One of the most popular ways to unwind together across human history has been with a few drinks. It has been suggested that moderate red wine consumption can reduce cardiovascular disease risk. Despite the widespread misconception that drinking alcohol is safe and healthy, it might hinder your efforts to reduce body fat. Drinking alcohol regularly, such as with a glass of wine or beer before bed, can quickly mount up and derail your efforts to lose weight. How important is limiting your alcohol intake when trying to lose weight?
Why Cutting Back on Alcohol Helps Lose Weight
Cutting back on alcohol can play a significant role in weight loss by reducing calorie intake. Alcohol contains empty calories, which provide energy but no nutritional value. By cutting back on alcohol, you can reduce your overall calorie consumption, which can help with weight loss.
Additionally, alcohol can stimulate the appetite and reduce inhibitions, making it easier to make poor food choices. Limiting alcohol consumption can help you make healthier food choices, stick to your diet, and ultimately reach your weight loss goals.
Let’s dive deeper into the relationship between alcohol and weight loss
How Does Alcohol Affect Weight Loss?
Alcohol is a widely used substance, and most individuals use it regularly, albeit in moderate amounts. Alcohol can hurt an individual’s ability to lose weight, especially if the individual abuses or consumes excessive alcohol. How does anything like this come to pass? In the following paragraphs, we will discuss the specific ways in which alcohol interferes with your aim to lose weight, as well as the reasons you should exercise caution while drinking.
Alcohol often provides “empty” calories
Calories from alcoholic beverages are considered “empty” since they supply energy but offer no nutritional value to the body. Alcohol is incredibly high in calories, and drinking too much can quickly lead to weight gain. Calories in alcohol can vary widely depending on the type of beverage consumed.
Compared to wine beer, for instance, hard liquor tends to be higher in calories than wine and beer. Mixed drinks and cocktails may be even worse because they often contain sugary mixers that increase calories.
Alcohol impedes fat burning
Alcohol causes the body to shift its metabolic rate away from fat, and toward the fuel alcohol provides. Rapid weight gain is one symptom of alcoholic ketosis, a disease that can occur from drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. The extra calories you consume must be burned off if you’re on a weight-loss mission. Adipose tissue, or fat, is where the body stores excess glucose and lipids when it uses alcohol for fuel instead of its usual sources of energy.
Alcohol can affect your organs
In addition to filtering the toxins in your body, the liver is also responsible for breaking down lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins to release energy. When the liver breaks down fats, carbohydrates, or proteins, it releases ATP, the energy necessary for the body to function.
It can compromise the liver’s ability to process and store sugars and fats. Alterations in how your body keeps the energy you consume might make it very challenging to shed pounds.
Alcohol can negatively affect your sleep
Even though a drink before bed might seem like a great way to relax and prepare for sleep, it doesn’t actually lead to good sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep or the rest you receive is of sufficient quality, the hormones in your body that regulate hunger, fullness, and energy storage may become imbalanced.
Alcohol consumption causes digestive and nutritional problems
The digestive system can feel the effects of alcohol first. As a result, less saliva and bile are produced, and food takes longer to pass through the digestive system.
The digestive tract cannot function properly without the secretions produced by the digestive organs. All the macro and micronutrients in food are broken down into their simplest forms so the body can use them. All but the most moderate alcohol use reduces digestion and nutrition absorption. It may also significantly affect the metabolic rate of crucial organs involved in weight control.
Alcohol boosts the appetite for food
Drinking slows your metabolism, so you’ll eat more to make up for the calories you’re not burning. As inhibitions are lowered by alcohol consumption, both excessive eating and bad meal selections become more likely. Therefore, you are more inclined to want to overeat meals high in fat and sugar when intoxicated.
Depending on how much alcohol you drink, you may end up overeating or munching mindlessly, even if you aren’t hungry. So, if you’re on a diet, consider the impact of these extra calories.
How to Avoid the Alcohol Weight Loss Trap?
You can keep these issues at bay by reducing your alcohol consumption. Limit yourself to no more than two alcoholic beverages daily and make them low-calorie ones like watered-down beer, wine, or straight liquor.
High-sugar mixers, such as juice or soda, should be avoided since they can add up quickly and thwart any weight loss efforts. Using an app for weight loss can help you manage the foods and drinks you should have.
Lastly, keep up a regular exercise routine and a nutritious diet and use a drink tracking app like Sunnyside to help you regulate your consumption. You’ll be able to lose weight faster and lessen the damage from drinking.
Main Takeaway
You’ll probably want to reduce your alcohol use to see results with your weight loss efforts. Cutting back on drinking can help you by improving your overall habits around food, and lowering your caloric intake.
Alcohol contains empty calories, which can easily accumulate in the body, and the result may be a loss of motivation and resolve for people trying to lose weight. If you reduce the amount of alcohol you consume daily, you will be able to work more easily towards accomplishing the weight loss goals you have set for yourself.
