After a long day it?s good to look forward to a drink, isn?t it? A cool beer goes down a treat. Contemplating the day sipping a glass of wine is very enjoyable. Alcohol has the effect of making us relax, and we all need time to think over the day and to have a time to wind down. Alcohol also changes our mood. Slowly we begin to feel better. The drama of the day starts to seem trivial and unimportant ? at least until we begin to drink too much ? things then become very different indeed. Reality has the habit of becoming even more real and our take on this new reality tends to be distorted. The unimportant gets a new lease of life and confusion reigns. Come the middle of the night, we wake to find all our troubles lined up in front of us each one bigger and more terrible than it was before. When we chose to drink alcohol and we should expect to suffer the consequences.
We make choices based on our likes and dislikes. We choose to do something because we have facts that influence our decision, but we sometimes make some bizarre choices and stupid decisions. In fact, it's said that most of us take decisions based on 5% of the available information. No wonder we get ourselves into a mess.
Are we well informed about alcohol? We know what it feels like to have too much or to be drunk. We know that it can be very enjoyable, but do we really know what its effects are? For example, does alcohol make you put on weight? Should you drink alcohol when you?re trying to lose weight?
The most important thing to realize with alcohol is that it contains a lot of calories ? which is probably why people believe it makes you fat. Alcohol is a nutrient like, protein, fat and carbohydrate, and as such it provides us with energy, lots of it. It contains nearly the same number of calories per gram as fat. Fat has 9 and alcohol has 7. Protein and carbohydrate have 4.
The problem with alcohol is that the energy it supplies cannot be stored by the body. The reason is that it contains no carbohydrate. Unable to store the energy, the body converts the alcohol into something called acetate.
The energy the alcohol provides isn?t wasted, in fact the body uses it first. It actually uses it in preference to the energy that has already been stored away as glucose and fat. So to say that alcohol makes you fat is not correct. What it does do is to prevent you from losing weight because it uses ?acetate energy? in preference to your stored energy which is a very different thing.
The truth is that alcohol doesn't make you put on weight, it prevents you from losing it. If you're trying to lose weight then you should also be aware that alcohol stimulates your appetite. If you're trying to lose weight the last thing you need is a stimulated appetite. It also removes inhibitions and melts your resolve... 'one more cookie won't hurt' and you're on the way to trashing all your efforts to lose weight.
If you can get into the habit of not drinking alcohol you will be doing your weight loss efforts a lot of good. If you want a positive outcome to your weight loss program, it?s worth the effort to either stop drinking alcohol or to reduce the amount you drink. You can be slim. All you have to do is make sure all your habits are good ones. - 15343
We make choices based on our likes and dislikes. We choose to do something because we have facts that influence our decision, but we sometimes make some bizarre choices and stupid decisions. In fact, it's said that most of us take decisions based on 5% of the available information. No wonder we get ourselves into a mess.
Are we well informed about alcohol? We know what it feels like to have too much or to be drunk. We know that it can be very enjoyable, but do we really know what its effects are? For example, does alcohol make you put on weight? Should you drink alcohol when you?re trying to lose weight?
The most important thing to realize with alcohol is that it contains a lot of calories ? which is probably why people believe it makes you fat. Alcohol is a nutrient like, protein, fat and carbohydrate, and as such it provides us with energy, lots of it. It contains nearly the same number of calories per gram as fat. Fat has 9 and alcohol has 7. Protein and carbohydrate have 4.
The problem with alcohol is that the energy it supplies cannot be stored by the body. The reason is that it contains no carbohydrate. Unable to store the energy, the body converts the alcohol into something called acetate.
The energy the alcohol provides isn?t wasted, in fact the body uses it first. It actually uses it in preference to the energy that has already been stored away as glucose and fat. So to say that alcohol makes you fat is not correct. What it does do is to prevent you from losing weight because it uses ?acetate energy? in preference to your stored energy which is a very different thing.
The truth is that alcohol doesn't make you put on weight, it prevents you from losing it. If you're trying to lose weight then you should also be aware that alcohol stimulates your appetite. If you're trying to lose weight the last thing you need is a stimulated appetite. It also removes inhibitions and melts your resolve... 'one more cookie won't hurt' and you're on the way to trashing all your efforts to lose weight.
If you can get into the habit of not drinking alcohol you will be doing your weight loss efforts a lot of good. If you want a positive outcome to your weight loss program, it?s worth the effort to either stop drinking alcohol or to reduce the amount you drink. You can be slim. All you have to do is make sure all your habits are good ones. - 15343
About the Author:
Henry John is a well known authorand commentator on diet and weight loss and has a particular interest in behavior change and its role in achieving permanent weight loss. Learn more about how to lose weight permanently. Click here
