Lose weight by being conscious about what you drink

People all over the modern world are concerned about one thing, and one thing only. Weight loss.

Or a six pack of beer... as it were.

Okay, okay. Hyperbole aside, weight loss is actually a huge concern for a lot of us out here in the real world. For me, I stopped having the "eat everything you want and take names later" mentality a couple of years ago, when I turned 29. For me, the issue was that I had a slowly accumulating mass around my love handles -- but what I was hoping to do was achieve the mythical six pack that I hear so many stories about. One of the obvious things that I could do to achieve the six pack was to cut out another type of six pack. It's not news to anybody that beer contains a lot of calories, right?

Gain muscle and lose weight simultaneously.

Something which you perhaps have not thought too much in depth about is where the calories in alcoholic beverages come from? Typically there are two answers to that question: sugar and alcohol.

That's pretty much how I look any time I get an
opportunity to geek out. Hold onto your butts for
impending Wikipedia links!

Here is a quick break down of the science:

The way that alcohol is formed is through ethanol fermentation -- fermentation is another, less efficient way that organisms can generate energy when their normal method is exhausted. Animals actually engage in a process of fermentation as well, called lactic acid fermentation. Normally your body meets its energy demands through cellular respiration, where sugar is converted into usable chemical energy (ATP). The secondary process kicks in when you can't get enough oxygen to process sugar, or when there is a backlog of sugar -- this is where fermentation comes in. It is a less efficient method of generating ATP, which leaves the waste product "lactic acid" -- or in the case of yeast, and ethanol fermentation, the waste product "ethanol." Ethanol and lactic acid are fairly complex compounds compared to the waste products formed out of cellular respiration, ergo they are loaded with a ton of stored molecular energy. When those compounds are broken down, the energy of the molecular bonds is either released as heat, or converted into other molecular bonds.

This is exactly the kind of thing you want to avoid if you're planning
on cutting weight off of your gullet. OMG WHY IS IT SO GUD.

What you need to understand here is that molecular bonds store energy, and through the magic of simplification, we measure our energy input and output in calories. How this translates to the calories in the energy you drink is that alcohol is actually a chief source of calories, because of all of the energy in those molecular bonds.

I already touched on the fact that sugar is part of the fermentation process -- you don't have to rub too many brain cells together to figure out at this point, that high sugar content foods are normally used for fermentation. This comes out as the heavily starchy potatoes, and grains, or the high fructose grapes used for wine -- even honey is used for the fermentation of mead. Aside from the ethanol being a major source of calories, the left over sugar from the fermentation process is also high in calories.

After spending this whole time talking about how bad beer is
for you, it's on natural that I put tantalizing photos of what
you'll be missing out on, once you stop drinking beer.

The TLDR of this is that beer is high in calories. White and red wine are actually much better for you, in terms of calorie content. And spirits such as whiskey are even more forgiving. There are two things you have to take into consideration when watching what you drink, however. The first thing is more on the food science side of the equation -- higher alcohol content means less sugar, and sugar has more calories than alcohol; therefore higher alcohol content is going to be less calories. The second thing is that if you are going to be conscious of calorie intake when drinking, you also have to consider how much farther the effects of higher alcohol content beverages go. To seasoned drinkers, this isn't that big of a deal, but even if you have been drinking for a long time, and this whole time it's been mostly beer, you might be shocked by how much quicker wine or straight whiskey hits you.

I was able to lose a considerable amount of fat around my waist simply by switching to whiskey -- which wasn't that hard. I was already becoming somewhat of a whiskey snob, so it was just a step away to entirely drop beer as my go-to drink. I also did not have to worry about the progression of severe alcoholism, because I had made considerable cut backs to how much I'd been drinking well before I made the switch to whiskey. Now, in my case, I discovered the glorious app known as Untappd, so I ended up getting back into beer as my go-to drink when outside of the house -- but that being said, I think it needs to be restated just how effective switching from beer to wine, or beer to whiskey can be.

If straight whiskey isn't your style, you can always mix
with tea, a bit of lemon and a bit of sugar for a Hot Toddy.
I wouldn't recommend it because I hate Hot Toddies, but
it's all you man/woman! 

Click here to learn about the Red Wine Diet.

A single ounce of whiskey contains as much alcohol as a pint of beer. The difference in calories is pretty shocking. Your average pint of beer contains 260 calories, while a single shot of whiskey has only 70. If you were looking for something with meal value more similar to beer, a five ounce glass of wine contains roughly 125 calories. By switching from beer to whiskey -- among other things -- I was able to make considerable cutbacks to caloric intake, and this translated into me losing 3 waist sizes over a period of one month, while still gaining around my biceps and chest. That should be a pretty attractive incentive to men such as myself, who want to hit the gym and see positive gains without putting on the fat that often comes alongside it. And then of course there's the other side of it: aside from looking better because of the change in your body, you'll also look better because you're delving into more sophisticated territory!

