The Weight Loss Digest

Alcohol And Weight Loss, What Would Happen If I Was To Drink Alcohol During My Weight Loss Program, Will It Make Me Fat?

How Much Can I Safely Drink? How Often Can I Drink?

We often hear these questions when someone begins their first Weight Loss Program.

The answer is simple.

The additional Calories you take in and a reduction in Fat Burning.

But like many questions, we all need to be reminded why sometimes.

So, what effect does Alcohol has on fat loss and how does Alcohol do what it does?

Natural Bodybuilding Expert ‘Tom Venuto’ responds to these questions in his Article ‘Alcohol and Body Fat’ we have included a summary of the important issues you need to remember concerning Alcohol and Fat loss.

 

 

Alcohol And Weight Loss, Alcohol And Body Fat
By Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT

QUESTION: Tom, what about alcohol? How does that fit into your burning fat program? I am not talking about binge drinking, just one or two a day.

– John

 

ANSWER: Hi John. A couple of drinks on the weekend and or on special occasions probably won’t have any major impact on your fat loss results (although I would encourage you to consider the mindset that EVERYTHING you do either helps or hurts).

A drink or two on occasion is a part of enjoying life for many people, and it’s important to find lifestyle balance for the sake of your long-term happiness and success.

However, I do not recommend drinking every day.

“A couple every day” adds a LOT of extra calories to your daily diet.

If you’re talking about two 150-calorie beers, that’s 300 calories extra a day or 2100 extra calories a week.

Multiply that out for a year and you have 109,200 extra calories! WOW! That’s potentially 31.2 pounds of fat in a year.

If you DO account for the calories in those drinks, then you have another conundrum – the alcohol calories displace good valuable food calories…

Drinking gives you empty alcohol calories with virtually no nutritional value (and some negative value in more ways than one) while pushing out important vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, fiber, and other good stuff.

Alcohol also inhibits fat burning.

While your liver is busy metabolizing alcohol, it puts your fat metabolism on hold.

That’s why I do NOT recommend any drinking when you are on a fat loss program (at least if you are serious about it).

When you are on a regular, year-round lifestyle/maintenance program I recommend that if you drink, you do so in moderation, keep it to special occasions or weekends, and remember to factor in those calories to your daily intake.

By the way, there’s a major risk to drinking every day – even just one or two – that most people don’t even think about:

Daily drinking is habit-forming.

Anything you do every day easily becomes a habit that is difficult to break later.

On the other hand, if you could establish the habit of eating 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables and getting some exercise every single day, those would be habits worth forming! :-)

Let me know how else I can help. This question comes up often, so I cover alcohol and fat loss in much greater detail in chapter 13 of the Burn the Fat book.

 

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle.”

Tom has written more than 200 articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men, and Men’s Exercise, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide. For information on Tom’s Fat Loss program.