Hanging out to dry
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Like many people, I enjoy the occasional drink but unfortunately alcohol and losing weight are opposites. So starting yesterday, I’m going dry for the next month, which is going to be tough as I really enjoy my Friday night beers and the occasional dose of absinthe.
Most alcoholic beverages are high in sugar which is something us weight lossers try to avoid but that’s not the worst of it when it comes to drinking. Alcohol inhibits your body’s ability to burn calories, meaning a couple of beers with dinner actually raises the effective number of calories you’ve just eaten.
Also, as Dr Brian Wansink notes in Mindless Eating, consuming alcohol inhibits both your memory of how much you have eaten and the signals to your brain that you are full. So really, a few beers or wines with a meal is a triple whammy for calories: you will likely overeat, the drinks are high in sugar, and they cause you to burn fewer calories than normal.
There is of course the added bonus of saving a bit of money, alcohol is expensive, especially when you like craft beers or extremely high alcohol spirits containing psychoactive chemicals. But for at least the next month, that won’t be a problem for me.
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