If you drink that much alcohol, you won't lose weight.

A glass to mark the transition from a workday to the evening. One to celebrate the weekend. Limoncello after dinner to unlearn it. Let's just say that I do enjoy a drink. Well alternated with months of not drinking by the way. But now it turns out that it might be those cozy glasses that are preventing me from losing weight. Aiaiai.

First things first: I would like to lose some weight for myself, not to meet an unrealistic image and certainly not for someone else. I'm just feeling a bit less comfortable in my own skin and I know what helps. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about how it really is with alcohol consumption, because I'm quite curious about that.

You would think it's always about intake and burning, even when it comes to a glass of rosé. I always found it to sound the most plausible: you need to burn more than you eat or drink. That's not entirely the case, researchers in Spain recently discovered. But how much can you actually drink?

The research lasted thirteen years, so there’s enough data to find something for the researchers. What turns out? If you purely look at the average test subject, it’s about 500 milliliters of beer per day. Which is equivalent to half a liter. It is a requirement that you have an average eating pattern. I don't know how your eating pattern is after half a liter of beer, but I always get exceptionally hungry for bitterballen.

The catch is as follows (we can't call it a minor issue anymore), because the weight loss process can also completely come to a standstill with that half a liter. As in: not working anymore, maybe even increasing. Certain foods inhibit our body's ability to use food and drink as fuel, while other foods make this process easier, which can very well be the case with alcohol. The research even showed that some test subjects could consume less than one glass.

And then the weighing begins. Not myself, but the fact of whether or not to have a drink at the beginning of the evening. I believe I've made up my mind: one dry white wine, s'il vous plaît.

Source: Eat This Not That