Alcohol and weight loss...

LuckyLeprechaun

I have come to believe that if I include alcohol in my diet, even if my calories are on target, my weight losses get stalled. My belief is based on my own observations over the course of the last three years or so. There is much debate about this.....I'm so very interested to hear some intelligent discussion on this matter.

Thoughts?

Calories are calories?

OR

Alcohol DOES have a damper on losing?

startrekkermd

Short answer: Yes

Long answer

Apart from the very high calorie / low nutrition value to alcohol, there is another metabolic reason why it may hinder your weight loss goals ..

When you drink alcohol - any amount really - It diffuses through your stomach and intestines into your blood and goes to the liver. Once there, an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase is responsible for breaking down alcohol (on a side note, this enzyme is also why you may get tispy with one drink while your friend can pound tequila shots all night and be fine - the amount of enzyme = how fast you can break down the alcohol)

Anyway - alcohol dehydrogenase converts the alcohol into something called acetaldehyde / acetate.
Usually acetate is prodced in the body from fat metabolism, but you can also produce it directly from alcohol metabolism.
When the body needs to get energy - in the presence of acetate, it will preferentially use the acetate and not breakdown fat. (Its just easier - it already skipped all those steps to breakdown the fat into acetate, so it prefers to use it)

Hence, instead of switching on fat metabolism, you just burn off all that acetate from the alcohol.

LuckyLeprechaun

Fantastic! Thank you!!

CaptainMFP

I agree with the above answer with one caveat: calories are still calories. In other words, if you are in caloric deficit, alcohol consumption can side-track metabolism...but only to the degree that the alcohol is present. If your metabolism is high enough relative to the amount of calories consumed then eventually you will return to burning fat. Thus, the answer I would offer is that it only hinders your loss to the degree it is consumed. Some alcohol is not likely to have a major effect. (In the end a calorie is a calorie and the deficit is all that matters...junk food won't really slow loss either if you are running a genuine deficit.)