Real ale and carbohydrates

I've been warned by my idiot of a quack that I have to lose weight. I've decided to go on a low-carb diet. No milk, sugar, pasta, rice, potatoes or bread. For the first 2 weeks I can have only 20g of carbs a day. Red wine (I boght some Blossom Hill) is only 1% carbohydrate so I can have some of that. But does anyone here know any of the carb contents of any of the real ales? Are they all pretty standard? What about sugar content (if any)?

Reply to
Offramp
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And you talk about your doctor being an idiot!

Eat less, move about more.

Reply to
Phil Cook

You would be better off with Slimming World - eat as much as you like of lean meat, carbs, fruit & veg, keep low on sugar and fat and a pint of beer a day is no problem. Fad diets are not sustainable whereas SW is.

Cheers,

Paul (been on SW on and off for 10 years, works a treat for me)

Reply to
Paul

Isn't that the now discredited Atkins diet?

Beer seems to get a bad press these days - whenever there's an item of news on TV about the problems of alcohol, the inevitable film clip is of a pint of beer being pulled in a pub.

Given that a pint is about 95% water, no one should really worry about beer consumption, and that remaining 5% contains barley, hops (2 of your 5 a day fruit and veg perhaps!), and a significant amount of fibre.

The trouble with beer is that is sharpens your appetite. It's the odd pork pie, Gregg's cheese and onion pasty, and large Wetherspoons mixed grill that does the damage!

Reply to
M Platting

True, but it's the savoury stuff that's the problem!

Reply to
M Platting

I have worked in obesity and diabetes research for the last 20 years and one thing I learned very early on was that......

Losing weight is very easy.

You just need to modify your lifestyle so that the energy balance equation moves from the positive to the negative. That simply means - use/burn more calories per day than you take in.

It's calories what count !!

Burning more calories = increasing your activity - as most (all) people are unable to increase their basal metabolic rate. Simple things like just walking more make a big difference, Swimming is excellent too - you don't need to pound the gym if that's too daunting. Although clearly if you can work out like an athlete or a boxer you will lose weight - or at least body fat - much quicker.

Taking in fewer calories is easy too - know the calorific value of everything and take in no more than ~1500 KCal per day - count 'em and don't cheat on yourself - it doesn't really matter from whence the calories come - carbs, fat, protein, etc. although obviously you can eat more of the food (and thus feel fuller and less hungry) with foods of a lower cal/gm ratio. Try and keep the diet balanced normally for vitamins/elements etc. I think the average pint is around 200 Kcals and is actually a pretty good balanced foodstuff :-)

Now... what is really difficult is keeping the lost weight off - as most people simply gradually revert back to their previous lifestyles and eating habits and the energy balance moves back into the positive and the excess calories are once again stored as fat.

Good luck

-- JohnB

Reply to
JohnB

Why is he an idiot?

Reply to
bigroj

Doc clearly isn't - the poster on the other hand..... :-)

Always amuses me to hear of crank diets. It really is very simple. We all have an energy balance equation which needs fine control to keep it in balance. But if calories taken in to the bloodstream per day exceed calories used in that day then the excess has to be stored as glycogen and fat. Therefore, for anyone to actually lose weight they must burn more calories than they take in per day - simples.

Calorie "burn" is the sum of ones basic metabolic rate added to exercise

- we can do little about the former and a lot about the latter. Exercise more - walk to the pub :-)

Calories imbibed is just a simple matter of fact - it doesn't really matter where they come from, be it carbs, protein, fat, alcohol or whatever. So dont worry about the source (apart from obviously avoiding the really high caloric value foods), just eat a balanced diet (for vitamins, minerals, roughage, etc) and just make sure the total amount in calories you eat per day is less than that which you expend.

It's a long process too - work in weeks rather than days - i.e if your weight has decreased by a pound a two a week after you started then then you know you are doing it right and are in negative energy balance and so keep to that regime. If it hasn't then you know what you need to do in the next week!

-- JB

Reply to
JohnB

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