It’s summer. Get outside. Limit PBR.

The summers of my youth were liberating and adventurous but not always the best for my health. I’d frequently bike to 7 Eleven for a large cold slurpee or Taco Bell for their Grande Burritos. When I wasn’t outside, I’d be playing video games in the luxury of air conditioning and drinking a refreshing, sugar-packed soda. In fact, it was considered rude not to offer your friends a pop (soda) when they came to hang out.

In college, summer activities turned into socializing at parties or the bars for some beers and cheap food.

During those days, my body was a bit bulkier. I attributed the increased mass to increased muscle but surely I was wrong when even my shirt collar size expanded.

Since then, I’ve trimmed about 10 lbs without sacrificing the total amount of food I consume. I eat as much as I can, as often as I can, and am still lean. (I still exercise at least 5 days a week, but less than in college.)

I attribute my improved body mass to the removal of something in my diet I consumed disproportionately too often: PBR. Yes, I did cut back on the amount of Pabst beer, but even more pervasive in my diet were pastas, breads, and other refined carbohydrates (hence PBR). These refined processed carbs encompass a large portion of a ‘normal’ diet in most Americans and include any breads, pastas, quick grains, chips, cookies, cakes, soda, juice, etc.

PBR can lead to weight gain

You can take my personal accounts as truth, or you can also read the enormous amounts of literature that suggests refined sugars and carbohydrates are the the key driver for obesity and weight gain.

Multiple experts in obesity research also agree. One in particular, David Ludwig MD, PhD, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, believes a diet high in refined sugars and carbohydrates is the main culprit for the current obesity epidemic.

Weight gain from refined carbs works by increasing insulin release in the body. “Insulin is the ultimate fat-cell fertilizer,” Ludwig says. When refined sugars and carbs are consumed, insulin is released which drives sugars to be stored in fat cells. Since the refined carbs in food usually have little fiber, they empty from your stomach quickly and cause a rapid spike in insulin, shuttling sugars from the blood into fat cells. When this happens, blood sugar levels drop and cause your brain to think it’s hungry, signaling more eating. Overtime, this hungry/full/hungry yo-yo effect can mess up feelings of fullness and impair overall calorie control.

Beer can lead to weight gain for reasons beyond the alcohol, too.

Beer contains both carbs and alcohol, each contributing to its total calories. Unlike carbs, alcohol does not stimulate insulin release and rather gets converted to fatty acids in the liver which can ultimately cause insulin resistance, the hallmark of diabetes. With the carbs in beer to stimulate insulin release and the converted fatty acids to boost insulin resistance, a perfect storm for disease awaits.

Additionally, drinking alcohol can lead to other behaviors that contribute to weight gain as people tend to consume more and poorer quality food when they go out drinking.

Tips for summer eating

The most simple solution to improve your diet and reduce weight gain is to limit refined sugars, carbohydrates, and alcohol: limit PBR.

This may be difficult when you have little control over the food available to eat, say at a BBQ, but there are easy ways you can limit the spike in insulin and the resulting fertilizer for your fat cells.

• Increase dietary fat and healthy oils. Fat acts to slow the emptying of food from the stomach and can help counter the spike in insulin from a carb-rich meal.
• Increase fibers. Fiber also acts to slow the emptying of food from the stomach, and can help keep a healthy population of bacteria in the gut which may reduce inflammation throughout the body and the increase in fat .

Previously, I’ve outlined 4 simple steps to improve diet which includes, most importantly, to increase fiber.

Increasing fiber and reducing PBR is the first step to bettering your weight and health. Not only do I know this from personal experience,  the scientific evidence supports my finding.

This summer, I’m going to have a few beers and some hamburgers. I encourage you to do the same, in moderation, as long as you keep to the core eating pattern of plenty of fiber-rich veggies and limited PBR. It’s summer, get outside, and live!