Losing Weight with Beer

Drinking beer and losing weight may appear to be complete opposites of each other, but actually beer really is not that bad of a beverage in terms of dieting and losing weight.

In comparison with a 12oz can of Coca-Cola (140 calories), your typical beer (Budweiser, Miller, Coors), is about 100 calories for the same size can.

Fruit juice actually has more calories. A typical 12oz serving of cranberry juice cocktail, is about 200 calories.

Light beer (Bud Light, Miller Light, Coors Light), is about 70 calories for a 12oz can.

Budweiser, Miller, and Coors are lagers, which are typically lower in calories than ales. A light colored ale (pale ale, cream ale, hefeweizen) is about 100-125 calories for a 12oz serving, while medium-colored ales (IPA, red ale), is about 150-175 calories, and dark ales (porter, brown ale, stout) is about 200-250 calories.

One advantage that beer has over sodas and juices is the lack of high fructose corn syrup. And since beer contains zero fat, all of its calories comes from carbohydrates in the form of grains. The dark ales are heavier in grains, and are also high in B-complex vitamins.

The good news about drinking several beers in one evening is that all the weight gain will come from water, which you can easily urinate out. The actual carbohydrate consumption will usually amount to about 600 calories, considering you had 3-4 beers.

You can burn that off in a one-hour walk the next day. A one-hour walk, at a medium pace, for about 2-3 miles, will equate to about 600 calories burned.

The disadvantage of drinking beer is the alcohol. Alcohol will cause the body to lower its metabolism, as well as other associated issues like destroying brain cells, or taxing the liver.

But drinking 3-4 beers is still better than drinking 3-4 cans of soda, fruit juice, or other high fructose corn syrup beverage, and still better than filling up your belly with tacos, tortilla chips, or mozzarella sticks.

Just be careful about driving. It's cheaper to buy beer at a store and drink at home!

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How to Control the Buffet

We all love to go to a buffet and indulge with the "all you can eat" to our hearts content. I know I love buffets.

But visiting a buffet can ruin a diet.

I learned how to control my intake when visiting a buffet while training myself to control my urge to eat. I used to eat three full plates when visiting a buffet. Today, I do 1 1/2 plates.

The trick is to bring reading material...

• Bring some reading material, a newspaper or a magazine. If you like to follow Twitter and Facebook on your smartphone, then do that too.


• Start your first plate with your favorite meat items. That's what you really want out of a buffet anyways, the prime rib, the ham, the fish, the sausage. Fill up your first plate with all meat.


• After finishing your first plate, start reading. Spend at least 20 minutes focused on your reading material, the more minutes the better.


• After that much time has expired, you'll notice the urge to eat has waned. This is because you broke the momentum to gorge, and put yourself into a more relaxed state of mind.


• Go ahead and get a second plate, but you're more than likely not feel inclined to gorge. Only fill up half the plate, and tell yourself that you'll go back for a third plate later on.


• Finish the second plate, and then read some more, for just about 10 minutes at least.


• Afterwards, you should feel pretty stuffed. When that much time has passed by, the food from the first and second plates will have expanded somewhat in your belly, and you'll not feel like getting that third plate anymore.

What causes us to gorge at the buffet is momentum. That is, you get into this frame of mind that there's so much food, that you have to eat quickly and go back to get the other stuff. So, if you break the momentum by reading in between plates, your mind relaxes, and you no longer feel anxious to get back to the buffet.

And in that time between plates, you're allowing body to shift its energy into digesting that food, making you feel a little more tired.

Other people will tell you to master the buffet by eating salads first. I've tried that, and while that does work in theory, in reality it does not. That's because when you go to a buffet, you see the prime rib, the pasta, the sausage, and your mind goes haywire.

What'll happen is that you'll fill up half of your stomach with salad, and then go immediately to the meats, pastas, sausages, etc., and fill up there as well. So my advice is to start with that instead, and get that immediate satisfaction over with.

It's better to let yourself enjoy the first plate, and then use some reading material afterwards to create a 20+ minute pause to settle your mind down.

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Canned Tuna is Great for Dieting

Protein is a necessary nutrient when you're dieting and exercising in that you need to maintain muscle mass while burning the fat. To do that, you have to feed your body protein.

The USDA recommends 50 grams of protein a day for the average adult male or female.

Canned tuna seems to be a great source for protein, while keeping fat intake low.

Here are my tips, if you're interested in going tuna...

