Calories in Alcohol - any good or not??????????

I've been reading on the forums the crazy amount of calories required when body building.
 
Well, as most will know, alcoholic drinks seem to be full of calories. Are these any use? Can the calories in alcohol contribute to our overall calorie intake? Or is it best to steer clear from the booze?

Is this a serious question?
 
Small amounts of alcohol such as a small glass of red wine or beer is okay. This cites a few studies :
 
http://www.drinkaware.co....th-benefits-to-alcohol
 
I'd simply drink on social occasions and not drink to get drunk.
 
Which doesn't help when most of your friends are marines or paras and every time they're back they get absolutely ruined.
 
If you like a beer then by all means drink, Pagan documented his cut diet with his stella consumption factored in. He got pretty damn lean, but just had to make up for it with cardio to cover those empty calories.

Yes mate, I was being serious. It seems a stupid question when I mention it on here I suppose. What do you mean by "empty calories" I thought calories were calories, so I thought why cant these be used to get to the calorie consumption required. I dont mean live on vodka, but say you drank - 5 pints a day at 200 calories a day, would this not contribute well?

if you take your training serious mate then alcohol is not something you want to be using as part of any type of diet whether its bulking or cutting, alcohol is bad for protein synthesis (jthe process of repairing and building muscle with protein) so yes it will bump up your calories but as previously stated its empty calories that will slow down your growth, and cause fat gains, nobody wants fat gains, i would suggest snacking on colorie dense foods such as peanuts ( not as tasty as booze lol)
hope this helps

oscars


Yes mate, I was being serious. It seems a stupid question when I mention it on here I suppose. What do you mean by "empty calories" I thought calories were calories, so I thought why cant these be used to get to the calorie consumption required. I dont mean live on vodka, but say you drank - 5 pints a day at 200 calories a day, would this not contribute well?

I always have 5 pints of vodka a day, thats why i,m mahoosive!

I can live without it if its bad for protein synthesis. As you can proberbly tell, Im novice starting out, so I got loads of daft questions to ask. But this place is great! Thought id get more flack than I have for some of the things ive been asking. . .

If you don,t ask you don,t learn mate!.......Yes alchohol is full of calories but think of the physique that your regular drinker sports and you can see where those calories are going.

No worries mate that's what we r here for

i think yes alcohol has carbs etc in it, and some have claimed health benefits in the press, but in terms of overall its the actual alcohol that has a negative effect on bodybuilding. someone will correct me if im wrong or enlighten us on the details of that, but sure i read it some where.
 
so i wouldnt be drinking alcohol thinking your doing yourself any good :) plus that amount of carbs in one night doesnt help :) although a beer or 2 or a glass of wine wont do you any harm.

Alcohol does provide calories, but they are empty calories which means there's very little/nothing in the way of other nutrition there.
 
Alcohol is dehydrating, and that's negative for training performance.
 
Alcohol is also a muscle relaxant and this is disadvantageous too

If your dieting then alcohol definately doesn't help but every so often it wouldn't hurt!

LOL
 
That is all

A small amount of alcohol = fine. Getting smashed = not fine - certainly not a good way to increase cals.
 
Alcoholic ketosis is an excellent way to shed bodyweight - I've only really ever seen the 'ripped chav' end of this spectrum, and would be shocked if it had any use for someone wanting to hold onto mass

Alcohol has 9 kcals per gram if I remember rightly, but zero nutrients and in fact it encourages your body to lose other nutrients. Heavy drinkers and alcoholics suffer from vitamin B deficiency as a result, not to mention the dehydration. I've also been told that the body sees alcohol as sugar, except you got twice as many kcals and nothing else going for it. Whereas you could be eating 200kcals worth of protein, good fats, or fibrous carbs with vitamins and mins in them. Hardly a contest.
 
Do remember reading in a school biology book that alcohol can be used to supplement the diet, where actual food is in short supply such as third world starvation situations!

Reborn


LOL

That is all

You ain't half patronising at times, thankfully many including the sites co owner have been a little more helpful

gingernut


Alcohol has 9 kcals per gram if I remember rightly,

7kcal per gram