Are beer calories accurate?

My friend told me that the number of calories in beer is not that relevant, for some scientific reason I can't really remember. The reason sounded strange but I am inclined to agree, because if you really took in 100-300 calories per beer, I feel like a lot of us would be a lot fatter.

I'm a very skinny guy and I can eat whatever, plus I exercise. But even so, wouldn't I eventually get fat from eating 2000-3000 calories a day, plus an extra 1000-3000 calories from beer on Friday and Saturday nights? Shouldn't my friends with slow metabolisms all be whales by now? It doesn't make sense. That's an insane amount of calories.

While on the subject, which is the "healthiest" type of alcohol to consume? I understand that alcohol itself has tons of calories, that's why animals love it. I said vodka, but my friend said wine.

Will drinking alot of beer make you fat?......Does the phrase BEER GUT have a place in the English language?

It's been a while since biochem, but there are 4 things that the body can metabolize for energy...sugar, fat, protein, and alcohol. Each has it's own "power level," like 8 calories/gram. I think that alcohol is the least energetic, like 7, but I do know that it's the last of the 4 to be used. That being siad, it's not just alcohol that we are drinking. There are a lot of sugars in beer and wine. I would have to guess that any spirit of equal proof has the same amount of calories per volume.

Carbs: 4 cal/g
Protein: 4 cal/g
Fat: 9 cal/g
Alcohol: 7 cal/g

Define "healthiest." Beer has carbohydrates and alcohol, so for the same amount of calorie dense alcohol that you're putting into your body, you are also getting some extra calories from carbs. Technically no amount of alcohol is healthy: alcohol is poison (yes, I know that everyone can name some study that has shown that a beer/wine a day/week can have health benefits, however those are generally about the trace minerals that you're unlikely to get otherwise) Your body prioritizes the processing of alcohol and puts everything else aside (thus why beer is "more likely" to make you fat, because the excess carbs you are taking into your body are stored as fat instead of being used for energy. If you're looking to minimize caloric intake consuming alcohol, your standard hard alcohols are the best (vodka, whiskey, rum.)

I'm not sure what your friend's argument was, might it have concerned the thermogenic effect of alcohol? The fact that your body expends more heat as you're drinking? The thermic effect of food (TEF) is about 20%- reducing the net calories in alcohol to about 5.3 cal/g.

And yes, drinking can make you fat. The freshman 15 that you always hear people talk about? Its not just because of cafeteria food!

I weigh 135, and work hard at it! I actually eat less food so I can have a couple of beers each day. If I stopped drinking beer, I'd probably weigh 120 or less! I eat very healthy, and exercise but it's not easy to stay slim.

Yes, the calories in beer "count" just as food does.

Hammy71 said:

Will drinking alot of beer make you fat?......Does the phrase BEER GUT have a place in the English language?

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Well i disagree with this ......because when i used to drink every night and go out bar hopping with freinds i was slimer.....and after i got married and stopped going out every night drinking i developed a gut that people refer to as a "beer gut" when in fact it's a "food gut"....yes i still drink beer but not near as much as i used to.

The breakdown of acetic acid to CO2 and water isn't complete since acetic acid is excreted in urine. In other words, the more you piss, the lower the energy yield from the ethanol.

Intake of more calories than you burn will make you fat. It doesn't matter if they come from food or drink.

ArcaneXor said:

The breakdown of acetic acid to CO2 and water isn't complete since acetic acid is excreted in urine. In other words, the more you piss, the lower the energy yield from the ethanol.

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Yeah, I think that was what my friend said. It makes sense to me because how could your body process all those calories in the 15-30 minutes it takes for a brewski to pass through your system?