Lose Weight - DRINK MORE BEER

[bobukbrewer]

My GP told me I had to lose weight so I did some research. A 1 litre carton of orange juice has 470 kcals.
A 4% beer has around 350 kcals. I used to drink 2 pints of 50/50 orange juice every night, ie 1 pint of orange juice which is approx 200 kcals. So I made a batch of 1.2% beer which contains approx 117 kcals per litre.
So drinking 2 pints of that costs me 133 kcals.

So my question is - I normally drink 200 ml of orange juice with my breakfast (94 kcals) , so should I instead drink 1 pint of 1.2% beer (67 kcals).

 

[-Bezza-]

I like the logic!

I've been doing a bit of research on nutrition recently (I'm a skinny guy with a fatty belly, which is just annoying, so wanted to sort that out) and it's quite an interesting topic once you start looking at it. There's probably a load of quack nonsense online but it would seem that, unfortunately, not all calories are created equal and if you are trying to control calories you should try not to "waste" them on poor quality items. The orange juice would probably be a better use of your calories, especially if it has bits (fibre does wonders for you and you can't get too much of it), than beer which contains very little goodness. That said, fruit juice in general isn't an ideal thing to be drinking as it contains a lot of carbohydrates in the form of simple sugars. This causes an insulin spike a bit later which makes you feel hungry and so you go and eat more. Sugary carbs along with fibre is the better option where possible, so eating fresh fruit is much better than fruit juice. Better off having a glass of water and eating an orange!

Alcohol also seems to be a funny one diet-wise. The human body really doesn't like alcohol so will prioritise its digestion over-and-above anything else it may be trying to digest. So if you drink on an empty stomach, when you do eat, a lot of the goodness that is in your food isn't actually processed properly and you end up with very nutritious poo.

All said, there's the psychological advantage of having beer for breakfast that will set you in good spirits for the rest of the day. And ultimately the long-term aim is that happiness should come before healthiness in my eyes. It's striking the balance between the now and the future because I can imagine it would be pretty miserable seeing the end of my life out in poor health, beer or no beer.

 

[Graz]

Funny how years back fruit juice was considered a healthy thing to be having, possibly even daily with your breakfast. But now because of the whole sugar is bad for you thing and this has a lot of it in that it's not encouraged now. Of course none of this is rocket science, just be aware of what your eating and consume stuff in moderation i.e. the odd biscuit throughout the week is fine but demolishing a whole packet of chocolate Hob Nobs with your tea is not so good.

 

[MickDundee]

A beer only diet is the future:
https://patch.com/ohio/cincinnati/drinking-only-beer-during-lent-cincinnati-man-loses-25-pounds

 

[phildo79]

A beer only diet is the future:
https://patch.com/ohio/cincinnati/drinking-only-beer-during-lent-cincinnati-man-loses-25-pounds

This intrigues me. I dare say it is more difficult than this bloke makes out though. Imagine quaffing a delicious IPA and someone offers you some salt 'n' vinegar peanuts. That's a true test of willpower right there.

 

[An Ankoù]

My GP told me I had to lose weight so I did some research. A 1 litre carton of orange juice has 470 kcals.
A 4% beer has around 350 kcals. I used to drink 2 pints of 50/50 orange juice every night, ie 1 pint of orange juice which is approx 200 kcals. So I made a batch of 1.2% beer which contains approx 117 kcals per litre.
So drinking 2 pints of that costs me 133 kcals.

So my question is - I normally drink 200 ml of orange juice with my breakfast (94 kcals) , so should I instead drink 1 pint of 1.2% beer (67 kcals).

The Malt Miller (and no doubt others) does an enzyme: NBS Amyloglucosidase 300 Enzyme, which will reduce all the polysaccharides to fermentables. Your beer won't taste the same, it'll be stronger, and it'll have less body, but at least the only carbohydrate you'll have to worry about is alcohol, which, as Bezza points out, is metabolised first.

 

[Clint]

Breakfast Stout! Bingo!

 

[BeerCat]

+1 for gluco 300. A 1035 wort will give you a 4.5% beer.

 

[phildo79]

A beer only diet is the future:
https://patch.com/ohio/cincinnati/drinking-only-beer-during-lent-cincinnati-man-loses-25-pounds

So I decided to give this diet a try, out of curiosity and the desire to quickly shift some unwanted lbs. Started on Monday. After 1 day, I lost 4 lbs. After 2 days, I lost 7 lbs in total. I have decided not to continue with it though as I really haven't looked into it properly and have no idea about the possible health risks.

Some points of note though:
The hunger pangs weren't as great as you might imagine.
Nipping out for a lunch time pint did actually help me yesterday.
The novelty of drinking beer every day was starting to fade as early as 2 days in.
Hunger aside, I actually missed the act of chewing food.

I was very tempted to continue on with this, at least for another few days, until I read this article which was dug out for me by The Wife - https://nypost.com/2019/04/02/fruit-juice-diet-sends-woman-to-the-hospital-with-brain-damage/

Put me off a bit.

 

[-Bezza-]

After 1 day, I lost 4 lbs. After 2 days, I lost 7 lbs in total

It would be interesting to understand how than panned out longer term. I wonder whether a lot of the initial weight loss was, how shall we say, "digestive bulk" that was being purged from your system as opposed to your unwanted pounds which will be stored as fat.

