Learn the impact of wine on your weight and overall health!

Do you think wine is your friend? Are you struggling to maintain your weight loss and have no idea why? Wine may not be your friend after all! It’s time to learn the impact of wine on your weight and overall health!

Despite numerous articles touting the health benefits of wine, the numbers are sobering. Nutritional value and calorie for wine are estimated at 123 calories for a 5 oz serving. Most wine drinkers would agree a bottle 750 ml serves four glasses. This increases the serving size to 6.4 oz and 153 calories!

At these numbers if you had four glasses a week you would gain nearly 10 lbs per year. At six glasses per week, you would consume the calorie equivalent of nearly 15 lbs per year. There is no problem with wine in trying to maintain a particular weight but if you don’t burn these extra calories off with exercise, expect them to eventually show up on the scale!

4 glasses of wine per week = 10 pounds per year
6 glasses of wine per week = 15 pounds per year

Health Benefits of Wine

The impact of wine on health can be positive but is it enough? Let’s get back to the articles from our trusted medical sources, discussing these “health benefits” of wine. Some of the proposed benefits according to the mayoclinic are:

Raises HDL (healthy) cholesterol
Reduces the formation of blood clots
Helps prevent artery damage caused by high levels of LDL (harmful) cholesterol
May improve the function of the layer of cells that line your blood vessels (endothelium)

Good news right? Before you jump back on the healthy wine bandwagon, lets take a deeper look. Mayo Clinic states if you are not drinking, not to start. Brilliant! Now what about the rest of us.

Here are the mayo clinic recommendations:

If you already drink red wine, do so in moderation. For healthy adults, that means:
Up to one drink a day for women of all ages.
Up to one drink a day for men older than age 65.
Up to two drinks a day for men age 65 and younger. The limit for men is higher because men generally weigh more and have more of an enzyme that metabolizes alcohol than women do.

A drink is defined as:

12 ounces (355 milliliters, or mL) of beer
5 ounces (148 mL) of wine
1.5 ounces (44 mL) of 80-proof distilled spirits

How the recommendations add up

We already discussed how a glass of wine really isn’t 5 oz, but for fun lets go with that number to see how it works out over the course of 1 year and look at the potential weight gain.

One (5oz) glass of wine equals =123 calories x 365 = 44,895 extra calories/3500 =12.82 lbs in one year.

Exactly opposite of what we want if we are trying to get healthy.

Research shows that even a modest weight loss (2-6% of body weight) is associated with:

Decrease in high blood pressure by 20-40%
Decrease in incidence of diabetes by 30-60%
Decrease in cardiac events by 30-40%

If reducing weight is associated with these improvements in health, is it safe to say that gaining 2-6% of your body weight would have the opposite effect? Maybe increase your risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiac events?

If a 200 lb person gained 2% – 6% of his or her body weight that would be an 4 lb to 12 lb gain. Compare that to the amount vs the 12.82 lbs in calories that you consumed with your daily wine. The way the numbers add up, it is reasonable to assume that any health benefits that you could potentially acquire from wine are easily offset by the health consequences from all the weight you may gain from drinking it.

So drink well my friend, but don’t drink to be well!

Impact of wine on calorie count

Alcohol beverages supply calories but few nutrients and may contribute to unwanted weight gain. If you need to lose weight, looking at your drinking may be a good place to start. Use the alcohol calorie calculator to learn how many alcohol calories you are consuming!

Calculate the calories in your drinks!

Drink Calorie Calculator

Here is an awesome tool to help you see how many calories you are consuming while drinking. Be realistic, if you buy wine by the bottle it is really 6.4 oz per serving, not 5!

Drink Calorie Calculator

About the author

Dr.Richard Tellier is a board certified chiropractor in the state of Massachusetts and has been practicing at Align Health in Andover, Massachusetts for the past 10 years. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Tellier for a weight loss consultation, or chiropractic consultation call 978-474-0836 or visit us online at Align Health.

Align Health

1 Dundee Park Drive

Suite 2

Andover, MA 01810