Drinking and your Health

Why Alcohol Calories are More Important than you think!

Being very Italian, I was always allowed to have one glass of red wine at dinner and this started at the age of nine or ten. I knew most of my friends were not allowed and many parent's felt the need to "lock up" liquor because of how they were raised. I remember a time when I had one of my friends over my grandparent's house for dinner. My Nonno (grandfather) gave me a small fancy glass of red wine and it was normal to have received it from him so I did not think too much from it. I remember my friend tapping me on my shoulder with a worried look on her face like I was going to get drunk or something. To this day, he still gives me red wine to drink -- don't worry, just one glass and I don't get wasted, I stay healthy.


Many studies are back and fourth debating if red wine is beneficial. For women, one glass per day is recommended as men may drink two glasses. Wine is proven to lower the risk for a heart attack, especially if you have already had one. Other studies say that red wine can raise the good cholesterol and prevent the bad cholesterol.


Not only does drinking reduce the number of fat calories you burn, it also lowers your testosterone levels for up to 24 hours after you finish drinking. Focusing on the way your body consumes alcohol is good to notice because it is very similar how your body deals with excess carbohydrates.

I'm sure everyone has heard about the famous "beer belly" and how it's supposedly caused by excess alcohol calories being stored as fat. The beer belly is not really because of "beer" or any drinks for that matter. It is due to the foods that you eat after the many beers.
This leads us into the ....
WARNINGS OF ALCOHOL!!
Many think that if they just start drinking wine or trying to lower their consumption of alcohol right NOW, they will become "healthier". That is not true. It all depends on the health background of a person. A glass of wine at dinner or even a beer at a bar with your friends is not going to kill you. BUT, alcohol should not be mixed with a fatty food meal because it increases an appetite. Ever wonder why when you and your friends go downtown, have a couple of drinks and end the night off eating tacos or cheeseburgers at 3 o'clock in the morning? This will give you unnecessary calories.

Here is a great website for seeing how many calories are in a wide range of alcohol products. I was just devastated when I found out my favourite (and the first one listed)-- Bailey's Irish Cream was 350 calories for one glass. That's as much as a plate of pasta!

Sometimes it's really hard being Italian!