beer and weight

[SpanishCastleAle]

I don't workout and sit at a desk all day, then sit and watch TV at home. A brewday is a 'workout' for me. Prior to 2009 I wasn't brewing at all and only occasionally drank scotch. I almost never drank beer. Then I started brewing again in 2009 and I'm almost 100% certain I've had at least 2 beers everyday since. I haven't gained a pound. All the beer I drink replaces food I used to eat. Calories in:calories out.

But my diet is pretty small now that I drink all these beer calories. An egg mcmuffin with coffee and OJ in the morning and a 'regular' dinner (with reduced starch) is all I eat anymore (gotta save room for beer!). No lunch, no snacks, no soda, nothing else but water...and beer. Beer is food imo.

Regarding the 'empty calories' statement, I think homebrew calories are typically not as 'empty' as macro-beer calories.

The book Eat Right For Your Type is a good book imo. It's about how the 4 different human blood types have different needs. I'm Type O, so starches are 'bad' and meat is 'good' (dairy is also 'bad'). Whoda thunk wheat would be one of the things that makes me fat while lean meat doesn't?

 

[dougf]

Wow, a lot of misinformation in this thread. While there are a lot of variables that come in to play such as age, weight, lean body mass, your basal metabolic rate, etc... It does really come down to one thing. Calories in vs Calories out.

My advice is to stay away from the junk food while drinking (hard to do, I know) and get a little bit of exercise. Find out your basal metabolic rate, eat reasonable within maintenance, drink your beer, do a little exercise to burn some calories, and be happy. If exercise isnt your thing and you wont give up beer, I say cut some calories from your daily intake

 

[weirdboy]

I don't think it's quite as simple as the (calories intake) = (calories work out)equation. Nutritionalists determine the calories contained in a food buy drying the food and burning it(measuring the heat created). But the energy available to your body may be different depending on factors like cooking (you get more calories from a cooked carrot than a raw one since the raw carrot is harder to digest).

Right, but that doesn't really matter.

Think of the calories determined by laboratory tests as the MAXIMUM energy your body is going to get out of that food. Your body may burn more energy digesting the food than it extracts in nutrients (as is often the case with raw celery, for example) but you can still use the basic accounting method of calories in : calories out.