Beer Cleanse aka All Beer no food diet

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kmarkstevens

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Anyone done a beer cleanse?

Historically, it is put forward that the "Paulaner monks" in Germany came up with Dopplebock (modern day's Salvator) to nourish them thru the 40 days of Lent. I'm agnostic, but happy to appropriate anything useful from any religion.

Here's a more modern take, and this quote sums up my thoughts exactly: “The sticking point is that I love good beer,” he says. “I thought to myself, ‘What if I do the opposite of what they tell you to do—I give up food and just drink beer?'”

I'm seriously thinking of taking this challenge for at least two weeks if not a month. I'm pushing 200 pounds and I really should be weighing in south of 170. The diet one can stick to is probably the right diet for you. REgardless of what it says about me personally, I'd rather not give up beer/booze. I stuck with low-carb atkins kinda thing for 2 months a couple of years ago, and substituted dehydrated beer (whiskey) for beer. I lost weight but I like bread, both the liquid (beer) and baked kind. I typically do 2-4% ABV session beers, so I haven't planned ahead with a fermenter or three of big beers. I am gonna get something going tomorrow.

Furthermore, I realized about a week ago, that if I cut out the breakfast cappuccino then I'm intermittent fasting from about 11pm to 5pm, or about 18 hours a day. Sometimes I'll have a small granola bar or a v8 around 2 or 3pm, but find it no problem to go to 5 or 6pm. That's seems to be good for a pound or so loss a week while still keeping my usual beer intake and eating being just a tiny bit careful with what I eat. That's great, but it's gonna take 6 months at least to get under 170.

My eldest kidlet has a birthday this Sunday. So I think I'm gonna start the all suds challenge on Monday. Will come back an update if I kick this off.
 
Finally a diet I can stick to!
My thoughts exactly. Will see, this may last half an evening, a week, two weeks or something. Will check in on Monday.

I bought and started taking multivitamins and minerals to get prepped. Also, thought I would give a historic nod and grabbed a 6 pack of Paulaner Salvator dopplebock.
 
If you want to lose 30 lbs, stop eating anything with refined sugar. That includes bread, pizza, crackers, cookies. Then cut out pasta, rice and potatoes. Don't eat any restaurant food. Getting adjusted to this takes some time, we are all used to eating manufactured crap all the time. If it comes in a box or has some kind of wrapper, don't eat it. Of course there are exceptions to this.
Trying to eliminate alcohol consumption is too much to ask, but sticking to low abv and low residual sugar beer will put you on the right track.
Making your own low abv, low carb but still flavorful homebrew can really help with your weight loss.
Ok I like bread too, (and high ABV beers) and life without it is different, but life is about choices. You want to be overweight? That's a choice.
I choose to substitute beer calories/carbs for bread, pasta and sugar calories/carbs.
Your beer cleanse experiment may work initially, but as soon as you go off it you'll gain back any pounds you lost unless you make some long lasting changes.
 
I'm seriously thinking of taking this challenge for at least two weeks if not a month. I'm pushing 200 pounds and I really should be weighing in south of 170. The diet one can stick to is probably the right diet for you. REgardless of what it says about me personally, I'd rather not give up beer/booze.

You don't need to give up beer to lose weight. I went from 210 to 170 since Jan 4 of this year following a simple CICO (calories in, calories out) diet. I used the free LoseIt app to track calories in and set my budget to 2 lbs per week (anywhere from 1650 to 1500 calories per day).

Generally I skip breakfast and have a homemade sandwich and a lo-cal yogurt for lunch. I've upped my exercise with lots of walking and some jogging burning an extra 200-250 calories per day which adds to budget. On days that I know I'm going to be eating/drinking more in the evening I try to exercise more or eat less during the day.

For dinner I almost always start with a big salad, using either a light dressing (35-40 cals per 2 tbsp) or dipping end of my fork in a full calorie dressing before spearing the salad with each bite... you'd be amazed how little dressing can get used without sacrificing flavor in this manner.

