Bottoms up

by Owen Jones | 3:15 am 28/06/2010

Following the frenetic fortnight-long O-Week (go figure that one out), you may be feeling as though you’ve skipped a meal or two, and are wondering why your new skinny jeans are now uncomfortably tight. Well, our favourite drug of all – alcohol – also happens to be the only drug that is also a nutrient. By nutrient I mean that alcohol contains calories. Yup, gram for gram, alcohol has almost double the calories of protein or carbohydrate, and is nearing the slippery evils of fat in its butt-expanding power.

So, how much energy is in your average beer, wine, or RTD? About the equivalent of half a sandwich, or a tablespoon of oil. This may not sound like much, but if you drink a six-pack in an evening, you might as well have added three sandwiches to your daily food intake, or drunk a third of a cup of oil. Eeek, now we are starting to see where the term ‘beer belly’ comes from. Slurp down a bottle of wine with your dinner and you may as well have had the starter and rich dessert instead.

But, you may be thinking, eating is cheating, so I don’t need to worry about extra calories from alcohol. True, binge drinking may lead to you skipping dinner, but it also increases your chances of nibbling on fattening party snacks, wolfing down a dodgy kebab at 2 am, and subjecting your body to a day of greasy hangover munchies. Needless to say, you probably ain’t gonna be hitting the gym the next day either. 

For those of you sold on the new low-carbohydrate beer range in an effort to keep that beer gut at bay, you’re suckers! The calories in alcoholic drinks mainly come from the alcohol, not the carbohydrate, and in fact normal beer contains minimal amounts of carbohydrate anyway. Low-carb beer has only around 15 percent fewer calories than normal beer, and I reckon a 50% percent flavour reduction too. If you really want a beer that is gonna add less to your gut try a low-alcohol one (warning – these taste even worse than low-carb beers). A low-calorie alternative to RTDs is to drink a single shot of spirit in a glass of diet soft drink.

A recent review of the ‘freshman weight-gain phenomenon’ found that US university students gained around 0.7 to 3.1 kilograms in their first year, and alcohol was believed to be a contributing factor. So, what’s the best way to avoid that far-from-delicious-looking muffin-top from erupting over your waistband, to keep that hairy beer gut monster from bursting out of your t-shirt, and to keep your fat bottom trapped inside skinny jeans? Just remember that alcohol isn’t only a legal and cheap party drug, it’s also a significant calorie source, and don’t drink so much that you can’t manage a work out the next day to burn off those extra calories.

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