Just been reading about ‘The Champagne Diet” on mailonline.
I think the premise of the diet; to eat good quality food, is an obvious one. But that doesn’t have to mean more expensive.
For most people, drinking champagne everyday is just not feasible.
However, what I do like about this diet is the fact that alcohol is not forbidden.
I have found having a few alcoholic drinks here and there (in moderation of course!) to be very useful when I am trying to lose weight.
The reason for this is that alcoholic drinks are viewed by the body as fuel and they do actually curb your appetite for a while.
So, for example, if I am starving before preparing a meal, a gin and tonic while I prepare the meal will help to stop me from picking at more calorific snack foods.
Or if I have the urge to snack while I’m watching TV in the evening, rather than having a bowl of ice cream or toast, I might have another gin and tonic!
I have found that an alcoholic drink satisfies my hunger more for fewer calories than most snack foods.
It’s nice to have a drink too – as it really does help you relax after a tough day.
The moderate consumption of alcohol is associated with better health and longer life than is either abstaining from alcohol or abusing alcohol.
However, heavy drinking is associated with cirrhosis of the liver, breast cancer, and other health problems. The key word is moderation.
There are a few more reasons why a tipple of an evening could help weight loss:
Alcohol appears to raise metabolic rate significantly.
Other research has shown that the consumption of sugar decreases as the consumption of alcohol increases.
I have found that if I have a drink in the evening, I tend to have less sugar cravings the following day, so it could help to combat a sweet tooth!
Whatever the reasons are, the consumption of alcohol is not associated with weight gain and is sometimes associated with weight loss in women.
The medical evidence for this is based on a large number of studies of thousands of people around the world. Some of these studies are very large; one involved nearly 80,000 and another included 140,000 subjects.
However, alcohol may cause weight gain, if drunk in large amounts or as additional calories to your usual diet.
The best way to include alcohol in your diet, is to replace one or two of your usual snacks with a unit or two of your favourite alcoholic tipple, remembering to stay within moderate drinking guidelines of course!
To maximize the weight loss effects, choose alcoholic drinks which are low in calories.
“The Champagne Diet” champions champagne as it is lower in calories than wine, but there are many other cheaper drinks which are also low in calories and even lower than champagne.
Below is a comparison of the amount of calories per unit of alcohol for some common drinks:
1/3 pint of beer: 73kcal
1 single measure spirits: 52kcal
1 small glass wine: 85kcal
1 small glass sherry: 56kcal
1 small glass champagne: 77kcal.
So, although champagne has fewer calories than wine, spirits have far fewer calories than champagne.
Spirits are the winner in terms of fewer calories per unit of alcohol.
This is only the case if the mixer you use is low calorie though, so make sure your tonic is slimline or your lemonade or coke is diet.
Alternatively, you could make a glass of wine lower in calories by making it a spritzer with diet lemonade or slimline tonic.
If you prefer beer, Coors Light Beer is the best choice. Stella Artois contains 102 calories per unit of alcohol compared to 71 calories per unit for a Coors Light Beer. To make beer even less calorific, make it a shandy with diet lemonade.
If you are going to make having a drink a regular part of your diet, it’s important to know that The Royal College of Physicians recommends that alcohol consumption be no more than 21 units a week for men; 14 units for women.
It’s better to spread alcohol units throughout the week, than to drink large amounts in a single day or weekend.
Therefore women should aim to consume no more than 2 units a day; men 3 units a day.
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