To be sensible with serving sizes at dinner I didn't ESTIMATE to start, I weighed portions out until I understood just how much 4 - 6 oz of chicken, beef, fish, pork, etc is. Sides can be a killer ... for things like rice or noodles I usually still get a 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 cup out to keep me honest.

Dessert is a near constant fixture with quite a few options that range from 100 - 250 calories.

I've changed up my beer habits from higher abv to more calorie conscious brews. My local brewery usually has two or three options that are in the 130 cal / pint range (APA, pilsner, light lager, etc). There is a huge variety of commercial "diet" beers now ... IPAs, NEIPAs, helles, etc. I personally have in my fridge right now:

Bell's Light Hearted Ale (110 cal / 12 oz can)
Leinenkugel's Session Helles (99 cal / 12 oz can)
Blue Moon Light Sky (95 cal / 12 oz)
Miller Lite (96 cal / 12 oz)
Corona Premier (90 cal / 12 oz)
Kona Light Wave (99 cal / 12 oz)
...a few hard seltzers "for SWMBO"

plus a few "standard" brews that are not "diet" but easier on cals:

Guiness (125 cal / 12 oz)
Sam's Wicked Easy (126 cal / 12 oz)

From the looks of my food log it seems that I've had at least 30,000 beer calories since Jan 4 ... probably more since that does not include the one-off DIPAs that I enjoy once in a while. That's about 2 beers every day on average. Some days I go without and "save" them up.

For my homebrew I've picked up a few 25 cL glasses (that's roughly 8 oz in freedom units). When I want to enjoy one of my own having the smaller serving size goes a long way to keeping the calories in check.

I have started taking a daily vitamin to back up any mineral deficiencies from restricted eating. My annual lab panel (done 3 months into the weight loss) didn't show I was low in anything.

My advise:

1. Don't put too much faith in the LoseIt predictions within the app about when you'll hit your goal. Just stick with it and make progress.
2. Weigh yourself every day. Don't run from it. Personally, my weight can fluctuate 3 pounds up or down over a few days just based on what I ate, when I ate, how much water I drank. Yes, there were streaks where it seemed like I wasn't losing anything for weeks at a time but it always got back on track without me changing anything.
3. Drink plenty of water. This helped me especially when I felt hungry but did't want to eat just yet.
4. Be honest. Don't try and game the calorie count. If anything, over-count calories. You can lie to the app but you can't lie to your body.
5. You don't have to give anything up ... just eat/drink less of it.

Good luck with your journey.
 
Maybe check w @bracconiere, I think he might be on similar program.


i did the ALL beer, and milk diet for 5 years between 2004-2009...i didn't lose any weight? but i did get bursting ass abccesses, horible heart burn, puking blood!


that's when i made the descion to learn what i actually HAVE to eat, and price it to eat as cheap as possible. now i can buy a week's worth of groceries for $10-12, and i'm pretty sure the grocery stores hate me for it!

i actually use two tools to do it. www.nutritiondata.com's nutrient search tool. and the java version of CRON-O-Meter, can be downloaded for free off sourceforge....


i wasn't measing my beers acuratly for a couple years and went up to ~210 from 177....but once i found out i was only pouring 9oz glasses, i started keeping better control of my pours and get them consistanly at 12oz now, by weight.

i add gluco amylase to all my beer, so it is as low cal as drinking whiskey, but tastes so much better and has more vitamins.

the math is easy to do ~3500 cals is a pound, you need to weigh yourself every morning, for a months or so, while keeping track of EVERYTHING you eat, buy a cheap gram scale. then you can solve for your metabolic base line. then the cron-o-meter program will let you pull up an avg over a week, and at the end of them month pull up a avg for the month to make sure your cal intake is balnced for what you want. i got back down to 180 in three years just shooting for a 50 callorie deficit on the AVG. i wasn't in a big hurry, so i figured i'd do it slow and take my time, i burn 2820 cal sitting on my ass drinking beer all day.


