Alcohol, acetate and weight loss

This is absolutely true, in the past year I have really gotten into body building and I train with a trainer 4 days a week and then do nutrition consults every two weeks. When I first started training I was drinking a good deal of wine, beer, and tequila. I was working out with heavy weights and gaining good body composition but not burning the fat that I needed. After doing a dietary log for about two weeks my nutritionist pointed out that the alcohol causes you to stop burning fat for up to three days in some people. Also, if you're trying to build lean body mass alcohol cranks up estrogen and also stops protein synthesis. It robs the muscles of the protein it desperately needs to repair itself.

If that wasn't bad enough it also dehydrates you and robs your body of vitamins A, C, and D mostly which are all important antioxidants. Alcohol is really a barbituate and has no real benefit for those who are trying to live a healthy lifestyle. Sure, some say that wine has good antioxidants if consumed in moderation but you can get the same amount, if not more by eating lots of berries, fish oil, and the same. If I'm going to drink it's not going to be one glass a wine a day, I will do it right and have a big night out or something. These days though, I just don't find it worth it because I spend so much time at the gym trying to reach my goals. To have it all wiped away for a few days for a cheap thrill seems a bit pointless to me.

In response to alaneg's post: In the end, most of what you eat will be used as energy. Some of the fat you eat (e.g. essential fatty acids) is used for membranes and hormone production, and much of the protein you eat will be used to maintain muscles and make enzymes etc. If you just focus on the food that will be burned as energy, then in a simple sense it does not matter what the body burns first. Let's say that of the energy you need (not including structural protein and fatty acids), all you eat is sugar. Let's say that you eat all of this sugar for breakfast. What you don't burn now will be stored in the liver as glycogen, and if the liver cannot store any more glycogen then the rest will be stored as fat. If you do not eat again, then later that day you will start burning the glycogen in your liver first, and if the glycogen is depleted then you will start burning the fat you stored. So theoretically you should burn everything you stored earlier in the day. This is not the best scenario because the hormone that orchestrates much of the preceding events is insulin. The sugar you ate was converted to glucose and transported to the blood. Insulin makes sure that your body removes glucose from the blood because high levels of glucose damages capillaries. Unfortunately, insulin stimulates your appetite too. So this scenario would not really work out as described because after all the excess sugar is stored as glycogen and fat, you will get hungry very soon because of the insulin. You will eat again and gain weight. That is why people say that all calories are not created equal. Firstly sugar does not contain the vitamins and minerals we need. Secondly, sugar does not keep you satisfied for long because it is digested fast and because of the insulin response which stimulates hunger. For people on fat loss diets, it does matter what proportions of food you eat. Protein and fat make you feel satisfied for longer because they are digested slower and because they do not cause such a big insulin response. Let's say you are on a ketogenic diet where you want your body's prime source of energy to be ketones. Here you would not even eat too much protein, because what you don't use to repair muscle and make enzymes, your body converts to glucose, and then your body will immediately switch to burning glucose over ketones (ketosis). It takes a while for your body to burn all the glycogen in your liver, and then to switch to burning fat which is converted to ketones. Your body will always burn carbs before anything else which is why people on a ketogenic diet restrict carbs so your body has to burn fat if you eat less than you need. But the body is sly in that it always has a reserve of glycogen in the liver so often when you think you might be burning fat you are actually burning some of your liver glycogen reserves. Alcohol is another culprit which disrupts ketosis.

I'm not sure what @FearOfFrying is afraid of. Your body recognizes alcohol is a toxin. When alcohol is present in the body, the body stops trying to metabolize carbs, protein and fat in an effort to metabolize the alcohol as quickly as possible. When the alcohol is gone, the body resumes metabolizing the usual macros. That's why you have to count the calories in alcohol, 7 per gram, if you want to both consume alcohol and lose weight.

kimny72 wrote: »

The OP and the poster you are talking to haven't 't been here since 2011, so they are I fear not going to get your message.

Also, now even 8 year old posts about alcohol have to involve insulin and keto?

I am incessantly curious what prompts people to resurrect these threads. @vonkposvonk what specifically were you searching for that you stumbled upon this thread? How did you feel that your long post was a contribution warranted here, in this thread, rather than jumping into one of the countless other threads about insulin and keto these days?

WinoGelato: what prompted me was alaneg's comment: "What I don't get is why it makes a difference which callories are burnt first. ".

vonkposvonk wrote: »

Kinny72: Some people say that alcohol may disrupt ketosis

I don't aspire to ketosis, many people dont. And this thread happened 8 years ago.

If you'd like to discuss keto and insulin and the like, you'll probably find lots to read in more recent threads here, especially in the Debate forum, where those threads often get sent.