Food Energy & Weight Loss

Below is an excerpt from Part Two of

The 2004 Multi-Diet

by Anderson A. Anonymous, M.D., Ph.D.

Alcohol is for Fun

I am sure that every diet-book author on the planet has already warned you about the irresponsible use of “demon rum” and all that “gin, gin, gin, that makes you wanna sin”.

It’s all true, but since you’ve heard it before, I will be merciful and not repeat it here.  This section will simply tell you what your body does with alcohol Calories in relation to other types of Calories.

To begin with, unlike carbohydrate, fat, and protein, your body has no known non-energy uses for alcohol. Alcohol gets burned for fuel, nothing else. Furthermore, it gets burned for fuel immediately.

This probably happens because the body cannot store alcohol, or convert it into fat, or excrete it rapidly. And alcohol is toxic to most tissues, so having it floating around in your blood for long is not healthy. (As we have seen, The Beast’s main purpose in life is trying to keep you healthy. See more on… the threshold theory.)

Therefore, in order to burn up the alcohol as quickly as possible, your body will suppress the burning of everything else—carbohydrate, fat, protein—until the alcohol is gone. This is how drinking can make you fat. First, during the time you have alcohol in your system, little fat is being burned. Second, when you are drinking, you are usually also eating peanuts, potato chips, or other “fun foods” that have lots of delicious fat in them. This fat goes directly to your fat cells and stays there (probably forever unless you do the Multi-Diet ). So you gain weight.

All of this means that while dieting, alcohol is the “most unnecessary” of the various nutrients. It does not mean that Multi-Dieters have to give up alcohol entirely (we’re not social barbariansJ). But obviously, it does mean that if you want to include alcohol, you must take extra care to manage your daily Calorie intake well enough to have an extra hundred Calories or two for that glass of wine or beer (or whatever) and still stay below your daily Calorie limit. Otherwise, you’ll just put yourself on the Liar’s Diet. ’Nuff said. Note that a standard alcoholic drink is defined as 12 oz of beer, 5 oz of wine, or 1.5 oz of 80-proof liquor.