and don't worry about days you get 3600 cals eating good food, because if you only get 2200, the next day and then maybe 2500, another say 3000 day, it's the avg that matters.

edit: BTW, the reason i gained weight drinking less then i thought i was, i was looking at the avg, and thought it was hopless. knew i HAD to eat, otherwise face the ***** ass problem again, and that's not how i want to go out!

hope that helps, it's the way i'm not dead after 17 years of heavy drinking, and still wear a size 34....(i'm 6'2" by the way)

it's really no harder then having a checking account!


edit #2: i can add the more you weigh the higher you metablic rate will be, i find to maintain an extra pound for me requires an exta 8 cals on the avg to keep it. so if you weigh 200, and want to weigh 165. as you lose weight expect your metablic rate to drop a few cals as the wight comes off.....


edit#3: sorry for being chaty, nopt often people ask ME about this stuff! and expect a whoosh moment, when i was first droping weight when i weighed 260, it came off in about 10lb increments! in one day! i got to where watching my cals i could predict them! and you know what my favorite dieretic was! to induce them!
 
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weightasofnow.jpg


that's my chart for my daily morning weigh in's....and i assure you staying thin this weigh is WAY easier and BETTER then excersising!


and sorry for my uninteliglable typing, i'm not actually that stupid! ;)
 
Well, will see how I feel tomorrow, which is when I am thinking of kicking the off for a week or three. And just to explain, I will keep with the intermittent fasting. Limit the beer and all calorie intake to between around 5 - 11pm. it's black coffee, herbal tea during the day to stay hydrated. I stand all day at work and usually get anywhere from a 2 to 4 mile walk in. The intermittent fasting seems to be working for the past few weeks at 1-2 pounds off steadily a week. So, I'll be keeping with that before and after the beer clense. And it's not like I'm gonna do a homebrew colonic irrigation or anything too crazy.

BTW,I already make my own bread, don't eat out, avoid sugar and brew/consume almost exclusively 2-3.5% ABV beers. I think a 4% is a big beer to be honest. Also, I know it is physics with calories in, calories out most important.

That said, this looks like a "fun" short term "historic" diet to try. Plus I'm getting back into the dating game post covid after a couple of decades, and wouldn't mind getting out of the gate 10-20 pounds lighter than I am now before I start taking some companions out for dinner.
 
That said, this looks like a "fun" short term "historic" diet to try. Plus I'm getting back into the dating game post covid after a couple of decades, and wouldn't mind getting out of the gate 10-20 pounds lighter than I am now before I start taking some companions out for dinner.


LOL, check out Microsoft Money Sunset, another free program. no ads just free, and the girls always wink at me at the bank!
 
Anyone done a beer cleanse?

Historically, it is put forward that the "Paulaner monks" in Germany came up with Dopplebock (modern day's Salvator) to nourish them thru the 40 days of Lent. I'm agnostic, but happy to appropriate anything useful from any religion.

Here's a more modern take, and this quote sums up my thoughts exactly: “The sticking point is that I love good beer,” he says. “I thought to myself, ‘What if I do the opposite of what they tell you to do—I give up food and just drink beer?'”

I'm seriously thinking of taking this challenge for at least two weeks if not a month. I'm pushing 200 pounds and I really should be weighing in south of 170. The diet one can stick to is probably the right diet for you. REgardless of what it says about me personally, I'd rather not give up beer/booze. I stuck with low-carb atkins kinda thing for 2 months a couple of years ago, and substituted dehydrated beer (whiskey) for beer. I lost weight but I like bread, both the liquid (beer) and baked kind. I typically do 2-4% ABV session beers, so I haven't planned ahead with a fermenter or three of big beers. I am gonna get something going tomorrow.

