Drink alcohol for fast weight loss?

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longtimeterp
longtimeterp Posts: 614 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So the last three sundays, ive gone out and spent a good bit of time drinking, and then on monday i will wake up and i've magically lost like 5 lbs. Then tuesday i weight myself and its right back, plus 1. After three weekends in a row of this, i am thoroughly confused. Mind you i've always been a drinker, but this is a new phenomena for me...

anyone have any thoughts on this? i certainly dont eat 5lbs of food each monday...
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  • marlumpy
    marlumpy Posts: 3
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    Alcohol tends to dehydrate you. Maybe that's what's causing the weight fluctuations?
  • btay1564
    btay1564 Posts: 23
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    Alcohol tends to dehydrate you. Maybe that's what's causing the weight fluctuations?



    Yep. Ever notice you pee more when you're drinking? You get dehydrated over the days that you are drinking, then your body counters that by retaining water when you stop. I think a gallon of water weighs around 8 pounds so you can see some pretty crazy fluctuations on the scale depending on how much water your body is hanging on to.
  • crista_b
    crista_b Posts: 1,192 Member
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    Alcohol tends to dehydrate you.
    This. It's not fat loss in any way, and it's not sustainable weight loss. It's simply water weight. You shouldn't weigh after a night of drinking because of this. Your weight is going to be off.
  • pastryari
    pastryari Posts: 8,646 Member
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    Alcohol tends to dehydrate you.

    Yup.
  • BeachIron
    BeachIron Posts: 6,490 Member
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    Alcohol tends to dehydrate you.

    Yup.

    Yea. You can also lose weight throwing up into the toilet
  • crista_b
    crista_b Posts: 1,192 Member
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    Alcohol tends to dehydrate you.

    Yup.

    Yea. You can also lose weight throwing up into the toilet
    Does it have to be into the toilet?
  • EmilyOfTheSun
    EmilyOfTheSun Posts: 1,548 Member
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    Smoking cigarettes is great too. It makes your heart work harder so you burn more calories!!!!
  • onwarddownward
    onwarddownward Posts: 1,683 Member
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    Calories per gram:

    Carbs-4
    Protein-4
    Fat-9
    Alcohol-7

    Not a weight loss win. I'm betting on the dehydration thing.
  • TylerJ76
    TylerJ76 Posts: 4,375 Member
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    :noway: :noway: :noway:
  • jalloggio
    jalloggio Posts: 141
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    Calories per gram:

    Carbs-4
    Protein-4
    Fat-9
    Alcohol-7

    Not a weight loss win. I'm betting on the dehydration thing.

    Good bit of info not only that but when alcohol is in the system your body will burn off the alcohol before using any other macro as fuel which means if you have any food in your system that has not been absorbed yet you bet your *kitten* it is going to be stored as fat while your body works to burn off the alcohol.

    Your body metabolizes macros in the following order
    Alcohol
    Carbohydrates
    Far
    Protein
  • longtimeterp
    longtimeterp Posts: 614 Member
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    Calories per gram:

    Carbs-4
    Protein-4
    Fat-9
    Alcohol-7

    Not a weight loss win. I'm betting on the dehydration thing.

    Good bit of info not only that but when alcohol is in the system your body will burn off the alcohol before using any other macro as fuel which means if you have any food in your system that has not been absorbed yet you bet your *kitten* it is going to be stored as fat while your body works to burn off the alcohol.

    Your body metabolizes macros in the following order
    Alcohol
    Carbohydrates
    Far
    Protein

    That's good to know, so avoid eating when im drinking is what i take from this.

    I have read that the liver actually metabolizes alcohol calories not the digestive system (in regular drinkers) thats why they are "Empty" calories (obviously the sugar in a mikes is carbs, but just the alcohol isnt the same)

    edit: found it... http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa35.htm

    Body Weight. Although alcohol has a relatively high caloric value, 7.1 Calories per gram (as a point of reference, 1 gram of carbohydrate contains 4.5 Calories, and 1 gram of fat contains 9 Calories), alcohol consumption does not necessarily result in increased body weight. An analysis of data collected from the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES I) found that although drinkers had significantly higher intakes of total calories than nondrinkers, drinkers were not more obese than nondrinkers. In fact, women drinkers had significantly lower body weight than nondrinkers. As alcohol intake among men increased, their body weight decreased (17). An analysis of data from the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II) and other large national studies found similar results for women (18), although the relationship between drinking and body weight for men is inconsistent. Although moderate doses of alcohol added to the diets of lean men and women do not seem to lead to weight gain, some studies have reported weight gain when alcohol is added to the diets of overweight persons (19,20).

    AND ESPECIALLY THIS...When chronic heavy drinkers substitute alcohol for carbohydrates in their diets, they lose weight and weigh less than their nondrinking counterparts (21,22). Furthermore, when chronic heavy drinkers add alcohol to an otherwise normal diet, they do not gain weight (21).
  • NormInv
    NormInv Posts: 3,302 Member
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    I read on the webz that tequila cuts fat. True story!
  • eep223
    eep223 Posts: 624 Member
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    ... i've magically lost like 5 lbs...

