because it replenishes the body with the lost fluids, unlike beer that doesn't.
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