It is time to teach you why alcohol usually makes you fatter, usually will prevent you from transforming your body composition, and what you can do to take back control
If you’re an alcohol consumer consider doing it significantly less often, because this is what it does after you consume it:
Alcohol gets processed in the liver and becomes acetate, an alcohol sugar that contains almost double the calories as 1g of normal carbs or sugars
This alcohol sugar is unique because the body recognizes it as being a toxin and different than a normal carb and will prioritize it to get burned first before other energy sources are allowed to get burned
When toxins get recognized by the body, fat burning hormones get shut off and cortisol (stress) and other fat storing hormones increase
This creates 4 problems:
It will delay when your body can get around to burning off stored sugars in your muscles and liver to flip the switch on your fat burning genes and begin shuttling more stored body fat to get burned off as additional fuel
All other carbs, fats, and proteins consumed with the alcohol can’t get processed by the liver since your body needs to burn off the acetate (alcohol sugar) first, so the liver converts your food and other liquid calories into triglycerides (fat cells) and ships them off in your blood where it will end up making you fatter in all of the places that you already have fat and increasing your risk for heart disease, strokes, and heart attacks.
Contains purines, which are organic compounds that cells use to make the building blocks of DNA and RNA, which when broken down, form uric acid. This damages your kidneys and causes them to excrete alcohol sending the uric acid into your blood to wreak havoc.
Heavy alcohol ingestion (4 drinks/day or more) damages the pancreas cells, leading to less insulin, chronic high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and increases your risk of diabetes
What about my yummy cocktails?
Since the acetate (alcohol sugar) needs to get burned first and your cortisol hormones get boosted by the alcohol, all of the sugar that was in your cocktail can’t get processed and shipped to your muscles or stored in your liver, just like food that gets consumed with alcohol, the sugar in your sweet additives gets converted into a triglyceride (fat cell) and shipped out into your blood and sent straight to your belly.
Additional downsides to alcohol consumption
Lowers testosterone and estrogen production lowering your energy levels, extends muscle recovery by additional days, and reduces/prevents improvement to fitness programs
Damages sperm cells impacting procreation
Makes you lose water in much larger quantities than normal
Can mess up your menstrual cycles and delay ovulation
Increases uric acid levels resulting in immediate fat gain and driving you towards obesity, prediabetes, type II diabetes, elevated blood fats, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, dementia, psoriasis, gout, kidney stones, muscle aches, and erectile dysfunction
Impacts of consuming alcohol within 4 hours of sleeping
Decreases the total amount of restorative deep sleep, which is required to recover muscles/repair cells, and is where your fat burning hormones are made that you'll tap into the following day
Delays the first REM cycle and/or decreases total REM time for the night impacting your reaction time, ability to focus, recall information quickly/accurately, feeling mentally drained, and lowering motivation
Delay when you feel tired and can fall asleep, decrease total sleep time, and you’ll wake up more times throughout the night
Here is the secret for how to have a drink, if the rare occasion presents itself, and minimize body fat gain
Ideally don’t have a sweetened cocktail, stick to a filling dark beer (has additional health benefits) or glass of red wine (doesn’t increase uric acid levels, and contains resveratrol helping you lower your blood sugar levels)
Consumed it by itself
Get out for a 30min walk/do a structured workout within 30 minutes following its consumption to burn through the acetate sugars ASAP and get back on track to fat loss
Consume it 4+ hours before bedtime to avoid the negative impacts to deep sleep, REM sleep, and fat burning capability for the next 24 hours
If you're thinking to yourself "If I remove alcohol what else can I drink?"
This is a great time to look at how much water and other liquids you're drinking in a day.
Myth: The color of your pee tells you if you’re hydrated or dehydrated
The lighter the color of urine is telling you that not much water is being put to work at the moment and you have plenty. The darker the color just tells you that a larger amount of your water is being put to use and waste is being removed from your body, but doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re dehydrated.
Benefits of Optimal Water/Fluid Intake
Optimize energy levels
Improve strength/power/aerobic fitness
Carrying nutrients and oxygen to your cells
Flushing bacteria from your bladder
Aiding digestion
Preventing constipation
Normalizing blood pressure
Stabilizing the heartbeat
Cushioning joints
Protecting organs and tissues
Regulating body temperature
Maintaining electrolyte (sodium) balance.
Here's how your body expends water every day:
17 fl oz from sweating from the skin if you don't exercise
8 fl oz per hour from muscle contractions during exercise
12 fl oz from breathing
5 fl oz from pooping
That's 42 fl oz of water that gets lost daily if you don’t exercise. That amount is just what gets lost every day, which doesn't include what your cells, brain, and digestive organs need to maintain optimal cellular function and pH levels in your blood.
Symptoms of dehydration:
Weakness
Low blood pressure
Dizziness
Confusion
Lack of urination
Lack of sweating
Poor skin turgor (skin does not "bounce back" when pinched)
Less energy
20-30% reduction in strength/power/aerobic performance
If you exercise here is the formula for how much to drink every 20 minutes:
Body weight (lbs.)/30
How many fluid ounces does my body need daily?
This varies based on season but when it's warm, take your body weight (lbs) and multiply it by .65. That's how many fl oz of fluids you need.
When it is colder, take your body weight (lbs) and multiply it by .6. That's how many fl oz of fluids you need.
The majority, if not all, of your fluids is recommended to be ingested during your eating window. The optimal healthy eating window is 10-12 hours. The reason being your gut, digestive organs, and kidneys function optimally and rapidly for 10 hours then almost completely shut down to start a 4-5 hour process to prepare your body for sleep.
Is there an easy way to keep myself accountable?
There's a fluid tracking feature on your myfitnesspal diary that you can use.
A helpful app that shows you how much water you absorb from different types of liquids and makes tracking fun and easy is called WaterMinder.
There’s a fluid tracking feature on the habit tracker app that you can use.
Resources for purchasing ways to upgrade your water to make it more satisfying and hydrate you more
NEXT STEPS
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REFERENCES
Perlmutter, D. and Loberg, K. (2024) Drop acid: The surprising new science of uric acid--the key to losing weight, controlling blood sugar, and Achieving Extraordinary Health. S.l.: Simplified Chinese Press.
Schrieks, I.C. et al. (2015) ‘The effect of alcohol consumption on insulin sensitivity and glycemic status: A systematic review and meta-analysis of Intervention Studies’, Diabetes Care, 38(4), pp. 723–732. doi:10.2337/dc14-1556.