Welcome back!!

This week I want to take a look at the effect of alcohol on fat loss. A couple of friends of

mine (both good Personal trainers) were discussing this and disagreed on the path to foloow with alcohol. One was for totally foregoing it until you had achieved your desired fat loss and the other felt that if you factored it in as something that you did not overindulge in then it was no probelm.

This made me stop and think. Pretty much I have been in the first camp – alcohol = no fat loss or at least a severe blunting of progress but…

I’m a strong advocate of a balanced lifestyle and very anti-processed foods. I am pro-exercise and protein and veges and fruit and damn it I like a drink. Or two…

Don’t get me wrong societally alcohol has been a disaster for many cultures and has caused and continues to cause untold heartbreak for many people. Yet consumed responsibly alcohol is more than a socilal lubricant it can have health benefits. in fact I  believe that alcohol can be part of a flifestyle that is healthy and active.

Okay but where does this leave the fat loss?

What you need to know about Alcohol and Fat Loss –
Alcohol is a calorie laden poison.

No getting around the fact that this is so…
Alcohol and calories

If you are seriously working to lose body fat then you know that you have to ingest fewer calories than you use as a major component of achieving this.

o you need to consider the calorific load of what you eat and drink and the way that what you out in your mouth is processed by your body.

Alcohol carries a seven calorie per gram load, fat contain 9 and protein and carbohydrates contain only four.
This puts alcohol right up there in terms of the potential to add calories….

But that’s not the problem – the problem lies in the foods we eat with the alcohol, and the liquids we mix it with..
If you like Bundy & Coke, or a Gin & Tonic or a scotch & Dry you are likely to be adding over 300 calories per serving to your intake. Per serving. Have 3 ot 4 and you’ve come close to taking in the equivalent of half a pound of fat calories-wise.

It’s even worse for cocktails.. But okay you use Coke Zero and the diet versions of mixers – problem fixed – right? Wrong!

When we have a drink or two we tend to be drawn towards unhealthy foods like potato

crisps, fat laden burgers or pizza – basically alcohol stimulates our cravings for the wrong type of food and these cravings are powerful things to ignore…So we drink to be sociable varous flavour receptors get switched on, some hormones are stimulated and suddenly you find yourself eating deepfried Mars bars or tacosor corn chips!

BOOM! Becuase of the add on effect of alcohol you’ve just eaten an entire day’s worth of calories (and from poor food choices! in one evening…Guess what that does to you fat loss…

But, I hear you say,  I don’t drink spirits or mixed drinks I have a brew, a beer or a wine.

More bad news – beer is associated with the release of the belly fat storing hoemone cortisol (a beer gut is often just that – a belly caused by cortisol stimulated from too much

ale…) The calories in a glass of beer can run from under 80 to over 230 depending upon type…Red wine (in a 5 ounce serving) has about 125 calories, white wine (depending upon type – the sweeter the higher the calories) has about 100 calories and sparkling & fortified wines get into the high 100s. A nip of Scotch has 54 calories.

Processing Alcohol

I’ll go with the short version here.. Alcohol is processed in the liver, and in large quantities it places a big strain on this organ. It is viewed & treated by our bodies as a poison. It is not a coincidence that alcoholics suffer from a range of liver diseases as their alcoholism progresses.

Thing is whilst we are young our liver can handle alcohol reasonably well but over time – especially if we binge drink (try to fit a week’s worth of alcohol into one night) or drinks lots – our liver processes the alcohol less & less well. It is NOT a case of the older liver taking more time to do the same job – it just can’t do the same job. period.

But here’s the kicker becuase our body views alcohol as a poison it pretty much halts

everything else it does to process the alcohol. A lot of fat is broken down in the lvier – this stops..the entire fat burning process throughout your body stops until the ‘poison’ has been dealt with.

The processing of alcohol require large quantities of the B group vitamins so these get depleted.and becuase they are involved in the burning of fat your fat loss gets hit from this direction as well.

Recovery and Alcohol
Alcohol – again in large amounts – will hinder how well and how fast your body recovers from your work out program. Again it is liver related but also endocrine system as well – simply processing alcohol taxes your system and depletes it. It also stops protein synthesis. remember muscles grow after exercise in response to stress. In order to repair & grow after the level of intensity required to burn fat your body neeeds to process protein.

Big night out = long time before you can recovery from exercise. Which of course puts you behind in terms of momentum and… you know the rest

So just don’t drink – right?

Wrong. nearly all of the negative effects of alcohol come from having too much and from having the wrong types. Red wines at the rate of no m ore than a glass or a night will not only keep you sociable but the calorie load they’ll add, the cravings they’ll trigger and the processing they’ll require will all be much less than spirits, cocktails, beers, fortified wines or even sparkling ones. The less sweet varieties of white wine are also reletivel low impact if drunk responsibly – not as good for your health as red but still better than most of the rest. A Rose` is a good compromise.

Again though – moderation is the key. Even at 2 glasses a night your liver will have to work, your fat burning and protein synthesis will stop and you’ll need to keep an eye on your vitamn B levels. Of course if you are eating the high lean protein, high unprocessed carb and low grain diet espoused here with littl or no sugar, transfats or HFCS then the effect on your health & fat burning will be even less.

If you want rapid results in terms of fat loss then don’t drink any alcohol until you get to

your desired level. If you want to get there but remain sociable and are not in a burning hurry then a few drinks durng the week of a decent red won’t set you back too far…

An occasional drink won’t keep you fat, but be careful heart friendly or not, antioxidant rich or not (red wine at least) if you are taking in more than a sparse couple of alcoholic drinks then you will definately hit your progress on the head. Hard…
Personally, here in Oz with Winter upon us (such as it is) I think that I might still have a glass or two of red with a roast dinner; but overall look at foregoing the alcohol until daylight savings rolls around again for Summer – that way maybe I’ll keep the winter belly under easier control…

How about you?

See you next week….