Beer and dieting don’t mix, right? But sometimes, you just have to have a brew. When the craving strikes, be sure you know the healthiest beer to drink on a get thin program.

Whether or not you can have beer while you’re dieting and still keep losing weight depends on why you want the beer in the first place. If you’re drinking to get drunk, you’re pretty much out of luck. Every reasonable diet program severely limits alcohol consumption because alcohol lowers your leptin levels.

Leptin is the substance in your body that tells your body whether to burn fat or hang onto it. If the levels are low, it signals your body to store fat. You don’t want to do anything that will lower your leptin levels if you want to get skinny.

So going on a bender and having a six-pack or two isn’t possible if your goal is to become thin. You can, however, enjoy the taste without it hurting your dieting efforts.

If the reason you want the beer is because you just like the taste of it, you have an option that will not only taste good so you feel like you’re having a treat, but it’s also one of the ways to burn fat. There’s one brew on the market that is pretty good for you: O’Douls.

O’Douls has lots of carbs, which help raise leptin levels, and unlike many processed sources of carbs, O’Douls doesn’t have any no-nos like high fructose corn syrup. So it’s a relatively healthy beverage choice.

You still need to think about calories of course. Too much of anything, whether it’s healthy or not, will block weight loss progress. But in moderation, O’Douls isn’t a bad choice.

And if you absolutely must have the alcoholic version of a brew, will it totally blow your diet?

Not if you’re careful about your choice. You want to pick a light version obviously, but be careful about which one you pick. The calorie levels vary quite a bit and so does the carbohydrate content. You want the one with lowest calories and carbs.

The number one brew that meets this requirement is Bud Select 55. But you can find others if you poke around and read labels.

As with O’Douls, you still can’t go crazy with the light brews. Too much of anything, especially alcohol, will mess up your fat burning efforts.

Even though beer and dieting don’t usually go hand in hand, you can still enjoy a cold one when you’re on a get thin program. Just be sure you pick the healthiest beer you can and enjoy it in moderation.