Hi friends! I hope you aren’t getting bored with our discussion about types of foods and nutrients. It’s so important to have this foundation of knowledge so you can make the right nutritional decisions for you and your family. By giving you this information for free, I hope to save you from spending money on weight loss pills, programs and gimmicks. This is the last article on nutrition and tomorrow we will talk about ways to boost your metabolism so you will naturally burn more calories. And lots of yummy recipes are on the way too that will fit in perfectly with your fitness plan.
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Fat is essential for life but alcohol shouldn’t enter the body. I lump them together because they are both full of calories. Fat has 9 calories per gram and alcohol has 7 while proteins and carbs each have 4 calories per gram.
Drinking alcohol doesn’t make someone a bad person, but it’s not wise physically or financially. I do buy rum and vodka and keep them on hand for making vanilla extract, cleaning supplies, and for wound cleaning. Wood alcohol (which is sold at the drugstore as isopropyl alcohol) isn’t good for your skin. It is very drying and can kill skin cells. Grain alcohol has the same germ killing properties but is gentler on the skin.
When alcohol enters the body through the digestive system, bad things start to happen. For now, I want to focus on the effects of alcohol on weight loss. When alcohol is consumed the body immediately converts some of it to fat. The rest is converted by the liver into acetate which is sent to the blood stream to be used for fuel ahead of carbohydrates and fat. This process stresses the liver and compromises it’s ability to metabolize fat. Eventually it can cause liver disease or failure. It’s best to leave alcohol for washing wounds and in recipes where it will be evaporated away in the cooking process.
Fat on the other hand, while high in calories, contains essential fat soluble vitamins that can’t be absorbed any other way. It’s important to choose the right kinds of fat for optimal health and vitamin content. Fish oil, hemp oil, flax oil, and evening primrose oil are all good sources of Omega Fatty Acids. Olive oil, Almond oil, natural nut butters, and coconut oil are also healthy fats. I personally also use real butter even though it is more expensive that margarine. I believe the health benefits are worth the additional cost. It takes a relatively small amount of fat to meet your daily needs.
During weight loss 30 grams of fat or about 2 T of healthy oil is plenty each day. There are lots of fun ways to reduce fat in baking, salad dressings, and other traditional recipes. When done correctly, you won’t even be able to tell. More on that a little later in the month. Tomorrow we will talk about ways to boost your metabolism! Fun stuff there.
What about the positive medical effects of red wine? Good for the heart, right? I don’t think that you can say that alcohol should never enter your body unless you’re coming from a standpoint where you believe it is wrong for some religious belief you might hold…but then again, even Jesus drank wine, and making it was His first miracle! 😉
Hi Grace, Thanks for writing! The medical effects of red wine come from the grapes and the process of fermentation, not from the alcohol–a by product of the reaction. Jesus made wine, but there are several different types of wine in the scriptures. All grape juice was called wine whether fermented or not. I don’t have a moral problem with it if you want to drink a glass of wine, but it won’t hep your efforts towards fitness.
Coconut oil is a medium-chain fatty acid that boosts the metabolism by stimulating the thyroid gland. It’s fat is not stored and so it is a good oil to use for energy and weight loss. “Eat Fat, Lose Fat” by Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig has more info, and you can also learn a lot from the books on coconut by Bruce Fife, ND. He has a web site too.