Alcohol impact weight loss, low carb eating

Crash7676

Hi! A bit of background: I was hit by a car jogging and was pretty severely hurt. Fast forward to now, last surgery on crushed foot injury 10/2013. Doing well, still managing pain. I overdid it with the anti-inflammatories and now can only take Tylenol. So I have a gin & diet tonic or two some evenings, as it is super effective with pain after surgery. I try to eat a low carb diet, though sometimes go over carb goals with veggies. I don't worry too much about that considering veggies are generally nutritious. Sooooo, maybe I know the answer to this question, but am I completely sabotaging my weight loss efforts with the gin? What is alcohol's role in weight loss?

fruttibiscotti

Here's my understanding. When in ketosis frm eating a low carb diet, alcohol has a preferential metabolism than fats, so your liver will use the alcohol first in preference to fat. So, fat burning in essence is put on hold. Just like everything in life, you need to make a decision in what you want in life. Are you willing to consume a bit of alcohol, and take away from fat burning potential of ketosis, or do you value fat burning over everything else in life and not allow anything to stall it? I like to have my one glass of red wine with dinner. And that one glass doesn't kick me out of ketosis. But, I limit it to one glass, and that's it for 24 hours.

There is also the other side of the coin, using alcohol to soothe pain - which gets my spidey senses going. Not sure using alcohol to make the pain go away is the best strategy. And I also recognize that I am not inflicted with the terrible accident and pain you are enduring. So it's easy for me to say, while you sit there with pain. I want to be sensitive to what you endure. Remember, alcohol has addictive properties, and one must be careful.

So, I guess it comes down to choices. Are you willing to reduce your fat burning capability and are you able to control alcohol consumption when used as a pain relief? These are serious choices to consider.

I wish you the best, please take care of yourself.

Crash7676

Thx Frutti. I get where you are coming from. Thankfully I am not the addictive type, having been on the meanest pain killers of all, including the Fentnyl (sp) patch, and got off them without incident. I am always grateful to get off pain meds as the side effects (esp gastro) are awful. I have a drink (once in a while 2) maybe 3 nights a week if I have the calories left over, and chose gin since it doesn't register carbs per se (at least the database entries say 0 carbs). Of course I can live w/o it! hehe But it is enjoyable. So, if I'm understanding you, alcohol is treated like carbs and gets burned first. If the wine doesn't raise your blood sugar, then hopefully gin wouldn't either. My pain is getting better weekly, but some nights, especially if I've taught a couple tough classes & workerd all day, my foot gets swollen and tender, and a nice drink helps. I was so eager to get off pain the med hydrocodone, that I took ibuprofen too often and it irritated my stomach.
So if I'm reading you right, it will disrupt the fat burning for that day but hopefully won't derail my efforts like an actual carb binge would (taking days to get back to fat burning)?

fruttibiscotti

That's right. Like me, I allow one glass of wine for supper, and it doesn't kick me out of ketosis. However, I realize, it does reduce the fat burn capacity just a bit, which I'm ok with.

Glad to hear you are managing your pain and getting better. Hope it keeps going the right way.