First things first, beer is an alcoholic drink made from grain, such as barley, wheat or rye, that has been fermented with yeast. It’s flavored using hops, which make a great flavoring for beer since they’re quite bitter, balancing out the sweetness from the sugar in the grains.
Does beer really make you fat?
If I ate a low-fat, low-carb diet and my entire eating habits were the kind that wouldn't ordinarily make one, would my heavy beer-drinking ways cause me to become fat anyway?
Beer
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Beer
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Beer contains some nutrients, top of which is carbohydrates, (because it is made from grains). So yes, heavy beer intake increases one's intake of carbs and can cause one to be gain weight.
Secondly, gram for gram, beer reportedly contains as many calories as a soft drink, so it has the potential to add a lot of calories to your diet.
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Some studies have also shown that drinking alcohol can increase your appetite in the short term, causing you to eat more than you otherwise would, which then results in gaining weight.
Thirdly, drinking alcohol can prevent your body from burning fat. This is because your body prioritizes the breakdown of alcohol (Hahaha) over other sources of fuel, including stored fat.
In theory, regular drinking could therefore contribute to an increase in body fat, but only if you take more than 500 ml per day. Below one beer a day doesn’t seem to lead to an increase in body weight or belly fat.
The beer belly question
Beer belly
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Drinking beer is often associated with an increase in body fat, particularly around the belly. This is commonly referred to as a “beer belly.”
Reputable research has suggested that it is not the beer that causes the beer belly per se, but the huge amounts that are usually consumed by beer drinkers. We can all agree that few people can sit on a mountain of 25 sodas and drink them in one sitting. However, many people tend drink beer in very large amounts, five liters and beyond, in one sitting.
It has been discovered that is it the huge amounts of beer that causes the stomach walls to stretch often that results in a beer belly, with some adding that any liquid drunk in the amounts that beer is used consumed would cause a belly all the same.
Beer does not contain fat, but it has bulk, which stretches the stomach lining.
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