How WINE really can help you lose weight
SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN DIET SECRET YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!
12-PAGE PULLOUT
EVERY night, to round off her evening meal, Linda Monk pours herself a glass of fullbodied red wine. It’s a relaxing routine, even if it does sound like a recipe for weight gain.
After all, as some health experts have said, doesn’t a glass of wine contain the same calories as a slice of cake?
But Linda, 47, has lost 6lb over the past three weeks and is convinced she has her nightly tipple to thank.
‘The wine curbs my sugar cravings,’ she says.
‘My long-held desire to snack on sweets, biscuits and chocolate after my dinner has disappeared and the relaxing effect of the alcohol makes me feel that, despite cutting back, I’m not being hard done by.’
Controversial it may be, but Linda is far from the only one extolling the virtues of wine, albeit in strict moderation, as an aid to weight control, even if i t does fly i n the f ace of conventional thinking.
In recent years, our love affair with the bottle has been increasingly linked to the growing obesity epidemic, with medical experts such as Professor Fiona Sim, insisting there is no reason why calories in alcohol should be treated any differently from those in food.
Indeed, the EU recently backed plans for the calorie content to be clearly stated on the labels of wine, beer and spirit bottles. But there is also a growing body of evidence which suggests that far from making us fat, drinking wine could actually be the key to staying slim.
A 13-year Harvard University study of 20,000 women found that those who drank half a bottle of wine a day had a 70 per cent reduced risk of obesity compared to
non-drinkers. And th e US government’s official alcohol body, the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism concluded that ‘when alcohol is substituted for carbohydrates, calorie for calorie, subjects tend to lose weight, indicating that they derive less energy from alcohol than from food’.
Another study, presented at the European Conference on Obesity in Prague last week, found that a glass of red wine every night increased the levels of the ‘ good’ cholesterol HDL.
It could help improve type 2 diabetes because it boosted glucose metabolism. This is the process by which simple sugars found in many foods are processed and used to produce energy.
LINDA is following a diet plan called The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide To Rapid Weight Loss, by lifestyle guru Tim Ferris, which entails eliminating refined carbs and filling up on vegetables and lean protein.
And crucially, the author allows a glass of wine a day (he claims to drink one himself), with the idea being that if you’re allowed to indulge occasionally you’re more likely to persevere. Red wine is recommended over white on account of its antioxidant qualities.
‘ I couldn’t stand to go on a hideous deprivation regime that I knew I couldn’t stick at,’ says Linda, who runs a boutique and lives with her husband David, 55, an environmental consultant, and their children Oliver, nine, and Lucas, seven. ‘I’ve never drunk to excess, but alcohol has always been an integral part of my life. In my 20s, I lived in Greece, where the Mediterranean culture meant we drank wine every day. My weight was a stable 10st then. I couldn’t imagine not being able to treat myself or giving up my social life for weeks on end just to lose weight.
‘Because alcohol is allowed — encouraged even — on this diet, I’ve found myself drinking more than I normally would.
‘In the past, I’d share a bottle of red wine with David at the weekend. Now, I’m drinking a glass every weekday night. But dubious as I was to start with, the weight’s been dropping off.
‘An average day’s food is scrambled eggs for breakfast, chicken salad for lunch and chilli con carne without rice for dinner, accompanied by a good quality glass of red wine.
‘My weight had been creeping up to 10st 6lb, but I now weight 10st and I’m edging towards a size ten.
‘If I had more than two glasses of wine a night I’m sure I’d suffer unwanted side-effects, but alcohol in moderation is good for you.
‘We all know about its antioxidant properties, but what a bonus that it can give us better bodies as well.’
Samantha Merrit, 40, also credits the glass or two of wine she enjoys most nights with helping her lose a stone and a half.
The stay-at-home mother, whose partner Reece, 42, is a golfing instructor, admits her vice used to be junk food. She would have a Chinese takeaway at the end of the week and countless bars of chocolate during t he day as she rushed around after her three children, Charnelle, 23, Nicole, 19, and Reece, 11.
But now that she unwinds with a glass of Chilean red, she says her evening meal has been turned into an ‘event’, which she finds relaxing, as well as slimming.
‘Instead of eating mindlessly on the sofa, Reece and I dine at the kitchen table, and I savour every mouthful,’ she says. ‘I’ve swapped fast food for balanced, home-made meals to enjoy with my glass of wine. I no longer have cravings for crisps and chocolate.
‘I’ve found wine curbs my appetite after my main course and quenches any desire for pudding. And, crucial- ly, the calories don’t seem to have made an impact on the bathroom scales. My waist is now 28in, I weigh 9½ st and I’m convinced wine is the reason.
‘When I was eating badly, my weight crept up to 11st and I was
‘Wine’s killed my cravings for crisps – and even helped me get rid of my wobbly bottom’
a size 14. I didn’t like my wobbly stomach and bottom, but didn’t have the willpower to resist my favourite treats.
‘Now, I can happily say no to a dessert and I treat myself to a glass or two around four nights a week. I found a full-bodied red — never white, which I think is too acidic — helped me sleep and lowered my anxiety levels, too.
‘I never drink enough to get sozzled or to the extent that I’m hungover the next day and reaching for the nearest doughnut to restore my blood sugar levels.
‘Like Mediterranean women — and I have friends in Bulgaria and Spain, who also credit their slender figures to regular wine — my motto is moderation.
‘Reece jokes that I see wine as one of my five fruit and vegetables a day, but I honestly believe the benefits to my health and body outweigh any possible side-effects. I haven’t put on a pound and I have wine to thank for that.’
Drinking in moderation is key, warn the experts. A study funded by the Wellcome Trust found that male and female binge drinkers had larger waistlines.
There are also serious health risks linked to over-indulgence, such as an increased incidence of breast cancer.
But a small glass of wine, savoured with a meal, can contribute to a healthy weight. Red wine in particular contains high concentrations of resveratrol, which is found in the skin of grapes, and this compound, according to one study, helps break down fats and reduce the total amount of fat in your body.
Another reason that wine may contribute to a healthy weight is that the process of digesting the drink triggers the body to burn calories, particularly in women, who make a smaller amount of the enzyme that metabolises alcohol than men.
THIS means that in order to digest a drink, they have to keep producing the enzyme that requires the body to burn energy. In other words, it’s not about the calorie content at all, but about the effect wine has on the body compared with snacking on chocolate, sweet treats or fattening snacks with a similar calorie content.
Certainly, swapping chocolate for a small glass of wine has paid dividends for Joanna Kingston, 51, a professional fundraiser.
‘ I used t o be a complete chocoholic. If I went to the petrol station to fill up my car or just nipped into the shops and saw chocolate by the till, I had to buy a bar.
‘And I couldn’t resist munching on chocolate when I finally sat down to relax at night,’ says Joanna, who is divorced and has a grown-up daughter.
‘Now I pour myself a nice glass of red wine and the thing is that unlike chocolate, I’m happy with just a glass — so even though it may be a similar amount of calories, I feel more in control.
‘I’ ve found that giving up chocolate in the evening has helped my weight loss — together with exercising more. And the remarkable thing is that drinking in the evening hasn’t had any real impact on my weight.
‘ I’ve no idea whether this is because, as the research suggests, wine is better than chocolate in terms of metabolising calories. But I don’t really care.
‘Anyway, I love the warm, slightly merry feeling I get after sipping a nice glass of red. You don’t get the same effect from a bar of Fruit & Nut.’