Growing up, I had always been remarkably thin. How, is a whole other question, given that my diet consisted of Western Bacon Cheeseburgers and more Dr. Pepper than water. Thankfully, tennis kept me reasonably in check. Even with the constant exercise, I can't rule out some level of divine guardianship protecting my poor arteries. Then I went off to college. The tennis came to an abrupt stop, my meal choices remained unchanged, and the dastardly devil known as beer entered my life. Adios, single-digit body fat.
I would love to say that my turnaround was sudden. That after a year, the ramifications of my choices were literally weighing me down. Call it the ignorance of youth. Call it lack of priorities. I was studying to be a doctor. Why should my health be of any concern? The framework I've arrived at now took me over a decade to cultivate. Most of those years were spent ignoring the problem. My only hope is that the time I wasted can be salvaged for your benefit.
Let's talk about how we can reduce our beer gut and wake up less hungover.
Prerequisite
This is obvious, but bears repeating, there's no safe or beneficial alcohol consumption. There's been an oft-repeated claim that moderate alcohol consumption has led to longer lifespans. This seems like a clear case of correlation being confused for causation. Wealth has also been correlated with longer lifespans, and in that same vein, if you can afford discretionary expenditures on alcohol, you can nearly certainly afford a decent level of healthcare. Even if that's not the defining variable, I believe it should cast enough doubt over the initial claim. I'm obviously not a hardline anti-alcohol advocate, but let's not kid ourselves. Now let's get into the good stuff.
The Calorie Methodology
It's not sexy, but true insights seldom are. Once I became aware of how calorically-dense my consumption choices were, they were hard to ignore. I think part of the problem with calories is that we lack context even if we do bother to look them up. If you know that the beer you're drinking contains X calories, that fact means little to you in a isolation. Let's pair it with some context.
For this example, we'll use Austin's famous "Electric Jellyfish" - an excellent IPA created by the equally-excellent pizza-maker, Pinthouse. This beer contains 220 calories per 12 oz serving. If you're already aware that that is a fairly high number, here's an extra kicker: beer isn't typically served in 12 oz pours. Pints are 16 oz. That extra 4 oz is equivalent to a 33% markup, yielding a mass-tacking 290 calories per pint.
On a typical brewery outing, let's say you have 3 beers. 3 delicious Jellyfishes (Jellyfi?) later and your body is 870 calories the more for it. What would an equivalent calorie expenditure look like with food intake? That's over 1 1/2 Big Macs, 3 slices of pizza, or 6 cans of Coke. All for a beverage that yielded zero nutritional value. If you're hating yourself while reading this, I assure you, I'm right there with you, but we press on.
this skull-and-crossbones pint of nirvana was nearly the death of me
Lower Calorie Alternatives
I won't belabor obvious alternatives here since light beer and seltzer makers spend a fortune on advertising telling you how few calories they contain. Instead, we'll explore some lesser-known options.
Tequila
This often raises eyebrows due to the party-hardy associations that tequila often brings, but allow me to make its case.
There are 3 common types of tequila: blanco, reposado, and añejo. We're going to focus on blanco (also known as "silver" or "plata"). Reposado and añejo are aged tequilas. This might not always lead to higher calories, but it does come with one major drawback that we'll cover later. For now, we'll focus on how it fares against our beloved beer.
The Next Morning
Due to blanco tequila containing less additives than its aged counterparts, it possesses the additional benefit of allowing us to not hate ourselves (as much) the next day. Pound-for-pound drink-for-drink, drinking blanco will leave you hating yourself less in the morning. Note that I did not say feeling great, or even close to as good as if you hadn't drank at all - just better than you normally would. Given that the jury is still out on what causes hangovers in the first place, I won't pretend to speak to the science, if any, of why that is the case; but anecdotally for myself and others, it continues to ring true.
'Eureka!,' our brains say. We've cracked ethanol consumption. Now for a quick intermission to kill our buzz.
Healthier ≠ Healthy
I write this section for myself if nothing else. It's easy to fall for the "diet coke fallacy" where because we're making one "good" decision, we think it's okay to indulge more in a less-healthy decision. Or, in my case, simply drink more. Surely my cleverness and arithmetic have empowered me to cheat biology. When you write it down, it's laughable. It's like telling a smoker that if they switched to filtered cigarettes, they'd no longer have to face the consequences of their habit. What we're consuming is not good, in any form. Now onto my poison of choice.
