Tips and Tricks for Drinking Moderately

This site contributing to how much people crave beer needs to be acknowledged.

 

I’d love it if breweries and bars posted a “standard drinks” conversion on all bottles/cans/tap handles. I will happily do the math myself, but a lot of folks don’t. Obesity, diabetes, poor liver function, depression, and loneliness are all major problems in America and alcohol consumption contributes mightily to each of them. It’s worth while for people to be aware of how much they are drinking. People need to see just how much they are drinking if they are to begin considering cutting back.

The fantasy world many here are living in is dangerous. I wish we lived in a society that could just tell the truth. I think beer advocate could help tell more truths about alcohol.

“Alcohol is poison and will put your ass in the ground hard. It’s also a lot of fucking fun. So be smart. Here’s some info to help you be smart and here’s some info (inset helpful info) if you’re having a hard time with alcohol (inset helpful info).”

 

For me it usually has the opposite effect and if I have a particular craving I can come here, read a few reviews and look at some pics, and it passes. I am not a morning and throughout the day drinker, though, as alcohol (and beer even more so) can do some odd things to my body so I have to be mindful.

I have noticed that lower ABV and/or low cal/low carb beers are quite enjoyable to me now and work well for when I want a beer or two. The benefits are I am not getting too buzzed and I don't feel like I wrecked some of my work throughout the day. Yes, I could probably have one higher ABV beer instead but now they are starting to feel too heavy and one isn't always enough to satisfy my craving (mostly because I like to have different styles in a sitting) but than two is too much.

 

Dude, you nailed it. This is how I have done it in the past as well. It basically encourages binge drinking and eating for me. What's the point of being good all week only to destroy the progress you made? I'm doing a fitness program at the moment and am abstaining from alcohol for a while. I have to make a conscious effort to not go back to binge drinking. What I plan to do different is allow myself to have up to 1 drink per day during the week. If I have room for the calories why not? That way once friday comes, I don't feel like I have to go ham and "catch-up" because I have 12 beers in the fridge and only 2-3 days to drink them.

My problem is not so much the addiction of the alcohol itself, it's the desire to "tick" my wants. I get excited when I have a new beer to try, because I like completing all these crazy BA lists. I get obsessive with it. I'm fine in social settings because I'm fine with subbing beer with 0.0 brews or seltzer etc. I also am going to be more open to drinking just half a beer, if it totally doesn't blow my mind. I hate waste, but if I'm going to waste something it's better to waste "poison" than actual nutritious food.

I'll check in once I start bringing alcohol back into my diet, but that won't be until mid april.

 

Are you talking about BMR? When I was in college studying exercise science, basal metabolic rate was estimated that we burn 0.08-1.2 cal per min. Are you saying they have changed this? It has been close to 15 years since I have graduated.

 

Great post. I generally stay away from NA beers (there are some decent ones) because you still have to deal with empty calories. Empty calories + no alcohol + reduced flavor isn't very appealing to me. I usually do club soda/lime over ice if I'm doing NA.

 

This is what I was doing occasionally also when doing the only Fri-Sun thing. And on top of that I was not always eating the best foods because I was good all week there too and wanted a treat(s)...add up those weekend calories per week and then per month and I was barely maintaining yet alone progressing and that was with really busting my behind. And like you mentioned I would do a mix a six of all new beers and would be excited to try them all and just like that, three+ gone in one sitting. I couldn't even imagine doing that now

 

I think calorie counts should be posted on menus as well, much like what some restaurants do with food. It absolutely has an effect on what I order to a certain extent.

 

100%. Calories, ingredients, and standard drink equivalents or, at the very least the ABV (which shockingly is not listed on many cans/bottles) should be on everything. I recognize that many members of the brewery/bar/restaurant/hospitality/tourism industries would likely oppose such measures, but oh well.

 

Speaking of ingredients, do others think about this now as often as I do? With the U.S. wine industry starting to face some criticism for what it adds to wine I think we may have similar things going on in the beer industry (if nothing else GMO items that some of us may be trying to avoid otherwise). I've noticed Michelob Ultra is starting to push the Organic piece with its Pure Gold (I am actually a big fan of the Ultra lineup btw).

 

Businesses will cut corners to make a profit. We all know this. The more transparency in the process of production, distribution, etc., the better. Even if breweries are squeaky clean in terms of what goes into their cans/bottles/kegs, people still have the right to know the ingredients.

 

Unfortunately craft beer is going the opposite direction with gmo yeast being celebrated. There is at least one yeast company producing gmo yeast that they brand "thiolized" yeast, designed to enhance fruity hop flavors, and at least some craft breweries have advertised the "thiolized" aspect without making any mention of the modified organisms involved

 

I wonder if that is what I tasted last night?

New Beer Weekend #137

 

It's quite possible, and that's sort of what it sounds like. Unfortunately there's no real way to know since there are no labeling requirements

 

What I meant was that it was once thought at a pound of muscle burned about 50 extra calories per day at rest. More recent research indicates it's more like 6-10 calories per pound per day. So gaining even five pounds of muscle won't significantly affect RMR. That said, everyone should still strength train as part of their overall fitness program.

 

and yet so many of them tend to look awesome naked. Maybe fewer than ever with the rise of the flabby sedentary body type, but I've always found the human form pretty aesthetically pleasing

 

Ah yeah, I see what you mean.

Fat stores were a crucial survival tool for everyone's ancestors that didn't come from the tropics. Our culture has a lot of work to do around that relationship, we tend to deify a mostly unobtainable and unhealthy goal of zero body fat and also have an exploding issue with people in the population who have an extreme excess of body fat.

It feels to me like those extremes are related to each other somehow

 

Yeah, having a weight goal has worked well for me. I walk a lot (6-8 miles a day). Walking burns about 100 calories per mile. So if I want to maintain weight and I drank a 16 ounce 7.5% beer (about 300 calories) last night, I'd have to walk 3 miles to burn that off. (That's depressing, but there you have it.)
Granted, that's just a weight-control based strategy and it ignores all the other health-related effects of drinking alcohol, but if you're serious about maintaining/decreasing your weight, it gives you a quantitative basis for achieving your goals.
I use the (outdated but convenient) correlation of 3500 calories equaling one pound (ie, if you increase your caloric consumption by 3500 calories you'll gain a pound; you increase your daily exercise to create a caloric deficit and you'll eventually lose a pound). I've lost 30 pounds since 2019 (COVID) without changing my drinking habits.
Hint: get a dog.