    Baby, I wish!
  • sixxfan4ever
    sixxfan4ever Posts: 103 Member
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    I have drinks on the weekend and I feel bloated from it. Trying really hard not to drink now
  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,220 Member
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    Alcohol is extremely tricky when it comes to dieting or basic fitness goals.

    Alcohol, in itself, is a macronutrient. Just as proteins and carbs have about 4kcals per gram and fats have about 9kcals per gram, alcohol has about 7kcals per gram.

    This is not saying that a beer itself has 7kcals per gram, but the ethyl alcohol content of that beer has 7kcals per ...gram (a typical beer has 12-15 grams of alcohol, or roughly 100 calories or so worth of JUST ALCOHOL, not including carb sources).

    So, wherever there is a calorie, there is energy. If we end up in deficit, we lose weight - if we end up in surplus we gain weight.

    When it comes to research on the subject, especially in the light of most fitness goals, it is a bit sparse for our uses. Major research has found that the statistical significance of alcohol in ones diet (up to and including 15% of daily calories coming from alcoholic beverages) is basically no different than those in the non-alcohol group. In some studies, the alcohol groups lost MORE body fat (contradicting established science, could be poor study data/studies).

    Alcohol itself will raise metabolic expenditure (usage) slightly. The downfall is that fat oxidation (fat burn, basically) tends to slow. So, all told, consuming alcoholic beverages will raise metabolic rate slightly, but burn less fat total.

    You would have to drink a large amount of alcohol to slow muscle growth, talking near poisonous levels for most people (8 drinks or so per day). The big effects come from dehydration, lowered testosterone production, and excessive caloric intake.

    Testosterone production in men AND women will suffer, possibly leading to less muscle growth. I say possibly because most studies will tell about 10-15% reduction in free testosterone, which all told is not very much. If we use anecdotal evidence from a few drug studies shown to suppress testosterone production even further than alcohol might (namely SSRIs, antidepressants, for what I looked up), we find that even a 30-50% halt on free production showed minimal effect on muscle growth or loss rates.

    Dehydration is one of the larger issues. Basically, up to four times more urine will be excreted after consumption of alcoholic beverages (4x time more than the amount of fluid consumed), which can lead to net body water loss resulting in dehydration (dizziness, fogginess, cramping, poor recovery, stroke, etc.). Performance suffers > thus you may lose out on good workouts > thus the cumulative effect is stunted progress.

    But its not to say that drinking doesn't have some benefits. Moderate drinking has shown to improve insulin sensitivity, help prevent heart disease and strokes (basically, good antioxidant qualities (esp in wine and dark beer)), and have some anti-inflammatory properties.
  • jagh09
    jagh09 Posts: 555 Member
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    Smoking cigarettes is great too. It makes your heart work harder so you burn more calories!!!!

    LOL.
  • Shock_Wave
    Shock_Wave Posts: 1,573 Member
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    Alcohol tends to dehydrate you.
    This. It's not fat loss in any way, and it's not sustainable weight loss. It's simply water weight. You shouldn't weigh after a night of drinking because of this. Your weight is going to be off.

    I disagree!!

    I have to say I give all the credit to the alcohol keeping me motivated.
    When I get down on my self because I have not lost weight I drink and feel better. Then the next day I immediately weigh my self and poof I have lost 5 lbs which in turn makes my day and keeps me going. The only kicker is that after about 4 or 5 days I gain some of it back. So then its back to my alcohol coaching. Its sustainable but have I drink once a week for the magic to happen over night. LOL :tongue: :laugh: :drinker:
  • BeachIron
    BeachIron Posts: 6,490 Member
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    Alcohol tends to dehydrate you.

    Yup.

    Yea. You can also lose weight throwing up into the toilet
    Does it have to be into the toilet?

    Some things are more fun with friends . . .
  • longtimeterp
    longtimeterp Posts: 614 Member
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    You would have to drink a large amount of alcohol to slow muscle growth, talking near poisonous levels for most people (8 drinks or so per day). The big effects come from dehydration, lowered testosterone production, and excessive caloric intake.

    seriously...8 drinks is just getting started, hardly poisonous...thats like the first 2 hours for me on a drinking day!

    I disagree!!

    I have to say I give all the credit to the alcohol keeping me motivated.
    When I get down on my self because I have not lost weight I drink and feel better. Then the next day I immediately weigh my self and poof I have lost 5 lbs which in turn makes my day and keeps me going. The only kicker is that after about 4 or 5 days I gain some of it back. So then its back to my alcohol coaching. Its sustainable but have I drink once a week for the magic to happen over night. LOL :tongue: :laugh: :drinker:

    yeah i am seriously considering addind 1 day a week of binge drinking becuase the weight comes back but i swear the fat stays down...the dehydratiuon aspect makes me think of the squishy whooshy fat thing...

    edit: here http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html
  • onwarddownward
    onwarddownward Posts: 1,683 Member
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    You never hear much about the dreaded "salad belly," do you?

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