If you’re gaining weight and it is causing so much frustration that you consider drinking more alcohol, think again. That alcohol may be exactly what’s causing your weight gain. A glass of wine at dinner may slow weight loss and increase the struggle to shed weight. The calories in it affect your body differently than the calories from carbohydrates, fats, and protein. How it affects you depends on what you drink, how much you drink, and your metabolism. Frequent and excess alcohol consumption can also increase your risk of type 2 diabetes and liver disease.
You may be patting yourself on the back for drinking only red wine.
Yes, it’s true. A glass of red wine contains resveratrol, but grape juice and grapes contain it, too, and you get the same heart-healthy benefits without the alcohol. However, moderate consumption, such as a drink a day or less for a woman or two drinks a day or less for a man, reduces the potential for Alzheimer’s or dementia. What the study didn’t tell you is that it also added calories that affected your body differently from other types of calories. It can increase the potential for weight gain.
It’s about how the body burns fat.
Your body burns the calories from alcohol first, ignoring the energy from other food until it’s gone. That can interfere with how the body uses glucagon. Glucagon is the counterpart to insulin. Instead of opening the cells to uptake blood glucose and reduce blood sugar, it works to keep blood sugar higher. The more glucagon in the bloodstream, the more tired and hungry you become. Instead of burning stored calories and breaking down fat, your body focuses on burning off the alcohol.
Alcoholic beverages have few nutrients compared to calories.
Even though some drinks have nutrients, you’ll get more from eating the ingredients fermented to make the alcohol, and you’ll get fiber that makes you feel full, unlike alcohol, which increases hunger. Alcohol also affects post-menopausal women and women with low estrogen levels by packing on the pounds around their middle, causing belly fat. The enzyme called Aldhlal—Aldehyde Dehydrogenase lA. It directs excess pounds to the mid-section.
- One study found that people who drank soft drinks or water before a meal ate less than people who drank alcohol. The spike and drop in sugar leave you starved even though you just drank several hundred calories.
- Some alcoholic drinks are higher in calories, so check the calorie count for your favorite. There is wide variance within each category. Light beers are the lowest in calories, and ale is the highest. Sweet wines are higher in calories than dry wine.
- Comparing calories in a gram of fat, protein, or carbohydrates to a gram of alcohol, only fat beats alcohol with nine calories per gram compared to seven for alcohol.
- If you drink alcohol, it increases cortisol, which contributes to belly fat. It also lowers testosterone levels. Testosterone helps build muscle tissue. The more muscle tissue you have, the higher your metabolism is.
For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training