By Sarah Elizabeth Richards, Life by Daily Burn

Over the past year, our social media feeds have blown up on more than one occasion over claims that drinking wine at bedtime could help you drop a few pounds. In fact, this news generated so much buzz that urban-legend buster Snopes decided to investigate. Turns out, the majority of coverage was referencing a Daily Mail story that hinged on anecdotal accounts of women claiming that their nighttime tipple helped them slim down. But sadly, there was no new groundbreaking report showing that a glass of red before bed was the secret new weight loss weapon weve all been dreaming of. So what dedicates?

Weve been told over and over that alcohol has no place in a weight loss program. Not only does it provide empty calories, studies confirm that having a few tends to zap your inhibition and build you order midnight cheese fries a phenomenon known as the drunchies. Alas, it makes sense to file away the bedtime wine notion in the too good to be true health research mortuary that also houses this seductive headline: A glass of red wine is the equivalent to an hour at the gym. Remember that one?

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Yet research shows that moderate amounts of Malbec wont totally derail your weight loss efforts. Heres what you need to know about your vino habit.

The Case for Pre-Snooze Booze

Weve all read that red wine is a healthy part of the Mediterranean Dietthe one that helps you live longer and preserve an enviable BMI. Even lifestyle guru Tim Ferris claims that two glass of wine before bed each night helped him attain his ripped physique. And recent research in mouse showed that resveratrol, an antioxidant in red wine, going to be able to turn regular white fat into energy-burning beige fat, which can contribute to weight loss and avoid obesity( just in case you didnt know that fat came in different colors ).

While you can also get resveratrol in fruits, such as blueberries, lead writer Min Du, PhD, professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Washington State University, explains that the fermentation process of wine makes the antioxidant compounds easier to assimilate, which can help accelerate the fat-burning process. Although Du didnt specifically test the effect of giving resveratrol to the mouse at night, he concedes that there might be a metabolic advantage of devouring wine in the wee hours.

When you drink wine with foodwhether at lunch, dinner or with a late-night snackthe antioxidant compounds interact with protein in a way that avoids the body from metabolizing them for weight loss. When you eat resveratrol on its own, however, the body is able to absorb the compounds more readily, and thus maximize the burning of beige fat. That told, he stops short of endorsing an unaccompanied glass of bedtime wine as a diet strategy. I dont have the data to support it, he tells. Wine is beneficial to your health, but never use it to control your body weight. It still has calories. Ahem, 110 to 130 calories per glass, on average.

Theres another way wine might help with weight control. Just the right amount can help people fall asleep more easily, and according to recent studies, adequate slumber is key to keeping off the pounds. Heavy drinking can disturb sleep, but a moderate amount has a sedative effect, explains Greg Traversy, a researcher at the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group in Ottawa, Canada who wrote a review paper on research involving alcohol and obesity. If its helping you sleep, then maybe youre getting the weight management benefits downstream by having more energy to be active and not having the snack munchies the next day, Traversy says.

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Alcohol and Weight Loss: When Wine Backfires

Unfortunately, much to the disappointment of weight-conscious wine lovers everywhere, Traversy didnt find any studies showing that imbibing will help you shed pounds. Yet he was surprised to discover evidence that moderate drinking wasnt necessarily linked with weight gain. Take this famous Harvard study, for example. The research, which was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2010, found that women who drank in moderation( defined as one to two glass daily) had a lower risk of becoming overweight over 13 years than women who didnt drink at all. Its not clear why, he tells. It might be because theyre exhibiting moderate behaviours in all areas of life, including weight upkeep. The study writers pointed out that the moderate drinkers exercised more and ate less food to make room for their alcohol calories.

The bad news is that if you drink too much, alcohol interferes with your bodys they are able to burn fat. Alcohol blocks the burning of everything else, tells Marc Hellerstein, MD, PhD, professor of human nutrition at the University of California at Berkeley. Its like it has a special VIP pass to go ahead of other gasolines. In other terms, if your body is overwhelmed with burning alcohol, your food will be more likely to get stored as fat.

Perhaps this was the secret of late-night wine. By drinking it a few hours after dinner, you give your body a chance to digest it when it wont have to compete with food. Im not convinced, tells Hellerstein. Youll burn the alcohol, but not fat. The bottom line: Pick your wine or weight loss.

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