Alcohol can serve as a joyous pastime for people wanting to get together, socialize and be merry. It’s served humans throughout the millenniums, for better or worse.

Alcohol can bring people together and it can bring the body apart. Like any substance that may impede upon human health but is enjoyable, there must be a balance.

This won’t be an article citing all the harmful affects of alcohol, I’m sure you already know it’s not the healthiest. It will instead be a helpful article on how to drink while appropriately balancing your fitness and weight loss goals.

In this article we’ll look at how alcohol affects the body, looking at the science of what it’s doing as well as it’s potential to make people fat. After that, we’ll look through how to drink alcohol and not get fat while answering the question, ‘can you drink alcohol and lose belly fat.’

 

How Alcohol Affects The Body

Alcohol affects the body in many ways. I’ll go through a few ways that it can have harmful affects, you can skip this section if you’d just like to learn how it interacts with belly fat and what to do about it.

 

Digestion

Alcohol can disrupt digestion and absorption in multiple ways such as:

  • Intestinal Enzyme Disruption
  • Intestinal Permeability
  • Intestinal Mucosal Injury
  • Interrupted Gut Microbiome
  • Large Intestine Transit Time Reduced
  • Reduced Water and Sodium Absorption
  • Reduced Absorption of Carbs, Proteins and Fats
  • Can cause Folic acid deficiency

Several of these have been tied to alcoholics, which constitutes heavy drinking. Most people aren’t alcoholics so a couple drinks a weekend may not cause all of these immediately but if done in large quantities over time some of these can happen.

I used to be a heavy drinker back in my early 20’s. It started in college and didn’t drastically change until I went 7 months no alcohol. I’ve had horrible gut problems through my 20’s and from my research I think the heavy drinking played a big role in it.

 

Sleep

Alcohol can affect sleep by disrupting the natural patterns and sleeping cycles people go through at night. It can disturb those sleep cycles and lead to periods of wakefulness that reduce overall sleep quality and quantity.

With disturbed and reduced sleep, that can lead to hormonal imbalances which create food urges, can cause overeating and poor nutritional choices.

Disrupted sleep also affects stress resistance. When people get stressed out the body releases hormones, such as cortisol, that can promote fat storage.

When I don’t get quality sleep, the sugar section of my pantry gets ravaged.

 

Brain

When alcohol is metabolized by the liver it converts to acetate. At times, in heavy drinkers, it can create more acetate than needed and it spills into the blood which can circulate to the brain. If it’s then oxidized in the brain it can cause inflammation there and the brain may realize it can use acetate for fuel. When acetate is oxidized it converts to adenosine which can make people feel sleepy.

Ergo, if an alcoholic is trying to stop drinking they may feel withdrawal, lethargic and the urge to drink.

 

Alcohol can also affect the body with how it metabolizes it and how it it can cause fat gain, covered in the sections below.

 

 

Is Drinking Alcohol Making Me Fat?

Potentially…It comes down to how many drinks a week you’re having and what kind of alcohol it is.

 

Extra Calories

The main reason why alcohol could be making you fat is from the extra calories in each drink.

Calorie numbers behind drinks, on average:

  • Beer, full bodied: 150 calories
  • Light beer: 100 calories
  • Glass of wine, 5 ounces: 125 calories
  • Vodka, 1.5 ounces: 100 calories
  • Whiskey, 1.5 ounces: 100 calories

As you can see, each drink is around 100 to 150 calories depending on the alcohol. If you do everything else perfectly in your diet and workouts but have 4 drinks on Friday and 4 drinks on Saturday then that’s an extra 1,000 calories or so a week. That will halt your weight loss goals, if it’s not properly calculated in. At worst, it’ll be causing slow weight gain over the months that creep up without notice.

Now, if you’re disciplined about losing weight and are tracking your food you can calculate alcohol in. But if you’ve ever tracked calories, had to be in a deficit and added in a couple drinks then what you may find is that you’re still hungry because alcohol isn’t very filling. On a long term weight loss journey, hunger is the enemy; speaking from experience. If you’re following a good weight loss plan, you shouldn’t feel hungry.

