drinking

I once ran a 10K on St. Patrick’s day. At the finish line, rather than bagels and bananas and bottled water, we were greeted with a beer tent and each given three tickets for big plastic cups of Guinness. I’ve heard of carb loading before and after a race, but never thought about beer as being part of that concept. Maybe I should change my mind?

A recently released study proves that moderate female drinkers, those who imbibe more than 45 drinks a month (which seems like a lot of drinking, although it really only averages out to just shy of 1.5 glasses of wine a night) exercised 14 more minutes per week on average than those light drinkers who drank one to 14 drinks in the month. These women also reported exercising on average 20 minutes more than those who abstained from alcohol altogether. Also, drinkers of both sexes were 10 percent more likely than their sober peers to exercise vigorously in any given week.

A British study has found that people are woefully unaware of the weight-gaining consequences of drinking alcohol, particularly if you drink on a regular basis. The Know Your Limits campaign polled 2,000 adults in England. Researchers found that 40 percent of the people didn’t know that a glass of wine has the same calories as a slice of cake (120).

I’m not sure that knowing the comparative calorie content is all that ignorant. However, when you think about what kinds of foods an alcoholic drink can be compare to, it’s pretty revealing. A pint of beer is comparable to a doughnut. And what’s most telling is the cumulative or long view of consumption. Five pints of beer a week would add up to 221 doughnuts in a year!