[yreg]

> most people underestimate the calories in alcohol

Funny, I feel the other way around. I kept hearing about how much calories there are in alcohol, and then when I started calorie counting I didn't find it so high.

Like 6 shots of gin are ~550kcal and enough to get anyone pretty drunk. Unless one is a regular heavy drinker it's not that hard to once in a while budget calories during the day to be able to get a few shots when going out in the evening.

Obviously staying sober is the healthier option.

[SketchySeaBeast]

I think when people are mentioning alcohol they typically mean beer or wine - a can of beer is ~150 calories, so have a few of those a night, which isn't at all uncommon in some households, and over a week you're up ~1 lbs.

[hedora]

Also, 150 calories is somewhere between cheap American beer and a nice IPA or stout. You can easily hit 200-300 calories per beer.

[spelunker]

New Belgium "Juice Force IPA", I'm looking at you!

[washmyelbows]

my favorite stout is 400 calories for 12oz

[malfist]

Sure six shots are 550 calories. But who drinks six shots of gin?

You need to also include all the mixers as well and they're usually all sugar

[yreg]

> But who drinks six shots of gin?

Haha, I'm from almost-eastern-europe, so pretty much all drinkers I know. (Actually "Borovička" is the most popular. It is not gin, but somewhat similar to gin.)

But I mean, when someone is trying to reduce calorie intake, they don't consume whatever they want to. They need to make some concessions. So instead of a fancy cocktail or a bottle of wine, you can drink some vodka (provided getting intoxicated is the goal).

[foobarian]

Heh, Borovička is the most amazing thing ever. I need to find a source stateside :-)

[gadders]

For a G&T, you can get slimline tonic which tastes quite good.

[reedf1]

The idea that a night out with 4-5 pints might clear my daily total requirement for calories was not something I had really considered until my late twenties.

[gadders]

In your early 20s your metabolism is that much higher as well that it can cope.

[n4r9]

That doesn't match my experience, or most of the stuff I've read. The number of calories I need to hit to lose weight has been pretty constant from my early twenties to late thirties.

That said, I didn't have to be as careful in my twenties because I did a lot more exercise. And that's because I had more free time and opportunity for sports, fewer energy demands, less money for food, and more incentive to walk or cycle places. So I agree it's probably easier for university students to be slim, but I suspect metabolism is not a primary reason.

[wredcoll]

Oh so that's why college students famously gain weight when they go to college, they're too old to have a fast metabolism!

[gadders]

How much more would they weigh if they underwent the same changes at 40? It's faster metabolism, but it's not magic.

[Kirby64]

20s to 40s metabolism isn't that different. 4-5 pints is nearly 1000 calories, and basically nobody has a 1000 cal decline in base expenditure from 20 to 40.

A bigger change, generally, from someone in college and someone in their 40s is their activity levels. Even just considering the amount of walking most folks do on a college campus is a huge difference, compared to someone that gets in their car and drives to and from work.

[n4r9]

I definitely find it suprising that a shot of gin has as many calories as an apple.

[mock-possum]

Sure, that means that 6 shots of gin basically replaces one whole meal.

[kelipso]

If 550kcal is one whole meal to you, then 6 shots of gin will get you absolutely blasted, probably black out too.

[n4r9]

That's nonsense. A shot of spirits is one unit of alcohol. A pint of strong-ish beer like Stella Artois is 3 units. 550 calories is easily a dinner's worth for a woman of 70kg, or a man that's heavier but trying to gradually lose weight. Either of whom would normally not be too affected by two pints of Stella.

[Kirby64]

> A pint of strong-ish beer like Stella Artois is 3 units.

No it's not. Stella is 5.2% in the strongest form (some places sell a weaker version that is 4.6%). Both are roughly standard ABVs. At worst, a 20 oz 'pint' of Stella would be ~1.7 units. In most places in the US, a pint is 16 oz, so it would be ~1.4 units. Two pints at worst is slightly over 3 units total.

[n4r9]

Maybe I'm misreading it (or it's just wrong) but this NHS webpage very clearly states that a "Pint of higher-strength lager/beer/cider (ABV 5.2%)" has 3 units:

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/calculating-alco...

[Kirby64]

Ah, right. We're both getting it a bit wrong. A 'unit' (10 ml of pure ethanol) isn't actually equivalent to a 'drink'. One 'drink' is considered to be 12 oz of 5% beer, 5 oz of 12% wine, or one 1.5 oz 40% shot. None of those are actually '1 unit', they're all ~1.7 units (~17 ml of ethanol).

I think most folks think in 'drinks' and not 'units'.

So, back to the original comment: 6 shots at most establishments would be ~10 'units' of alcohol. Or, closer to 3.3 20oz pints of beer. 3.3 20oz beers would be enough to get most folks pretty intoxicated if drank quickly; the difference being that 3.3 20oz beers (66oz total!) is a lot harder to drink very quickly than 6 shots, purely by volume of liquid.

[kelipso]

What is nonsense? Go to https://alcohol.org/bac-calculator/. Putting in the numbers for a 150lb woman drinking 6 shots over 2 hours gets you 0.21% BAC, which is plenty enough for black out drunk.

[n4r9]

I see. That looks a lot like it's applying a Widmark-style model [0], which assumes that absorption is instantaneous, and that drinking starts in a fasted state unaccompanied by food or water. I guess that makes sense if we're literally talking about replacing a whole meal with alcohol. But normally I imagine cutting back on portion sizes so that I can have some drinks later. I don't know about other users but the idea that an 80kg man will have body control or speech impairments after 3 pints (60oz) of beer over 3 hours just feels wrong. Especially if they start after dinner and have a glass of water in the middle.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content#By_intak...

[kelipso]

Yeah good point. It’s saying a bottle of wine gets you to 0.3% which basically is close to dying, so it’s not realistic. Still six shots is equivalent to 6 beers or a bottle of wine, so it still affects you quite a lot.