Learning to limit liquid calories

Dubbed the ‘Biggest Party in Sport’, the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) is back and started on Thursday in Guyana. As is customary, some of the biggest alcoholic beverage companies in the Caribbean have once again partnered with the Amazon Warriors.

Scores of fans (myself among them) witnessed and will continue to witness the euphoria at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence with an alcoholic beverage in hand. The occasional social drink is okay but it’s easy to drink a little too much a little too often.

So, what is enough and what is too much to inhibit your fitness goals?

A study defines moderate drinking as no more than two drinks per day for men and one for women – yet many Guyanese exceed that amount, sometimes accidentally. Often, this is thanks to portion distortion, with heavy-handed pours and oversized glasses causing you to serve more than a standard drink, which, for the record, is 1.5 oz hard alcohol (3 tbsp), 5 oz wine (2/3 cup), and 12 oz beer (1.5 cups).

Often, women tend to commit sins of accidental over consumption more than men, both due to their lower alcohol tolerance/drink limit and due to alcohol choice. More women tend to drink wine than men (who tend to prefer beer, according to a poll). While beer tends to come in single serving cans and bottles, wine is served in a multi-serving unit, with discretion to pour however much you want at any one time.

Even careful pourers tend to underestimate the amount in a single pour, thanks to curved glasses, which skew perception of serving size.

Weight loss

Alcohol is calorically dense. Per gramme, it contains 7 calories, more than both carbohydrates and protein (which contain 4 calories per gram), but not as many as fat, which contains 9 calories per gramme. A standard drink contains between 100 and 150 calories. And remember, most drinks (especially hand-poured) tend to contain more thanks to over-pouring.

If you were to cut out a single drink each day (and not replace those calories with other food or beverages), you could lose upwards of 10 pounds (9.6, to be exact) in a single year.

Muscle growth

Studies have shown that consuming alcohol in the hours after exercise inhibits muscle growth and repair. And let’s face it, how many of us have hit up happy hour after lifting or gone home for a glass of wine after working out?

While abstinence isn’t most people’s first pick, no one wants to waste the time they’ve invested in the gym. Sure, it’s not always possible to avoid alcohol on the days that you work out, but the more you do, the more you set yourself up for results in fitness and muscle growth.