low carb and vodka?

miainwonderland

I decided to go on a low carb diet (less than 20 grams of carbs a day). Considering I'm a student, which means I go out on weekends and drink alcohol, I was wondering is it ok for me to drink vodka? It has zero carbs.
I know alcohol is bad for weight loss and health in general, but I don't want to give it up. A few drinks every other week isn't that bad.
I was just wondering, is vodka really 0 carbs? And will it affect my low carb diet? (I know it affects every type of diet, but does it affect low carb more than other diets?)

smartycat13

You can drink liquor on a limited basis on low carb/ketotic diets. The body will burn the alcohol before it burns fat so it might take you out of ketosis for a day but it won't set you back like it would if you ate actual sugars. The body burns the sugars and stores them in your liver so it takes you days to get back in to ketosis. The alcohol only affects you "in the moment". All that said, I find that I am actually more ketotic after I drink alcohol. So try it in moderation and see how it affects you personally and remember to drink it with other sugar free mixers.

Also, this theory also applies to the "sugar alcohols" in a lot of sugar free candies and why the sugar alcohols don't count towards the net carb count. Now, if I eat too many of these sugar alcohols, I will definitely fall out of ketosis so I now avoid those sugar free goodies.

apriltrainer

Alcohol makes me hungry. I try to avoid it.., except for special occasions. I will end up eating all sorts of crap if I ingest ETOH, especially carbs!

miainwonderland

Thank you people!
One more question- If vodka will get me out of ketosis, does that mean I'll experience the infamous "low carb flu" all over again?
Cause I'm having a REALLY hard time getting used to ketosis- I'm light headed, nauseus, have no energy etc.

baker249

You need to eat more salt. I found that it helps me not have the headaches that I normally get.