Furthermore, I realized about a week ago, that if I cut out the breakfast cappuccino then I'm intermittent fasting from about 11pm to 5pm, or about 18 hours a day. Sometimes I'll have a small granola bar or a v8 around 2 or 3pm, but find it no problem to go to 5 or 6pm. That's seems to be good for a pound or so loss a week while still keeping my usual beer intake and eating being just a tiny bit careful with what I eat. That's great, but it's gonna take 6 months at least to get under 170.

My eldest kidlet has a birthday this Sunday. So I think I'm gonna start the all suds challenge on Monday. Will come back an update if I kick this off.

Don't start a diet that you don't intend on sticking with until you die. These dumb diets, they don't work because the don't last. Yo Yo.

Don't diet, exercise. Become a running addict. Or rowing, or walking, or swimming, or anything that gets you moving. Get addicted to moving. Just leave the house and don't come back until you've listened to the entire book on your headphones.
 
It is really simple. Diets are bs. Really. The best that can happen with them is that they don't last, the worst is that some might make you sick. So you'll end up sick and fat.. congratulations.

The solution is dead simple: modesty and honesty.

Don't eat crap, don't drink crap, everything that comes from a lab is crap. Every sugar free but sweet food/drink is crap. Don't drink juices, they have loads of sugars. Drink water, drink tea for thirst, everything else as a treat, like beer.

Cook your food yourself. No ready meals.

Be realistic, stuff like ready meals is not good for you.

And at the end, a wise man said about 2650 years ago, fill your belly 2/4 with food, 1/4 with liquid and leave the last 1/4 empty.

This is a way that you can follow your whole life without any real sacrifice.

Stay modest, be realistic about what you eat, eat local and seasonal.

Don't eat till you feel full, leave a little bit of hunger, make that a habit that you follow with every meal.

Exercise a bit, do not overdo it. Excessive exercising is not healthy either.

Moderation and honesty!
 
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Whatever you do, just keep in mind that alcohol literally is poison. Of course, we all drink it, we love it, but moderation is paramount: "Dosis sola velenum facit".

You might lose weight, but I don't think you'll be any healthier for it. And your brains won't like it.
 
I have a history of not listening to advice, so I'm not about to start now. :cool:

Snarkiness aside, I snowboard 2x/week in the winter, generally walk 2-4 miles per day, get on the treadmill for 4 more miles once or twice a week. Had some off time owing to a swollen left ball joint in my foot, and now sorted out with serious non flex hiking boots and arch supports. I'm not sold on the science of intermittent fasting, but find it's pretty easy to go from 11pm to at least 3pm without taking in calories. Just limiting that calorie window alone is probably good for slow weight reduction.

Weigh in today at 195. Have had about 4 pints of 3% mild ale and no other calories. Gonna give this a whirl, while keeping the intermittent fasting window (no beer or other calories before 5 or 6pm) and the exercise. Oh, and I'm taking vitamins.
 
My buddy does it every year for lent. Beer and water is his diet.
 
I usually eat one meal a day (if you don't count the 3 cookies with my coffee in the a.m.) It's dinner and a few pints in the evening and most days that is it. I have to tell my wife if I eat lunch because she gets upset if she cooks and I don't eat. Anyway, I'm still wearing the same pant size I did in the Navy almost 30 years ago. OMG it was 30 years in April. LOL. So, I think the intermittent fasting works, for me anyway. :mug:

Edit: @monkeymath Dosis sola velenum facit - had to google this, makes sense to me.
 
typicalday.jpg


all my minerals, amino acids, and essential fatty acids are covered too....

(and i gotta say that split soup was great! :mug:)

and that's as close i dare come to a beer cleanse

edit: footnote the shake, is an ounce of rice bran, and a half ounce of active dry yeast, some vanilla powder, and sugar, mixed with milk.....
 
View attachment 733970

all my minerals, amino acids, and essential fatty acids are covered too....

(and i gotta say that split soup was great! :mug:)

and that's as close i dare come to a beer cleanse

edit: footnote the shake, is an ounce of rice bran, and a half ounce of active dry yeast, some vanilla powder, and sugar, mixed with milk.....

