Wine and weight gain

DauphinAi

I've put on over a stone in the past year. I never put on weight before and seemed to have a fast metabolism, but I'm now mid 20s so maybe it's just slowed down?

The one thing that's changed in this year is that I've started drinking a lot more wine. It's my go to drink and I'd have it a good few nights of the week. Could this be the source of my weight gain? I'm reading conflicting things online.. Thanks in advance!

marialouise

Consuming more calories than you burn is what makes you gain weight. If you need 1800 calories to maintain your weight for example, anything in excess will result in weight gain and anything below will result in weight loss. 
The calories of wine are hard to calculate (alcohol has 7kcal per g I believe, so you can do the maths there based on the %vol of your wine and how much you drink), but if you're respecting Calories In Vs Calories Out, then it doesn't really matter what those calories are made up of strictly speaking. If you had 1500 kcal from food and 300kcal from wine, you'd take in 1800, no big deal. However, a few glasses of wine wouldn't exactly fill you up so are empty calories, and for most people are usually accompanied by food/snacks/munchies. Are you eating a lot when you drink wine? 
Also, has your activity level changed, have you become more sedentary or given up a certain activity? Started a job where you're sitting at a desk instead of being on your feet for example? 
As with pretty much every thread in this forum, I'd recommend you use MyFitnessPal to see how many calories your body needs, and then start measuring your food and drink just to see how many cals you're taking in. You'll find your answer there. 
Long story short - calories are making you gain weight, not the wine itself. Eat/drink a bit less, move a bit more and you'll get back that energy balance. For what it's worth, I'm in my mid20s and found it impossible to lose weight before until I fixed my nutrition, am now in the best shape of my life and still progressing. My metabolism has definitely not slowed down at this age, it's the best it's ever been so I doubt it's your age!

DauphinAi

marialouise wrote: »

Consuming more calories than you burn is what makes you gain weight. If you need 1800 calories to maintain your weight for example, anything in excess will result in weight gain and anything below will result in weight loss. 
The calories of wine are hard to calculate (alcohol has 7kcal per g I believe, so you can do the maths there based on the %vol of your wine and how much you drink), but if you're respecting Calories In Vs Calories Out, then it doesn't really matter what those calories are made up of strictly speaking. If you had 1500 kcal from food and 300kcal from wine, you'd take in 1800, no big deal. However, a few glasses of wine wouldn't exactly fill you up so are empty calories, and for most people are usually accompanied by food/snacks/munchies. Are you eating a lot when you drink wine? 
Also, has your activity level changed, have you become more sedentary or given up a certain activity? Started a job where you're sitting at a desk instead of being on your feet for example? 
As with pretty much every thread in this forum, I'd recommend you use MyFitnessPal to see how many calories your body needs, and then start measuring your food and drink just to see how many cals you're taking in. You'll find your answer there. 
Long story short - calories are making you gain weight, not the wine itself. Eat/drink a bit less, move a bit more and you'll get back that energy balance. For what it's worth, I'm in my mid20s and found it impossible to lose weight before until I fixed my nutrition, am now in the best shape of my life and still progressing. My metabolism has definitely not slowed down at this age, it's the best it's ever been so I doubt it's your age!

Very informative post, thanks!

cactusgal

Everyone is different, but I know it's definitely contributed to my weight gain. I love wine, really love it, and it's hard for me to just have one glass. It then makes me want to snack on things like bread and cheese. All of this, of course, is in the evening, so if I have a few glasses of wine, bread, and cheese, that's probably about 1,000 calories of crap that I don't need. Do that a lot and that's a stone in weight. I'm in my 30s and very active, but have gained a stone over the last 2 yrs, I reckon wine and snacks are the main culprits. Boyfriend is a wine drinker too, so that doesn't help!