 

Alcohol Metabolized First

The body wants to get rid of alcohol as fast as possible so it metabolizes it first, which puts glucose or fat burning on the back burner. Because of that the body may more easily store those calories it had to delay burning. However, this point is irrelevant if the overall consumption (food + alcohol) is less than what the person is burning that day but I still wanted to include it to show the order of energy use.

For example, if someone’s body and exercise burns 2,000 calories a day and they only consume 1,800 (meals + a few drinks) then they will be in a 200 calorie deficit. If they keep that up day over day, week over week, they will lose weight.

 

Alcohol Can Increase Hunger Signals

Have you ever been out on the town, drinking with friends and hit that late night food truck or pizza place? I know I have before! It’s a common impulse in our society, to eat after drinking. Have you ever wondered why?

There was study that gave ethanol (alcohol) to mice over several days and noticed they had a significant increase in food intake. The study suggests that alcohol may boost hunger signals in the brain which lead to eating after drinking. Although the study was done with mice, that’s indicative that alcohol initiated overeating is an evolutionary occurrence that happens in mammals.

Overeating can happen the night of but it also may happen the next day. I know I’ve felt hungover before and ate whatever the next morning (sometimes burgers, fries and milkshakes) out of apathy for any healthy decisions. The rest of the day typically isn’t any better.

 

How To Drink Alcohol and Not Get Fat

Can you drink alcohol and lose belly fat

Now that you know how the body prioritizes alcohol, some calories with certain drinks and what alcohol can do to hunger signals it’s time to now look at how to drink alcohol and not get fat.

 

Can You Drink Alcohol and Lose Belly Fat?

You can drink alcohol and lose belly fat, yes. Remember, weight loss is mostly a numbers game. If the number of calories burned is greater than consumed, weight loss happens. There are multiple factors that control how many calories are burned including exercise, thyroid, gut microbiome, brain signaling, overall health and disease status, genetics and more.

In order to lose belly fat in the long term, one must find a balance between sacrifice for the fitness goal and enjoyment.

For example, if someone typically has 10 or more beers a week then they will probably have a difficult time losing weight. However, if they can reduce that to 3 or 4 drinks a week they may be able to find a balance of enjoying drinking and reducing the number of drinks to hit their weight loss goal.

 

Alcohol Choices

 

If someone is going to be drinking, there are better choices they can make. Better choices in regards to overall calories, allergic potential and blood spikes due to sugar.

Beer: Let’s look at beer first. Beer might not the best choice when trying to lose weight because it’s typically highest in calories compared to other drinks. Beer can also causes an allergic reaction in some people due to the wheat or other allergens. Even if it doesn’t cause hives breaking out on the skin it may still irritate the gut lining, which can affect overall wellness.

Liquor: If instead someone’s going to drink vodka or other liquor, that may be okay for weight loss as long as it’s calculated in. However, what people should watch out for is what they mix that liquor with. If it’s mixed with a full bodied soda then that completely defeats the purpose because the soda will be loaded with sugar and calories.

Wine: Wine is another option to drink when trying to lose weight. It can be a good choice as long as the wine isn’t high in sugars. A high sugar diet can cause long term health concerns but one that’s relevant to weight loss is that it creates an immediate spike in blood sugar levels. This is not desired because that spike is typically from fructose, in wine and sodas, which can create an increase in appetite.

 

What To Drink

I can’t tell you specifically what to drink because each person is different. But I’ll share with you some options that are low is sugar and calories.

  • Low sugar wine (Examples: Ecco Domani and FitVine)
  • Seltzer alcohol drinks (Example: White Claw)
  • Lighter colored liquor in low calorie mixers (Examples: gin and tonic, vodka and club soda)

 

Summary

How alcohol affects/disrupts the body, few examples:

  • Digestion
  • Sleep
  • Brain
  • Metabolic priority

Is drinking alcohol making me fat?

Potentially, remember, to lose weight one must burn more calories than they consume.

Drink Options:

  • Wine, low sugar
  • Seltzer alcohol
  • Light colored liquor + low calorie mixer

 

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