A man used an old monks technique for lent and lost weight while drinking only beer.
Del Hall, a Cincinnati man, made it his Lenten promise to live off only beer the 46 days of Lent.
He works at Cincinnati’s Fifty West Brewing Company and he toldFOX news that he was able to avoid getting buzzed by spacing out his beer throughout the day.
Throughout the forty days of lent, and 6 Sundays in between, he lost a total of 44 pounds.
The beer diet is apparently based on an old Catholic tradition started by monks in the 1600s.
“Being master brewers, they decided they would take a popular style of beer in Germany, bock beer, make it extra hearty and that would be their liquid bread and that’s what they call it,” Hall said when he started the diet. “So the monks in Bavaria, they would call doppelbock liquid bread and basically it would sustain them through the 46 days of lent.”
He isn’t joking, according to the Catholic News Agency, monks did indeed turn to a nutrient potent beer for sustenance during fasting.
“They needed something other than water to sustain them, so the monks turned to a common staple of the time of their region – beer.”Paulaner Brewery Martin Zuber said. “They concocted an unusually strong brew, full of carbohydrates and nutrients because liquid bread wouldn’t break the fast,” Zuber noted.
Hall felt healthier than ever when he ate a bowl of guacamole for his first meal after the fast. Of course, he washed it down with a nice beer.