This is all so interesting to me. If you were to write a book about your lifestyle, I'd be the first to buy it!
 
This is all so interesting to me. If you were to write a book about your lifestyle, I'd be the first to buy it!


i'm surprised that wasn't green text! lol, buddy always told me i don't have to lie to make friends.....PM me we can have a talk about ooppposite of normal money problems, drinking insane amounts of beer and stay slim and healthy!
 
drinking insane amounts of beer and stay slim and healthy!
I would like to subscribe to your Patreon account. :ghostly: You seem to be channeling the spirit of Hunter S Thompson or Keith Richards.

Ok, it's only day two, but this is wierd. Firstly, I don't notice any hunger. Prolly helps that I typically don't injest calories in any form between say 11pm and 5pm. I've always found it wierd that other people "have" to eat lunch or they turn into a crankysaurous rex or worse.

Secondly, I am drinking less beer and no real desire to have that shot of single malt or bourbon if it's in the house (and it is). I've had a pint and a half of 3% mild, trying the Paulaner Salvator (almost sickly sweet, and not buying a second 6 pack ever), and probably have 1-2 more 3 or 4% ABV beers before turning in tonight. Normally, I'd probably have 6 3-4% ABV beers and maybe a shot or two of whiskey.

The multi vitamins have turned by pee to a darker color.

My eldest kidlet is going back to university in LA tomorrow, so forced me to try one asparagus tip. So, those of you worried I'm not eating can rest easy now.

Plus, I have a coffee date a week from Sunday, so extra motivation to show up just a bit less chubby than I am now. Pretty sure it will be fine to keep this up thru July 5th and take stock then.
 
You seem to be channeling the spirit of Hunter S Thompson or Keith Richards.


no just the USDA nutrient db, and i think the guy's name that wrote the cron-o-meter software was named ari, something? as far keeping it up! i'll tell you beer is healthy and highlight how much vitmains that 12 pack brings to the party!

breakfastofchamps.png


so at least you wouldn't need to worry about pelegra! scurvy, beri beri, and otherthings could still be a concern though....but not pelegra! ;)
 
no just the USDA nutrient db, and i think the guy's name that wrote the cron-o-meter software was named ari, something? as far keeping it up! i'll tell you beer is healthy and highlight how much vitmains that 12 pack brings to the party!

View attachment 734003

so at least you wouldn't need to worry about pelegra! scurvy, beri beri, and otherthings could still be a concern though....but not pelegra! ;)

10 oz OJ, 56 grams of Kale and 144 oz of beer hav 0.0 vit C? That is surprising. :)
 
10 oz OJ, 56 grams of Kale and 144 oz of beer hav 0.0 vit C? That is surprising. :)


10oz oj, and 2 ozs kale, covers my fruits and vegtables perfectly....and cheaply. i highlighted just the 12 pack of beer.....to point out beer actually is kinda healthy. just not a complete nutrition source.
 
CSB: I had a physical 3 years ago that was an eye-opener. Cholesterol and blood sugar numbers way up. Doc said I was "pre-diabetic," which was all I needed to hear. Years of a desk job caught up with me. Started exercising and watching what I ate. This was my plan:

Brisk 2-3 mile fast-walk daily or at least 5 days a week.
Diet: I still ate the same foods, but less of it. Nothing special, just portion control. Eat 2 pizza slices instead of 4, or take home leftovers from a restaurant meal, rather than wolf it all down there. And no more "boredom snacking."

Diet alone doesn't do it; I needed good exercise. Exercise alone doesn't, either; working out does no good if I don't stop stuffing my pie-hole.

In the next 6 months, I dropped 45 lbs., and have kept it there since. I'm 6'2" and went from 240-245 down to a 195-200 range. My cholesterol and other numbers are back in the normal range.
 
Diet alone doesn't do it; I needed good exercise. Exercise alone doesn't, either; working out does no good if I don't stop stuffing my pie-hole.