 

[phildo79]

There is a fella on youtube that is doing this diet. He's about 30 days into the 40+ days plan. He's lost about 27 lbs already and is checking his BMI as he goes. He reckons almost all of his weight loss has been fat.

 

[-Bezza-]

There is a fella on youtube that is doing this diet. He's about 30 days into the 40+ days plan. He's lost about 27 lbs already and is checking his BMI as he goes. He reckons almost all of his weight loss has been fat.

Longer-term I could see that being the case. If the body isn't digesting enough calories from what you're consuming, it'll start using up the fat reserves. The principle would be what the cabbage soup diet is based upon. I assume there's also something to say if you are only getting liquid calories, these pass through your body quicker and so your body isn't actually extracting all the calories from it.

 

[bobukbrewer]

So I may add licorice to my 1.2% beer...........

 

[Kenboy]

I do intermittent fasting where I eat one or mostly two meals a day.

The key thing is calorie deficit. If you want to lose weight, make sure you consume less than you burn.

Thinking about where your calories come from is also important. I'm not fat or overweight, but I'm very active. I do it to look ripped and have a low body fat percentage and healthy lifestyle. I still get to drink beer, eat cakes and eat burgers. A diet should be fun and something you enjoy, or you will fail and quit fast. I enjoy beer so why would I want to not drink it!

Happy days.

I eat about 1600-1800 calories a day but I burn between 2100-3500 depending on my gym days

 

[nottsbl]

I do intermittent fasting where I eat one or mostly two meals a day.

The key thing is calorie deficit. If you want to lose weight, make sure you consume less than you burn.

Thinking about where your calories come from is also important. I'm not fat or overweight, but I'm very active. I do it to look ripped and have a low body fat percentage and healthy lifestyle. I still get to drink beer, eat cakes and eat burgers. A diet should be fun and something you enjoy, or you will fail and quit fast. I enjoy beer so why would I want to not drink it!

Happy days.

I eat about 1600-1800 calories a day but I burn between 2100-3500 depending on my gym days

I assume this calorific intake is just when you are in diet mode? Serious question - I was a fat kid and I've been struggling with my weight all my life (I'm a pensioner now - still struggling!). I do find that drinking beer destroys any possibility of losing weight. Maybe the diff is your exercising.

 

[nottsbl]

if so, its a helluva diff - beer, cakes and burgers and 1600-1800- cals per day. and ripped. the book will make an international fortune? ("The all burger, cake and ale diet"!)

 

[-Bezza-]

I assume this calorific intake is just when you are in diet mode? Serious question - I was a fat kid and I've been struggling with my weight all my life (I'm a pensioner now - still struggling!). I do find that drinking beer destroys any possibility of losing weight. Maybe the diff is your exercising.

I too have been doing some intermittent fasting recently, and then just generally keeping an eye on my eating otherwise. My general routine is something like this:

Monday - Fast
Tuesday - Healthy eating, go for a run
Wednesday - Fast
Thursday - Healthy eating, go for a run
Friday - Healthy eating in the day. Go easy in the evening but have a few drinks
Saturday / Sunday - No rules. No guilt.

On all the weekdays, I try to keep within a slight calorie deficit, around 250 calories under, but invariably I'll be a little under that too. On Fridays, I try to make sure I've balanced the calorie intake with the amount I have burnt. I use an app on my phone to track things. In the 5-6 weeks I've been doing this, I've lost about 4kg / 9lb which has come off my slightly podgy gut (I'm not fat but carry just a little too much around the middle).

But there are two things in play here - the fasting and the calorie deficit. You don't have to do the calorie deficit part so don't need to do the exercise, and should still lose some weight.

I've linked the video that started it all off for me that explains a bit more (I neither look like that bloke, nor would I want to). The point to note is that it allegedly burns fat without burning muscle (I wouldn't know about the muscle part as I don't have any!!) and you can eat a normal diet in the time that you're not fasting, i.e. you just eat a day's worth of food in the 8 hours after you have finished fasting. Alcohol is not banned but there's a little rule about not drinking on an empty stomach and just allowing your food to digest a bit before drinking - again, not tricky. You can also do some smarter things around avoiding consuming carbs and fats at the same time but I've found that's a little harder in practice and interferes with my life too much, so I don't bother.

The fasting thing isn't actually that difficult to achieve. You just go 16 hours without eating - sounds like a long time but you'll be asleep for half of that. In practice, you have your dinner and then stop eating until lunch the next day - no calories allowed in during that time, so only black coffee, black tea (no milk, no sugar) and water. The first few times you do it, you feel a little hungry and can feel a bit light-headed by lunchtime but it soon passes. It's amazing how much the water can sustain you through the day.

 

[bobukbrewer]

its cabbage, leek and celery soup for me mondays and thursdays - almost no salted peanuts and my beers are 1.2%, 2.3% and 2.7% - beware the sugat in orange juice and tomato juice...........

 

[Dave H]

Slightly off topic but I’m interested in brewing some low alc pale ale. I’ve just made a “cold extraction” brew that will be about 1.5%. How do you achieve this and how does it taste?

 

[bobukbrewer]

500 gm Light DME in 4 gals well hopped is a good starting point..........