Email Campaign Archive

Former Fat Guy Newsletter Health * Fitness * Regeneration * Empowerment Weight Management Strategies by Rob Cooper New Years Eve Tip 31st December 2005 -------------------------------------------------- Former Fat Guy dot com -------------------------------------------------- 2 Join? 2 Leave?...See End -------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS: 1: New Years Eve tip on Alcohol -------------------------------------------------- Happy New Years Eve Friend This time of year, with the holidays and New Years celebrations, peoples thoughts turn to consuming a few drinks (or, gasp, many...) to celebrate. What I propose is moderation. In fact, moderation in all things is good, but specifically here we're talking about Alcohol "Alcohol puts fat metabolism on hold. It's not your friend if you're trying to stay lean." - Susan Kleiner, PhD, RD, author of "Power Eating" The main problem with alcohol is not the number of calories it contains but rather the effect is has on fat metabolism. A recent study, for example, has shown that even small amounts of alcohol has a large impact on fat metabolism. ** Effects Of Alcohol On Fat Metabolism In this study, eight men were given two drinks of vodka and lemonade separated by 30 minutes. Each drink contained just under 90 calories. Fat metabolism was measured before and after consumption of the drink. For several hours after drinking the vodka, whole body lipid oxidation (a measure of how much fat your body is burning) dropped by 73%. The reason why alcohol has this dramatic effect on fat metabolism has to do with the way alcohol is handled in the body. When alcohol is consumed, it readily passes from the stomach and intestines into the blood and goes to the liver. In the liver, an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase mediates the conversion of alcohol to acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is rapidly converted to acetate by other enzymes. So rather than getting stored as fat, the main fate of alcohol is conversion into acetate, the amount of acetate formed is dose dependant on the amount of alcohol consumed. For example, blood levels of acetate after drinking the vodka were 2.5 times higher than normal. And it appears this sharp rise in acetate puts the brakes on fat loss. The type of fuel your body uses is dictated to some extent by availability. This is one of the reasons for the induction phase of the Metabolic Diet. By severely limiting your carb intake your body is forced to rev up it's fat burning machinery, so that you become fat adapted, and increase the use of protein for some of the functions, such as anaplerosis, that carbs are usually heavily involved in. In other words, your body tends to use whatever you feed it, and after a time becomes adapted to the macro nutrient intake. Unfortunately when acetate levels rise, your body burns the acetate preferentially, since acetate is basically the same product of beta oxidation of fatty acids and glycolysis (glucose to pyruvate to acetate), but it doesn't' require the metabolic work to produce. So the body simply burns the acetate first, and with the rapid rise seen with alcohol intake, basically pushes fat oxidation out of the metabolic equation. Because acetate is readily formed from alcohol it can be worse than taking in carbs as far as affecting fat metabolism. That's because glucose has to be sequentially metabolized through various steps to form acetate while acetate is formed from alcohol in just a few steps. Also alcohol, because it can be considered part way between carbs and fats, has more calories than carbs. That's why even the low carb beers contain under 100 calories even though they only have about 2.5 grams of carbs and .5 grams of protein. While the carbs and protein only make up 12 calories, the 12 grams of alcohol make up the remaining 80 or so calories. 9 calories per gram of FAT 4 calories per gram of PROTEIN 4 calories per gram of CARBOHYDRATE 7 calories per gram of ALCOHOL ** Alcohol, Carbs and Calories Alcoholic beverages generally contain alcohol, some or no carbs and calories but not much else. The calories come from the alcohol and sugars, and some protein, usually under 1 gram. I've included the alcohol and calorie content of some alcoholic beverages in the table below. The difference between the alcohol calories and the overall calories are the calories that come from sugars. Usually the amount of alcohol in a serving is about the same, though the serving size may vary. For example, 12 oz of regular beer contains about the same amount of alcohol as a 5-fluid-ounce glass of table wine. Drink Size (ounces) Alcohol (grams) Calories Beer Beer regular 12 13 150 Beer, light 12 12 105 Beer, low carb 12 12 95 Beer cooler 12 12 100 Near beer 12 1 30 Wine Dessert, sweet vermouth, port, sherry, etc. 3-1/2 16 160 Dry, table, red or white burgundy, chablis, champagne, dry sherry, etc. 5 13 100 Light 5 9 70 Wine spritzer 7 11 85 Wine cooler 12 14 180 Non-alcoholic 5 0 10 Tom Venuto, author of "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" says this about alcohol "If you're serious about your health,fitness, and athletic performance and you want the maximum possible benefit from your program, you should drink alcoholic beverages in moderation or not at all. "Moderation" is usually defined as one drink for women, two drinks for men. One or two drinks won't do much harm, and may even have some health benefits such as increased HDL, the good type of cholesterol. Excessive alcohol consumption will definitely compromise the results you'll get from your nutrition and training program." Tom goes on to suggest "Factor Alcohol calories into your daily intake and Stay Hydrated" Make sure you drink plenty of water, 1 large glass for every two alcoholic beverages. Friend, may 2006 bring all that you wish for and may all your goals be met. Eat Well, Be well Rob Cooper www.formerfatguy.com ------------------------------------------------------------- Have You seen Tom Venuto's new Fat Burning System yet? It's called "BURN THE FAT, FEED THE MUSCLE." I've read the whole thing (all 337 pages) and there's some great information in there about how to lose fat quickly and easily without drugs, supplements or any kind of gimmicks. I highly recommend it - it's very honest and straightforward without all the hype and b.s. you see in the magazines these days. Here's the website where you can get more information: http://www.FormerFatGuy.com/burnthefat and my review of it http://www.formerfatguy.com/burnthefat/burn-the-fat-review.asp -------------------------------------------------------------- Advertising: People have been asking how to advertise in this newsletter. It's just $200 for the top ad, $150 for the middle ad, $125 for the bottom ad. OR $300 for ALL THREE. Ads are one line of text (55 characters) and one URL. Payment through paypal.com, use rob@formerfatguy.com For tracking purposes, I use a redirect from my site to the URL you supply. ------------------------------------------------------ I appreciate your subscription and also respect your privacy. If you think that you were wrongly subscribed, please check out the following information about joining and leaving.... ------------------------------------------------------ Housekeeping: