Have you heard that alcohol is fat free, has zero grams of fat or has zero fat calories? Well, those are all true; there are no fat calories in alcohol. But that is a shifty marketing scheme because alcohol can certainly still make you fat. Of course, the science behind it all can seem so tricky, but in the simplest terms, alcohol is just a different substance than fat, protein or carbohydrate. Keep in mind that a calorie is simply a unit of energy, and different substances contain different quantities. Proteins and our controversial favorite carbohydrates, each have four calories per gram, while a gram of forbidden fat contains nine calories. Alcohol is in a class of its own and contains seven calories per gram.
While some of those calories are immediately converted and stored as fat; there is an even more troublesome side to alcohol calories. When alcohol calories are metabolized, they are converted to a substance called acetate. Your body is not necessarily all that selective when it picks which substance to burn as fuel; it will pretty much take whatever is easiest to break down and most readily available. When Acetate is in the blood, your body will utilize it to create energy versus other calories like carbohydrates and fat. Then those unused calories are easily converted and stored as fat, hence the development of the infamous “beer belly.” Not to mention that often when we drink too much our “good sense” can sometimes go to the wayside resulting into late-night-fried-food-fests that certainly don’t help our waist lines!
In other words, the alcohol calories you consume are typically burned, and in doing so, promote the generation of more fat from other unused calories from carbohydrates, proteins and fats. So while alcohol is “fat-free,” it would not behoove you to consider it in those terms.
The other critical factor in the “cocktails = fat” equation is the extra calories that are consumed via the mixer contents of cocktails. While it is true that a standard shot of 80-proof distilled liquor has 96 calories, it is safe to assume that the average 5oz mixed drink can easily contain in excess of 300 calories. For example, let’s consider a Margarita: 1½ oz of tequila has 96 alcohol calories, but the remaining 3½ oz of sweet and sour and triple sec add an additional 207 calories.
Some restaurants serve cocktails in larger glasses and chances are they are increasing the mixer, not the alcohol. Unfortunately, this only adds to your waist line, not your buzz. Often you will see people order vodka with cranberry and/or orange juice believing it is a healthy option because it contains natural fruit juice. They may think they are making a “healthier” decision, when in actuality, full sugar fruit juices have on average over 513 calories per 3½ oz serving – that is nearly 20% more calories than full sugar soda! Accumulated over the course of a long night, you easily could add many unnecessary calories to your waist line.
To help put this into perspective, we’ll use a little math. A regular social drinker who drinks 1-2 drinks per day with full sugar fruit juice (15 calories per ounce on average) instead of a calorie free mixer would consume over 28,000 extra calories over the course of a year. That habit will put on over eight pounds of weight per year! But have no fear, while the popular opinion supports the theory that alcohol and weight management don’t “mix,” the concept of SkinnyTinis prove otherwise!
