I’m trying to lose weight and occasionally have 1-3 glasses of wine (fitting into my caloric intake of course). Just wanted to know if this would impact my weight any differently than if I ate the same calories of sugar. Don’t worry, I’m getting enough nutrition from the loads of veggies and meats and grains I eat the rest of the time.
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There’s a popular myth that the only factors in weight gain are calories in and calories out. It’s true that those are the factors most under your control. But assuming this is a linear relationship – like pouring water into a leaky bucket- if you pour water in faster than it leaks out you automatically gain weight- is flawed.
Our bodies secrete insulin into the bloodstream in response to a rise in blood sugar. Insulin causes us to store energy as fat. Foods that cause a rapid rise in blood sugar tend to cause us to store fat. This is why sugary drinks are associated with metabolic syndrome.
Most people have a weight setpoint. Our bodies become more or less efficient and try to maintain our weight as our diet changes. Many adults can maintain precisely the same weight for years (albeit that number is often too high). Fred Rogers famously weighed exactly 143 lbs for decades. This is because our bodies are trying to control our weight, much like cruise control maintains a car’s speed despite hills and valleys. Changing this setpoint is really hard. As we starve ourselves on a diet, our bodies can become more efficient and require less calories to maintain our weight, frustrating our efforts, not to metion self control is hard when one is hungry all the time.
Eating foods that dump a lot of sugar into the bloodstream quickly can tend to exacerbate weight gain. Eating the same calories as slow digesting foods, complex carbs, can tend to cause less weight gain, as long as the total calories are not excessive. Alcoholic drinks, sugary sodas, and the like are not your friend if you want to lose a few pounds. But an occasional treat isn’t going to make a difference.
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