Lalo
Lalo is a tequila that contains only 3 ingredients: agave, yeast, and water. No additives or other nonsense. The company literally only makes blanco, and claims it to be the cleanest spirit on Earth. To top it all off, it's reasonably priced at ~$42 / bottle. If that sounds high, consider that each 750ml liquor bottle contains 16 shots, for a per-drink cost of roughly $2.60.
Is This Tequila Blanco?
If you weren't able to get a good look at the bottle, "blanco" literally means "white" in Spanish. Remember that tequila "blanco", "silver", and "plata" are all the same thing. If your drink is clear, you'll have less to fear.
Vodka & Gin
I don't consume these other spirits nearly as often, but vodka and gin round out our top 3 low-calorie spirit options. All 3 of these yield roughly the same amount of calories, in addition to containing zero carbs or sugar. My only recommendations for these would be to try to find brands that use less additives, and potentially learn a bit about their distillation process. Purity is the goal.
Bring on the Cocktails?
You might now be under the illusion that a cocktail containing our new favorite liquor is the obvious route forward. Unfortunately, these offenders can often rival their hoppy counterparts. Let's take a deeper look at a few cocktails you might presume to be on the lighter side.
Margarita
Tequila's #1 hit. What could go wrong? A typical margarita contains only 4 ingredients: tequila, triple sec, simple syrup, and lime juice. Sounds pretty good until you realize that triple sec contains over 100 calories / oz. Throw in the simple syrup for an extra 50 / oz, and these delicious concoctions begin to show their bulge. Even the "skinny" variations of this cocktail typically only substitute the simple syrup for an artificial sweetener.
Gin & Tonic
It's sole ingredients are in the name. What could be hiding from us? If you're like me, you assumed that "tonic water" just meant carbonated water. To make it even more confusing, that's what "soda water" actually is. Tonic water sneakily contains as much sugar and calories as Coke. So stick with the gin & soda if you're looking to...avoid consuming as many calories as a typical soda. It's like the world wants us to fail.
Even this image from verywellfit.com extols the virtues of tonic
Truly Lighter Alternatives
We've learned that the added ingredients are what's biting us here. Is there any respite for us now, outside of pure shots?
Ranch Water
My go-to tequila cocktail. All you need is tequila, lime juice, and sparkling water. Use a Sodastream to make your own bubbly water for added savings. You can also make an easy paloma by adding grapefruit.
Martini
Not all the classics are off limits. Two ingredients: gin (or vodka), and vermouth. Vermouth is a fortified wine that clocks in at 45 calories / oz. As we've seen, we could do much worse.
Kombucha
Thankfully, these are becoming increasingly popular at places where you'd typically only find beer. I like Juneshine and Flying Embers. Flying Embers' Ruby Red Grapefruit packs a 6% ABV at only 125 calories per can.
21 Seeds
21 Seeds is a woman-led distillery that makes flavored tequilas. My better half, who would normally never drink straight liquor, enjoys having this over ice. Our favorite is the Cucumber Jalapeño. For the price of the flavoring, you do forfeit 1 gram of sugar, as well as 1 carb. Worth it.
ZBiotics: a Miracle of Science
We've conquered calories, and even learned what to drink to make us feel less hungover. Could it really get any better? Enter ZBiotics.
ZBiotics is a probiotic shot that you drink before drinking. It's designed to replicate the functionality of your liver, but in your gut. This probiotic helps break down acetaldehyde - an unwanted byproduct of alcohol. I absolutely swear by these. The key stipulation is that you need to drink them as early in the day as possible. I.e. - if you know you're going to drink that night, take your ZBiotic that morning. Similar to blanco's effects, it's far from a panacea, but you'll thank yourself the next day.
They're a bit expensive, a pack of 12 costing $108, or $9 each. Anytime I'm contemplating whether or not it's worth it, I think back to my worst hangovers and say, "Would I have paid $9 to feel better that day?" The answer is always yes.
Wrapping Up
In addition to the pillars of now being able to drink with diminished caloric burden and empowering us to be more productive the next day, I think establishing a baseline level of awareness can be an imperative step when it comes to anything alcohol-related. I hope this system can be adapted and modified to serve you better, as it has me. Cheers.