Alcohol & Weight Loss

It’s almost cliche these days when fitness experts tell you not to drink alcohol when you’re trying to lose weight or build muscle. What’s missing from that discussion is why it’s so bad for you. The discussion is incomplete and my goal here is to add in the parts that are missing so we have a good understanding of all the reasons why alcohol can kill your fitness goals.

Alcohol & Calories

Obviously, alcohol has calories in it, which is one problem that dieters have to overcome. Carbs and protein have 4 calories per gram, fat has 9 calories per gram, and alcohol has 7 calories per gram. Note that each gram of alcohol has nearly double the calories of our primary macronutrients, carbs and protein. That means you can consume less alcohol and still get more calories, which is why alcoholic beverages have deceptively high calorie counts.

BodyBuilding.com has a great chart breaking down the average number of calories in various types of alcoholic beverages.

On a typical night out, I can easily drink 4 to 8 beers without batting an eye. We all have different tolerances, but if I’m going out to party, that’s roughly what I would consume. In my case, that’s approximately 600-1250 calories! If I do that just once a week, it’s like gaining (or not losing) 1 pound every 3 weeks. If I drink more frequently, and I often do, it’s even worse.

However, people typically assume that it’s just the calories in alcohol that are bad for you. Thus, if you’re planning on drinking, simply eat less that day to make up for it. Unfortunately for all of us party animals, that’s not the whole story.

Alcohol & Fat Oxidation

Fats, otherwise known as lipids, are stored in adipose tissue throughout our bodies. When we say we are trying to “lose weight,” what we’re really talking about is having our bodies consume this adipose tissue for energy instead of what we eat.

People who try to lose weight too quickly or without proper nutrition oftentimes will lose lean muscle mass along with the adipose tissue, which is bad for your metabolism, since each pound of muscle burns approximately 50 calories/day.

Thus, any good diet has the three goals of:
1. Cutting adipose tissue
2. Retaining lean muscle mass
3. Providing adequate energy for workouts

Cutting adipose tissue is really what we’re talking about when our bodies consume our body fat for energy. There are a lot of hormones involved in this process, and I don’t want to bore you with too much science here, but it’s important to know that it’s a complicated process involving a variety of factors, including macronutrient intake (carbs, proteins, fats), micronutrient intake (vitamins and minerals), exercise, and calories, just to name a few.

Many people are under the false assumption that losing weight is all about the calories you consume being less than your calories burned. While consuming less calories than your burning is essential to cutting fat, if done improperly your body will also consume your hard-earned muscle.

What you really want is a high “fat oxidation” rate, which is just a term for breaking down fat cells into usable-sized molecules. Fat cells are very large and can’t be used as-is for energy throughout your body; it needs to be converted first. Simply put, if you don’t oxidize fat, your body can’t use fat for energy and any calorie-deficit will be filled by consuming your muscles.

So where does alcohol come into this discussion? Alcohol has been shown in studies to significantly decrease your fat oxidation rate. One such study, published in the American Journal of College of Nutrition, found that men given two drinks of vodka with sugar-free lemonade had their fat oxidation rates drop by an astounding 73%!

These two cocktails contained about 90 calories each, hardly a diet-breaker in terms of calories. So what accounted for the rapid change in fat oxidation?

When alcohol is broken down in the body, very little is converted to fat. Typically it gets converted into a substance called “acetate,” which decreases your body’s fat oxidation rate. So while the alcohol didn’t add a substantial amount of calories or fat to people’s bodies, it did have a major effect on the bodies ability to convert existing fat stores into energy. A real diet-killer!

Alcohol & Micronutriets

If you do choose to consume less calories to “make up” for a night of drinking, your body isn’t going to be getting the nutrient’s it needs to keep your muscles in good repair,  burn fat, or maintain blood sugar.

In fact, alcohol consumption can result in a low blood sugar environment as your liver is forced to “clean” the alcohol out of your blood. Essentially, you’re taking all the nutrients your body needs out of your body.

When you eat after having low blood sugar, your body produces a larger-than-normal amount of cortisol, which is a hormone that enables calories to be converted into fat. It makes sense that the body would do so since in nature long periods with low blood sugar indicates we aren’t getting enough food, so your body’s response is to store the next meal’s calories as fat to “save it” for the next “famine.” That’s part of the reason why nutritionists recommend eating small meals throughout the day instead of 3 big meals.

So alcohol also encourages fat growth after consumption, even if at only a small level. It’s possible that the “drunchies” or drunk munchies are a result of this lowered blood sugar state, so the extra calories you consume at these times are more likely to be stored than used.

Conclusions & My Pledge!

In summary, calories are not the only diet-killers in alcohol. Lower fat oxidation rates and changes in hormones are even more significant factors in achieving your weight loss goals. That’s why I’ve decided to cut alcohol out of my life, excluding special occasions like holidays, until I’ve met my fitness goals. I have plenty of weight to lose and I don’t want to get there the hard way, I want to get there now!

Hold me to it! I’ve already told my friends as well. Sometimes we have to give up something to get something better and I want to be beast more than I want to be loose. I can still have fun out with friends without alcohol.