Alcohol And Weight Loss - Are They Compatible?

Nope, alcohol and weight loss are not friends! Stick with me and I’ll explain why. I’m also going to tell you how you can indulge in alcohol and still lose weight.

I will not tell you to stop drinking. I sure don't plan to!

Like all things, the key is moderation. A drink or three once a week won’t do much harm. It may even have some health benefits such as increased HDL (the good cholesterol).

Here’s something that's important to know…

Alcohol compromises your body's fat burning ability!

Your body has storage “compartments” for fats and carbohydrates. It does not have storage capacity for alcohol.

What does that mean?

Basically your body oxidizes alcohol before carbohydrates, fat and protein.

Fat burning is suppressed the most because fat is at the bottom of the oxidative pecking order. Drinking alcohol almost completely blocks the fat burning process!

The main thing you should remember is that when alcohol is in your system, your body converts more of the food you eat into the very stuff you want to get rid of - body fat!

Can alcohol and weight loss really go hand in hand?

Yes. If you’re going to drink, here are some tips you can use to avoid messing up your weight loss efforts.

1. Drink light beer and low calorie drinks.
Many of those tasty mixed drinks are loaded with calories from sugar. I love strawberry margaritas, but when I found out how much sugar is in them I almost gagged.

Look for low sugar or sugar free alternatives. Use diet sodas or Crystal Light. Bajabob is a line of sugar free drink mixes.

2. Add the alcohol calories into your daily total.
Yep, this means you need to know how many calories are in your drinks. You can easily find out with the internet.

Factor your alcohol calories in with calories from everything else. If you stay within your calorie limits you should still be able to lose fat.

3. Eat before you get your drink on.
A lot of people drink then later on stuff themselves with super high calorie meals from places like McDonald’s or Wendy’s or some other greasy fatty fast food joint.

Think about it – if you drink 1000 calories worth of alcohol then eat a bunch of junk food, you’ll may store enough fat to ruin days of exercise and healthy eating.

Try eating a good sized meal including lots of protein and veggies 2 to 3 hours before you start drinking. Your food will have time to digest, and this should decrease the likelihood that you’ll pig out after you drink.

4. Drink water.
Alcohol causes dehydration. When you’re dehydrated, you don’t burn fat efficiently.

In addition to your regular water intake, drink one extra glass of water for every alcoholic drink and you have.

5. Control yourself.
When you indulge try to limit yourself to a couple of drinks to keep damage to a minimum. If your goal is to lose weight fast, you definitely cannot binge!

6. Don’t drink often.
When I say limit yourself to a couple of drinks, I don’t mean a couple a day!

7. Don’t cave in to pressure.
Don’t give in to “come on, a couple more drinks won’t kill you.”

If peer pressure gets to you, either man up or reconsider who you spend time with.

Alcohol and weight loss can go together – if you follow the 7 guidelines that I just gave you.

Remember this:

“Alcohol puts fat metabolism on hold. It’s not your friend if you’re trying to stay lean.”

- Susan Kleiner, PhD, RD, author of Power Eating

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