I came across this article recently that claimed that Jonah Hill recently achieved his amazing weight loss by cutting out beer from his diet.

The title obviously was very misleading.  The only place where the article mentioned beer was an excerpt from an interview given 5 years ago in which Jonah Hill said that cutting out beer allowed him to stay thinner.

There’s nothing quite like a famous Hollywood body transformation to get people sensationalizing about diet and health trends.  And THIS is a prime example.

I mean, Jonah Hill probably really cut down his beer consumption considerably to get to where he is today.  But the article chooses to down play the part when Jonah Hill mentioned this in the same interview:

“It was just mostly diet. I wish there was some crazy thing that I did, like a pill or a genie or something, but I went to see a nutritionist, and he told me what to eat and to change my habits and stuff…”

Sounds familiar? That’s probably because it’s something you’ve heard millions of times before.  There is simply no shortcut to getting kind of meaningful result in fitness!  We ought to know by now.

Regardless what people choose to believe about Jonah Hill’s method of weight loss, reading that article got me curious about just how drinking beers would contribute to weight fluctuation, and how to avoid excessive weight gain if you can’t seem to cut out beer from your social diet.

Thought #1: How fattening is beer? Not as bad as you think!

Here are some beer facts, I hope we can all agree:

1. A can of 12 oz beer generally contains about 100-150 calories
2. A typical beer is a poor source for fat and protein (less than 1 gram of each per serving)
3. Majority of beer calories are contributed by carbs and alcohol (roughly 14 grams of each per serving)

Compared to a can of coke that measures in at 140 calories and 39 grams of carbs in form of sugar… ONE beer is actually much healthier since it has less total grams of simple carbs.

With that said, how many of us can usually stop at 1 or 2 beers?  If a bender goes out of control, it’s not rare for a person to average 10 beers during a long night out.  At that rate, the 1,000+ added calories and 150+ grams of additional carbs would be a sizable portion of anyone’s daily allowance.  All these added calories and carbs in the long run are the reasons for the unwanted excessive weight gain.

So, bottom line is: beer isn’t all bad in moderation, it actually is slightly healthier than any normal soft drink if you only drink 1 or 2.

Thought #2: How to drink with better strategy? Drinking efficiency matters!

If you already know you cannot avoid a bender, there are a couple of things you can do to reduce the damage.

Option 1: Introduce caloric deficit elsewhere

This is a no-brainer.  If you know you will be taking in an extra 1,000 calories in beers on Friday night, you can go ahead and cut out 200 calories per day for the week leading up to D-Day to stay relatively on track with your overall caloric intake.

Obviously, you can also choose to introduce extra cardio sessions to work off the excess.  But the theory remains the same:  Calories in has to equal calories out.

If you’re getting a certain amount from beer, make sure to work it off, or cut those calories out somewhere else.

We would lean towards recommending working it off, because cutting those calories from diet tend to lead to loss of essential macro and micro nutrients.

Option 2: Increase your drinking efficiency

Another way to approach a bender is drink more efficiently!

This means you want to drink less calories per gram of alcohol.  Thanks to all the alcoholic scholars of the world, tools like this one can help us do just that!

The beauty of this chart is that it doesn’t only tell us the obvious, because we all know drinking a light beer will be less caloric than drinking a regular.

This chart actually normalizes caloric intake base on the same “drunkness”, meaning it compares the caloric differences of all the beers given the same amount of alcohol that will get into your blood stream to make you drunk.

Putting it to practice, if you get equally drunk on only Bud Select 55 vs Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, you will end up with almost 30% less calories if you choose Bud Select. 

Executing this strategy has its drawbacks, and the obvious one is the sacrifice on taste.  But that’s the price you’ll have to pay for a healthier bender.

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As you can see, there really isn’t a elegant solution to maintain health if you want to enjoy the deliciousness of your alcoholic beverage.  But the good news is that beers aren’t that bad if you drink in moderation 🙂

A general conclusion: go ahead and enjoy your one or two beers.  But if you already know you will be drinking 10 beers in the form of beer pong, go with the light stuff.