Today on The Ask Prof Noakes Podcast we find out from Prof. Tim Noakes what the deal is with having a glass of red wine on the LCHF diet. What’s the effect and how bad is it for you or can you have a glass or two in the evening?

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We’ve spoken about alcohol before on Real Meal Radio but today we look at red wine on the LCHF diet specifically. Dee Mack got in touch and she says she comes from a dieting background and is very insulin resistant.

She’s made the switch over to the Banting diet and she is feeling fantastic.

She’s fairly disciplined although she’s struggling a bit with not being able to have a glass of red wine or two in the evening.

What’s the effect of red wine on the LCHF diet? Is it that bad for you or is it okay to have a glass or two of red wine every evening on the LCHF diet?

Professor Tim Noakes: Again, it’s the same story. If you take a glass of red wine, then you’re going to have to cut some carbs from somewhere else. So you’re going to have to eat slightly less vegetables, or less milk. Those are the two sources of carbohydrate when you’re really eating the Banting diet fully.

Red wine on LCHF diet: You need to cut carbs somewhere else

She can certainly have a glass of wine, but she’s going to have to cut something else out in the carbohydrates particularly if she’s profoundly carbohydrate resistant. If she’s not, maybe then she can add that and it won’t make any difference.

I also think that there is a time thing. I can probably eat more carbohydrate now, if I wasn’t diabetic, but I don’t. My weight control is now so superb, that I think I could probably eat more carbohydrate now and it wouldn’t affect my weight. I can’t say for certain that’s so, but that’s what it seems to me.

So she may well find that after she’s been on this diet for a year or two, a glass of wine every night is not going to be a problem. But again, she must just watch the scale, because the scale will tell you. As your weight starts going up then you’re eating too much carbohydrate, and you need to cut back again.