Alcohol +++++ Calories????

In general, most alcoholic drinks are high in calories, but alongside this, they provide few other nutrients. This means your half bottle of wine each day is using up a significant block of calories from your daily dieting allowance but giving you little in the way of vitamins, minerals, protein or fiber – effectively, you’re getting around 250 ‘empty’ calories each day.

In contrast, spend that 250 calories on 5tbsp branflakes with skimmed milk and a small banana, and this meal would also provide you with 19 percent of your needs for protein, 34 percent for fibre, 21 percent for calcium and 56 percent for iron. In other words, you’d get a lot of other nutrients for those 250 calories. 

Half a bottle of wine (12 percent) in itself provides four units, which means you are currently exceeding the recommended limits for alcohol. For other drinks, one pint of normal strength lager (3-3.5 percent) contains 2 units, a 275ml bottle of alcopops (5.5 percent) contains 1.5 units and a single (25ml) measure of spirits like vodka, gin, whisky or brandy contains 1 unit.

You already know if you’re drinking too much so it’s now up to you to find ways to cut down.

Many slimmers find it helpful to avoid alcohol during the week and allow themselves a treat at weekends only. It’s also important to choose your drinks sensibly – both from a calorie and alcohol content point of view. For example, two single gin and slimline tonics provide ust 2 units of alcohol and 100 calories compared with two glasses of wine that provide 4 units of alcohol and 250 calories. Yet both take roughly the same amount of time to drink.

Tweet This Post