Amazing news if you enjoy a (purely medicinal) glass or two of red wine and want to lose weight! In fact, this is quite probably the best news you’ll ever hear…
According to a new study, drinking red wine before you go to bed can actually help you lose weight.
Now anyone who drinks red wine already knows that it provides a whole bunch of health benefits but it gets even better for lovers of the red grape. As it turns out, according to a Harvard study that drinking at least two glasses of red wine each day before bed can help beat obesity by 70%.
So basically you’re not only allowed but actually supposed to, drink half a bottle of your favourite red wine every night, strictly for weight loss purposes of course. 😉
According to a study by scientists from Washington State University, red wine contains a polyphenol called resveratrol that can help transform stubborn white fat into burnable brown fat. Resveratrol is contained in both red and white wines, and occurs in a variety of other foods but the amounts in white wine are typically much lower – sorry white wine lovers.
A separate study conducted at Harvard found a link between wine and other alcoholic drinks and weight loss. Researchers tracked almost 20,000 women over 13 years and saw that those who drank roughly two glasses of wine daily were around 70% less likely to be overweight. Over the course of the study, tee-totaller’s gained the most weight.
So why is it best to consume your two glasses of wine at night before bed? In a study conducted in 2012, which observed the effects of resveratrol on bees, found that the compound helps curb appetite. It could be that wine simply discourages late-night snacking. Or that after two (or three) glasses, you just pass out and don’t get back up to raid the fridge at 2am.
Here’s a segment from TV show ‘Doctors’ which discusses the whole ‘drink wine to lose weight’ story:
And now the slight buzzkill – the hangover after the bottle of wine, if you will:
Before you rush out and hoard a cellar full of wine, we should add that professor Min Du, the author of the Washington State University study, does note that wine isn’t actually the most efficient way to get your daily dose of fat-busting reservatrol. “Many of the beneficial polyphenols are insoluble and get filtered out during the wine production process,” he says.
Instead, sadly for wine lovers everywhere he suggests eating blueberries, strawberries or grapes, all of which are rich in the resveratrol polyphenol and so will all be as helpful in your weight loss quest. Eating strawberries is also less likely to leave you with a thumping headache the next morning, so there’s that as a positive.