Abs are made in the gym, revealed in the kitchen.

Real food, prepared simply, eaten in moderation and wide variety. Body kept in comfortable motion.
 
Now fasting or intermittent fasting in order to reach a different plane of consciousness? Yes, absolutely. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, indigenous Americans, etc, etc, etc. They all have very, very old traditions of fasting for that purpose. Often with the addition of some substance such as alcohol or mescaline to help.
 
Now fasting or intermittent fasting in order to reach a different plane of consciousness? Yes, absolutely. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, indigenous Americans, etc, etc, etc.

Christian fasting is actually sort of a modern thing.

Not "modern" in the sense of smartphones, but still modern.
 
@MaxStout I totally agree. Exercise, portion control, be a little bit careful on what you eat is a sound approach.

I'm not sure the intermittent fasting is pure woo or has some scientific basis, but I am don't find it difficult at all to not intake calories until say 5pm. So if nothing else, it does take in less calories since I don't eat for as long a span, and my evening intake does not cram in three meals.

Still a wierd thing. I'm drinking less beer than I did when I ate, so my calories from beer are down (and no other calories). So, if that continues after my beer cleanse, then my future caloric intake will decline a couple hundred calories per day as well.

The scary thing is that beer doesn't taste as good. My god, how can those monks go for 40 days on the Paulaner Salvator? I bought a 6 pack, have had one per night, and I'm prolly going to skip a few nights because they are tasting almost sickly sweet. I have dug into my forgotten bottles of different left over batches. I need the variety. Only one beer forever would not be a good scenario (when I lived in Taiwan in the early 1980's, there was only Taiwan beer available, it's a very mediocre light lager (think a poor Bud imitation), and I'm 99% sure they use formaldehyde as a preservative for the hot conditions.
 
The scary thing is that beer doesn't taste as good.
That might be your body telling you it’s time to feed it something else.

Ok, snarky unsolicited advise aside, I’m enjoying everything about this thread. Please keep it up.
 
My god, how can those monks go for 40 days on the Paulaner Salvator? I bought a 6 pack, have had one per night, and I'm prolly going to skip a few nights because they are tasting almost sickly sweet.
This is one of my favorite Lager styles, but I agree the Salvator is not the best example. It should be rich and bready not cloyingly sweet, but I don't know too many commercially available options. Lost any weight?
 
This is one of my favorite Lager styles, but I agree the Salvator is not the best example. It should be rich and bready not cloyingly sweet, but I don't know too many commercially available options. Lost any weight?

Do like the Trappist monks do and drink an Enkel. Not as sweet, less filling, and mighty tasty.
 
. My god, how can those monks go for 40 days on the Paulaner Salvator? I bought a 6 pack, have had one per night, and I'm prolly going to skip a few nights because they are tasting almost sickly sweet.

Maybe the mediocre quality of Salvator is the reason the monks have disappeared and Paulaner has turned into one of the largest brewery groups in Bavaria.

I generally dislike Bockbier, but there is one which is truly remarkable: "Asam Bock" by Kloster Weltenburg.
 
@MaxStout What the heck is an Enkel? Sounds good though.

Edit: So a quick search and it appears an Enkel is basically a Belgian single. From Wikipedia:

Enkel, meaning "single", is a term used by the Trappist breweries to describe the basic recipe of their beers.[15] The name fell out of fashion with no breweries (Trappist or 'Abbey') using the term until recent years[when?]. Instead, "Blond(e)" (La Trappe, Westvleteren), "5" (Achel) or "6" (Rochefort) have been used to describe the brewery's lightest beer. Chimay introduced an Enkel (called Dorée or Gold) commercially in bottles in 2015,[18] Westmalle made their Enkel (called Extra) available commercially through some outlets in 2010,.[19] The term is often used interchangeably with 'Patersbier' (meaning Father's beer), as Enkels are a weak beer brewed originally to be consumed by the monks themselves.
 
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