Beer and personal training, two things that are pretty much opposite from one another. Well, today I am going to share with you how they are not so far apart. Life is a balancing act. We need to balance our time with our families, friends, homes, jobs, exercise and everything in between.  Each day we make choices: we chose between healthy or un-healthy food, we choose to go to bed early or stay up late.  It’s important not to be too strict on certain things or else you will never be able to succeed in your goals.  That’s why it’s important to enjoy life in moderation at times. It’s important to exercise each day (get in a session of personal training if you can), but it’s also important to enjoy the lighter side of life. So have a beer…

Did you know that most alcoholic beverages don’t have to include calorie and carb content on their labels?  Often times, consumers can’t make informed decisions about the drinks they consume because they don’t know their nutritional information. Alcoholic beverages like red wine often get talked about in the news as being healthy; whereas beer is often seen as a gut-buster drink.  Did you know that most American beers: ales and lagers have fewer calories than a equal size serving of 2 % milk or orange juice.  Be a smart consumer and do the research.  We picked a few popular beers and researched their nutritional content.  Some of our findings are rather surprising.

• Guinness Draught: Did you know that a serving of Guinness only contains 126 calories.  That is 19 calories less than a Budweiser and 24 calories less than a Heineken.  Part of the reason for this is because Guinness has an alcohol content of 4.0% abv.  But it’s still a tasty beer for only having 126 calories.

Guinness Draft (Beer): Serving Size: 250 ml, Calories: 126, Fat: 0g, Carbs: 9.9g, Protein: 0.3g

• Rolling Rock: A serving of rolling rock contains 120 calories.  For classic American ale, this green bottle is not too heavy on the calorie side, but still tastes pretty great. Also note that this beer is on the lower side of the carb portion, clocking in at only 10g of carbs per serving.

Beer (Rolling Rock): Serving Size: 1 Bottle, Calories: 120, Fat: 0g, Carbs: 10g, Protein: 1g

• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is an IPA which means that it has more hops content than your average beer.  Often times, more hops means a higher alcohol content and more calories.  A serving of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale contains a reasonable 175 calories for a beer that has an alcohol content of 5.6% abv.

Pale Ale (Sierra Nevada): Serving Size: 12 oz., Calories: 175, Fat: 0g, Carbs: 14.1g, Protein: 1.5g

• Sam Adams Light: This is the light version of the famous Sam Adams Boston Lager.  Clocking in at 119 calories, this is the “healthiest” beer on our short list today. Besides being slightly better for you, it’s also a full-bodied, non-typical light beer that tastes closer to the real thing that its other “light beer” competitors!

Sam Adams Light (Beer): Serving Size: 12 oz, Calories: 119, Fat: 0g, Carbs: 9.6g, Protein: 1g

In conclusion, it’s all about being a smart consumer and making educated decisions.  It’s important to balance your life in a healthy manner.  It’s ok to have a beer ever now and then. It’s important to remember to consume everything in moderation and to make sure that you exercise on a regular basis.

For further information, please see the source for the statistics in this blog topic at: http://www.beer100.com/beercalories.htm

If you want to get in some exercise and drink some beer, check out this fun local event: https://www.cityfit.com/events/view/burgers-and-beer-5k-race