Forgetfully, Fernet: an unforgettably instant classic

That subtitle is a little cheesy, right? Regardless of that, we're just gonna say "forget about it" as we move on to the history of this gingery lemon menthol cocktail.

The Who/What/Where/When/Why of Forgetfully, Fernet?

Unlike the previous Fernet cocktails that have graced the page of The Bottle Opener, Forgetfully, Fernet is a recent creation. First mixed by Gina Chersavani of the Eddy Bar, Washington, D.C. Forgetfully, Fernet was recognized by Tasting Table as one of the best new cocktails of 2012. The cocktail boasts the claim of being a hangover treatment, which is absolutely appealing for obvious reasons. It possesses the potent additions of ginger and lemon juice, along with the hair of the dog in the form of Irish Whiskey and Fernet Branca. Fernet itself is titled as a purported hangover cure, containing many botanicals, herbs, and spices which have been shown to have recuperative applications.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 oz Irish Whiskey
• 1 oz of ground ginger
• 1 oz of lemon juice
• 1/2 oz of simple syrup
• 2 cups of ice
• 1 oz of Fernet Branca
• 1 sprig of mint

How to Prepare Forgetfully, Fernet

1. Start by adding Irish Whiskey, ground ginger, lemon juice, and simple syrup to a mixing glass. (Note: If making simple syrup from scratch, add two sugar cubes or two teaspoons of sugar, and stir vigorously with 2 teaspoons of water. Use a combination of white and brown sugar for a desirable taste and sweetness.)
2. Add ice to mixing glass, and pour contents into blender. Start pureeing the mixture to desired consistency. Add a few more ice cubes if not thick enough to create a pile of slush.
3.  Add to your favorite medium to tall cocktail glass, and pour Fernet Branca around the rim of the glass.
4. Garnish with a mint sprig, and sprinkle with fine sugar if cocktail is too tart.

As always, have fun, and enjoy!

Daily fruit, both unnecessary and unhealthy

As a fan of Tim Ferris, I recently purchased and have been reading the 4 Hour Body. Again, as a fan, I've taken his advice at face value and gone ahead and followed through with his suggestions. One such suggestion that I'll be focusing on is that fruit is not necessary in your diet and can even cause more problems (eg. Weight gain) than its worth.

For ages now, people ha e contended that fruit is necessary because of vitamins that you can't get elsewhere. This theory has recently been extended to include antioxidants as well. A trip to the grocerystore, or a quick Google search will reveal the vitamin issue to be flat out wrong. Three cups or spinach for example, has almost all the Vitamin A you could need, while broccoli makes up the small amount of missing Vitamin C. As for B complex, you can get them from a host of different foods, some of which include beans, mushrooms, seafood, and collard greens. It seems that the common scare tactics involving pirates with scurvy can be attributed to a misunderstanding of exactly how limited those people's diets actually were.

So how about antioxidants? Aren't fruit the king in that domain? Well yes... that is, specifically berries are the best source of antioxidants. According to Canadian Living, the next four best sources however are brocolli, garlic, green tea and tomato. I would add that while tomato is a fruit, it is one of the few juicy seed sacks that's allowed on the diet. That being said, the science is still not in regarding the benefit of antioxidants, and studies appear to have mixed results, as this page from Harvard Health explains "One study even showed that taking beta-carotene may actually increase the chances of developing lung cancer in smokers." All in all, the benefit of antioxidants seems mostly to be caused by media sensationalism.

The Renegade Diet

So what's the main difference between fruit and vegetables? Well, as it turns out, vegetable is not even a classification that carries any scientific weight, so our preconceptions about food may already be up for grabs. Nevertheless, I suppose we can arbitrarily define vegetables as any plant food that is either a leaf, stalk, flower, or root. Although, I know even that definition is not particular enough, we will not get lost in technicalities. The difference is sugar. You can basically think of the shell of the fruit as being like a placenta, or an egg shell, with the flesh being an energy source for the new life in the center. Fructose the sugar commonly found in fruits gets stored as far with amazing efficiency. In fact, more efficient than any other sugar.

For the above reasons I've cut fruit and its juice from my diet completely. Not only does it have alternatives, but it can also make you fat. I suppose the idea that it is helpful comes from the double pronged fact that fruit have nutritional value, with the falsehood that we need a little bit of everything but in moderation.

As an alcohol enthusiast, this causes little problem. Most of my cocktails are classics, if I'm not drinking my spirits neat. On the other hand, when I do opt for cocktails with juice, it can be fit into my carefully calculated cheat days (I know what all you other hardcore health nuts and dieters are thinking, and to that I respond: read his book!) As a bartender it causes even less strife, because I honestly don't care what someone's tastes are. If anything, I'm more happy when people know what cocktails they like.