South Beach Diet Vodka

You are probably here at this site for one of two reasons. Or okay, three.

1. You are on the South Beach Diet and you want to know if you can drink vodka.

2. You are on the South Beach Diet and you want to know if you can drink vodka and/or ANY OTHER BOOZE.

3. You read my blog anyway and did NOT Google "South Beach Diet Vodka" and/or "South Beach Diet Rum" and/or "South Beach Diet drunk." To which I say: thanks, but YOU ARE IN THE MINORITY.

Every week my search results vary, but a few things hold true. Someone wants to see pictures of strippers from the Hip Hugger in Kokomo, IN. Someone wants a recipe for vegetarian chili. And LOTS of people want to know just how much liquor they can drink while on the South Beach Diet.

And I gotta tell you, I love those people.

To those people, I can share my thinking -- but I warn you it is mostly totally unhelpful, and also terribly irresponsible. Behold my brilliance.

* * *

Booze not only slows your metabolism, it has lots and LOTS of stupid calories. So like, if you're a girl, and you're aiming to consume 1200 calories a day, and you're an alcoholic, your options go something like this:

Daily Food Intake: Option 1
1/2 grapefruit
1 slice whole grain toast
2 tbs peanut butter
1/4 c cottage cheese
grilled chicken salad
1 apple
2 slices cheese
handful almonds
sensible dinner

Daily Food Intake: Option 2
1 bottle wine
3 potato chips

You see the dilemma, of course, which I blame on "physics" because "physics" is stupid and doesn't work. (Oh yeah, I'm bad-mouthing "physics" again.) But look. We all know that one glass of red wine a day is supposed to have health benefits for us. My point is that if "physics" actually worked, the hypothesis would go:

• If ONE glass was GOOD for us, then TWO glasses would be even GOODER for us.
  
  
• And like, SIX glasses would put us into the healthiest state of our lives!

This is why me and "physics" don't get along.

So anyway. We may determine that one should not drink a bottle of wine if one is trying to lose weight, unless one is also working out enough to burn off 750+ extra calories a day. And if one is working out that much, one probably isn't Googling "South Beach Diet Vodka," so we don't really need to be too concerned with those people anyway.

Lesson One: a bottle of wine a day keeps the waistline away. Damn it.

From a strictly caloric standpoint, then, the boozes such as vodka and rum and gin might seem like a better bet than the caloric WINE option. Alas, they are NOT. They are SNEAKY. A stiff martini has the same number of calories as a glass of wine, even though it's way less grape-flavored and not sweet at all. (This again is why the "physics" doesn't work and is stupid.)

Remember back when you were learning about how not to ever do drugs in elementary school? Or taking drivers' ed? And they showed you a diagram that illustrates how a shot of liquor is equal to a bottle of beer is equal to a glass of wine (although they TOTALLY leave out their respective deliciousness factors)? Well, calorie-wise it's like that, too.

(BTW, this assumes that you are not adding sugary colas to your liquor, or anything with calories. Diet Coke and club soda are your best bets. Juices, regular sodas and tonic are all loaded with sugar and calories. And remember? We hate those.)

So what does this all mean?

Probably it depends on your tolerance. Ex: I can drink wine for days before I start feeing it, whereas two or three martinis will kick my butt. And 93 glasses of wine have more calories than 2 glasses of gin. (Okay "physics," you win THIS time.) But you and I both know that "martinis" is not really a long-term solution of any sort. Which brings us back to the drawing board.

Lesson Two: Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. At packing on the pounds.

The only other option, then, is beer.

I love beer.

And the thing about drinking light beer from bottles is that you know exactly how many calories you're ingesting with each one. Plus all those bubbles fill you right up, which means you eventually have to stop drinking, because your body is all "HI I AM GOING TO EXPLODE" even though your head is all, "YOU NEED MORE BEER BECAUSE LOOK HOW SMART IT'S MAKING YOU," even when you have direct evidence to the contrary such as you're wearing your boyfriend's boxer shorts on your head.

Thus, if you can drink light beer, I recommend it as your South Beach Diet drink of choice.

Unfortunately, beer -- and I am sorry if this is offensive to anyone, but it is too true -- makes me pee. More than water, more than coffee, more than any other element on the planet, beer makes me have to pee, A LOT and also RIGHT NOW. I am not kidding when I say that the single reason I do not drink beer is because of how uncomfortable I get because of all the peeing it makes me do. I have actually stood in line at a party outside the bathroom for so long that as soon as I finished my turn, I got right back in line again. I am not kidding even a little bit.

So let's see. To recap this VERY informative post:

• Yes. You can drink on South Beach and still lose weight. The best way to do this is to not drink.

• Barring the non-drinking non-option, try to stay away from carbs as much as possible and pay attention to calories ingested. A good rule is that a glass of wine with a generous pour is about 150 calories. So is a martini. Diet beer is about 100 calories. At the end of the day, generally speaking, you want to burn more calories than you consume, regardless of South Beach or any other kind of diet.

Oh! And remember: you have a thing called a "metabolism." It is related to "physics." If you drink too much, the metabolism becomes a mean drunk and will start hording fat just to piss you off. Your only hope at retaliation is by denying metabolism booze, drinking lots of water, and using things called "elliptical machine."

It is the only way.



Next up: nudie pics* from the Hip Hugger!





*I am totally lying.