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If you drink alcohol, do you typically prefer a beverage that is low in carbohydrates?
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I very rarely drink alcohol, but on the occasions that I do, sometimes it is low in carbs and sometimes not.
I am a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. I am usually always the designated driver. So I usually have one drink per week. I like white claw mango (my husband doesn’t even consider this alcohol but it is). They have about 3 flavors. It’s 2 carbs. I really like cosmopolitans. 13 carbs. I’ll drink angry orchard if I want to be really wild: 30 carbs. That’s a lot.
Skinny margaritas if we go for Mexican food. Otherwise a glass of red wine. Only drink if i go out to dinner.
Agree. I almost never drink at home unless entertaining which we don’t do much.
I have little awareness of the carb content of any drinks I may have, except for beer, which I avoid because of the high content. Otherwise, I occasionally have not very sweet wine, which doesn’t seem to affect my blood sugar levels.
I couldn’t put I don’t drink alcohol, but it’s pretty rare. I will taste test a couple ounces of wine when my son get some, that hardly counts. I wouldn’t mind an occasional gin & tonic, but not enough to be worth the trouble.
I consider myself a non-alcohol drinker. However, there is the VERY rare occasion where I might have a small glass of red wine. Probably less than once a year. Always with food.
I’m 70 and have had T1D for 40 years. 30 years ago I felt drinking complicated my ability to manage my diabetes so I quit drinking one day and have not had a drink since. Many benefits have resulted from this decision beyond diabetes management.
I was dx’d in 1983 a week after turning 28. I was a rock musician, and back then there was none of this “eat what you want and bolus for it” stuff. It was “Here’s an alphabetical list of stuff you can’t have anymore.” Right at the top: beer. I was like, Beer? BEER???? I can do the shots, Doc, but **beeeeer???** A deeply compassionate man, he explained that wine and distilled liquors were mainly glucose-free, and that scotch is essentially distilled beer. So, used judiciously and with due caution, ok. Thus from that day I began cultivating a taste for single malt and my dinner-drink preferences shifted to the grape.
If I do have a drink, it is a glass of cab or shiraz. But overall since I am scolded for not losing weight by the Endo nurses, I avoid the calories in an effort to get skinnier.
I make my own low carb margaritas, drink red or white wine and rarely a low carb beer. Yes folks, I do drink alcohol!
Lucky me. Because of another autoimmune disease, I can’t drink alcohol. I’m good as long as there’s not an autoimmune disease that says I can’t have coffee or chocolate. 😉
I drink red wine and whisky only occasionally. I don’t count carbs for that,
I only gave a drink 1-2 x a month so, I just drink what I enjoy. Occasionally if I’m doing something simple like rum & coke I ask for Diet Coke. I more worry about the sugar content if the mixer itself rather than the alcohol.
I don’t care for alcoholic beverages, but I used to have an ice cold beer once in a blue moon years ago mostly because my doctor said a beer would be good to have with dinner. I found that by the time I finished half of it I’d feel like I needed to go lie down and sleep even though my BGs were fine. I always wondered if my AI diseases were part of it (T1 and Hashimoto’s). Luckily I didn’t like it enough to have to figure out how to work it into my life.
I’m the T1D who made an appointment with my endocrinologist on my 21st birthday. I told him I planned on imbibing that night, and I needed a diabetic-friendly plan. He sent me home with a plan that included what to drink—stick to clear liquors with sugar-free mixes or, low-sugar cranberry juice or grapefruit juice and dry white wine. I also had a snack plan, hydration plan and insulin dosing plan. I was happy that night, but not wasted. I woke up feeling great!
I do not like sweet drinks. I drink dry wine. I occasionally have a beer which is high carb, but that is not my usual.
Haven’t had a drink in nearly 40 years. But back in my drinking days I mostly drank beer and hard stuff, but not sugary stuff.
I’ve never been much of a drinker… I prefer iced tea, diet coke, or diet lemonade. (I’m the automatic designated driver, too! lol) But, anyway, none of the bottled teas or lemonades, though, because they make my heart go pitter-patter-pittery-pattery.
But, now that I’m older, I take a medication (can’t remember which one, though) that makes drinking alcohol _very_ uncomfortable. Only a few sips of Guiness and it was like a furnace got lit in my body… and my face was SO red.
It was uncomfortable enough that I decided not to bother with ye olde alcohol.
Unlike most of the commenters here- I like getting toasted on wine. Most of the people I know here in Oregon prefer to get toasted on marijuana – me – nah. I ain’t a puritan, and prefer to live above the disease we share. Flame on with your criticisms!
I like to sip dry red red or white wine. I sometimes make a wine cooler w/ 2-3 oz Cabernet Sauvignon with 5 oz diet ginger ale or diet lemon-lime. I’ve tried ouzo, absinthe, kombucha, whiskey, scotch, vodka, gin, and various craft beers. With the Dexcom 6 I can keep a very close look at the effect alcohol is having on my bg. For an ipa or a stout, it’s necessary for me to inject 1 or 2 units lispro. Low carb non gluten beers are available. “Light” beers with lower calories are also available. But since liqueurs and cocktails have almost always too much such sugar, I avoid them. Since the artificial sweeteners in diet soda pops can cause the same lipid problems as sugar, I don’t use them as mixers much lately.
I tend to drink once a week but it’s been less with age. I tend to drink a lot of the alcoholic seltzers, vodka soda or a skinny margarita. When I do drink beer I cover with insulin and watch it more closely. I tend to stay away from even lighter beers now bc it’s just not worth the effort for me with rising blood sugars but it’s different for everyone. The seltzers and vodka sodas don’t raise my sugars.
I drink wine and beer mostly. Generally I will have a low carb beer, now that they are available. And when I drink wine I often dilute it with soda water to make it a spritzer.
I usually choose something with sugar in it because alcohol tanks my blood sugar. I have to eat a snack (without covering with insulin) and I don’t dose for the carbs in the drink and I will still drop low) into the 50s) several hours later so I now limit to 2 drinks, with food and water in between the 2 drinks.
Miller lite and beer seltzers do nothing bg-wise to me. Cheers!
I only rarely drink and when I do it’s generally just a glass of red wine or 1 beer. I’m not sure the exact carb count of these, but I presume not low.
I chose “Other” because when I was younger it didn’t matter to me how many carbs were in my drink – – perhaps because we weren’t counting carbs then. Now, I order what I am in the mood for. However, if my blood sugar is running high, I will choose a drink like a dry wine, that I know will help my BG drop. Same is true if I am running low, I’ll choose a drink that I know will make my BG go up.
Because I am brittle, I usually have only one drink a day and it is a gin and tonic made with 1 oz of gin and one small can of Schweppes Tonic Water. NEVER sugar-free anything. I don’t use saccharin, aspartame, or any of those fake sugar substitutes because I don’t like the taste of any diet anything, soda, dessert, gum, anything at all- I just never eat anything that doesn’t use real sugar or honey or maple syrup. I am not worried about Carbs because my A1C is usually between 4.9 and 5.1 and my endocrinologist says that’s fine…
I limit myself to one drink a day, and don’t worry about the carbs. Haven’t noticed any significant BG impact, probably because the bolus for any nibbles I’m having with the drink is taking care of the drink’s carbs. The exception would be for any drink that comes with a tiny umbrella. 🙂
Sometimes, it depends on what mood I’m in or looking for