• A typical 6oz can of tuna provides about 25 grams of protein, half of the daily recommended intake of protein.


• A typical 6oz can of tuna contains about 180-200 calories.


• Look for "light tuna" in water. Some canned tuna is packed in oil.


• I prefer Bumblebee brand of tuna. You can get these in 6oz cans. The tuna is in small chunks, and is soft.


• A typical 6oz can contains about 4oz of tuna, and 2oz of water.


• The water is drinkable, and tastes pretty good, kinda like watered down soy sauce.


• Don't add any mayonnaise, instead add hot sauce, or pepper, lemon concentrate, or your favorite seasoning. Don't add any additional fat to the tuna.


• Canned tuna can give you acid reflux, I highly recommend taking an acid blocker, like Zantac, prior to eating.

You can also do canned salmon, which actually tastes even better than tuna, a little more sweet, and most canned salmon is smoked. It's about the same calories, and same protein.

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Keep Healthy Snacks in the Fridge

One of the biggest reasons why people put on so much weight is because they have to snack.

And when we snack, we tend to reach for the potato chips, ice cream, cookies, chocolate, popcorn, and sodas, or the dreaded "left overs".

It's the snacking that ruins peoples' diets.

So help yourself by keeping your refrigerator stocked with low-calorie snack foods.

• Look for low-calorie foods that you really love to eat, primarily the fruits and vegetables, and keep plenty of them on hand.


• Tomatoes, blackberries, strawberries, sweet peppers, and oranges are all low calories foods, yet are packed with anti-oxidants like Vitamin C.


• When you visit the grocery store, spend more time in the produce section identifying what they have available, and refrain from buying the high-fat snacks.


• Just about any kind of fruit or vegetable is still going to lower in calories on a pound-for-pound basis than other fatty snack foods.


• Don't drink diet sodas! Buy a case of bottled water, and get some kind of flavoring, like powdered drink mix, or lemon concentrate. I found that I was able to lose more weight by weaning myself away from the chemicals in sodas, and focusing on natural food products.


• Look for high-fiber snacks. Get whole wheat alternatives to enriched white flour. Fiber will bind up some of the fat and carbs in food, and pass them out of your body, effectively reducing the calories you've consumed. The more fiber, the less calories you'll absorb.


• If you like the taste of V8 Juice, get the low sodium variety. The low sodium V8 has double the potassium than its regular counterpart. When people diet, they tend to become deficient in potassium, and thereby end up losing muscle mass. Low sodium V8 is only 70 calories per can, and is loaded with vitamins and minerals.


• If you crave frozen snacks, keep a bag of frozen blueberries, or other frozen fruit in the freezer.


• If you like to eat nuts, get almonds. Almonds are very high in magnesium, which is a necessary mineral your body needs to metabolize food into energy. Count 24 almonds for about 160 calories, and eat that much.


• If you need to snack on something while watching television, I suggest a package of strawberries. They're very high in Vitamin C, and relatively low calorie compared to other fruits. They're mostly water, which will fill you up, but you'll eliminate easily.

It's tough not to snack, so instead of trying to hold yourself back, give yourself some low-calorie options by keeping your favorite fruits and vegetables well-stocked.

If you can manage to do this, and make a habit of it, you'll find yourself losing the craving for fatty snacks, and taking another step closer to a healthier lifestyle.

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About Weight Loss Blogger

I'm Steve. I reached my heaviest weight of 240 pounds in 2004. But I reached my goal of 150 pounds in November of 2009. Today I maintain a weight between 150-160.

But when I reached that all time high of 240 pounds, I made a promise to slim myself down and get back to down a healthier form. I set a goal of 150 pounds, which is what I weighed in my 20s.

The first few years was difficult because I had built up a habit of wanting to eat, and eating junk food. But I managed to train myself to control the urge, find alternative foods, and learn more about eating habits. Once I gained greater control, losing weight became more easy.

I'm not one of those guys who spends thousands of dollars on weight loss programs, fitness club memberships, or weird exercise contraptions. I believe in getting down to the root of my eating habits, changing things from the ground up, and spending money modestly.

You can read about my efforts on my personal weight loss blog, "Beef Jerky Diet". And yes, I ate a lot of beef jerky doing it!

You can see my "Before and After Photos".

Aside from that, I live in Southern California, I work for myself as a internet marketer, blogger, and enjoy riding motorcycles, travelling, and drinking microbrews.

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Twitter (http://twitter.com/beefjerkydiet)

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