If you belly up to the bar too often, you may pack on extra
calories that wind up on your belly. About 25% of people drink
alcoholic beverages on a given day, and the drinks account for
about 16% of their daily calorie intake, a new government study
shows. In fact, the research shows that on a given day 19% of
men and 6% of women down more than 300 calories a day from
alcoholic drinks. That's equal to more than 2½ five-ounce
glasses of wine, two or more 12-ounce beers, or more than 4.5
ounces of liquor such as vodka, scotch, rum, gin. "A lot of
people don't think about the calories in the alcoholic beverages
-- it's not a diet soda," says Samara Joy Nielsen, a nutritional
epidemiologist with the National Center for Health Statistics,
part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which
conducted the research. Alcoholic beverages are one of the top
contributors to caloric intake but provide few nutrients,
Nielsen says. "A 12-ounce can of beer is 150 calories, about the
same as a 12-ounce can of regula