How Liquor and Alcohol Affect Weight Loss

If you are looking to achieve weight loss results, it is time to start paying attention to everything you put into your body – and that means drinks as well as food.  While most people at least glance at the calories on that big bar of chocolate they’re about to consume, few people stop to think about the effect that a night at the bar can have on their weight loss goals. 

Studies show that drinking is a negative influence on your quest to lose weight, but there is no doubt that some drinks are worse than others.  Alcohol is a diuretic, meaning it helps you shed water (which can help reduce surplus water weight), but there are many negative effects to drinking that make this more of a minus than a plus.  Beer, for example, is packed with carbs and calories, but even drinking diet or ‘lite’ alcohol can hinder your weight loss goals. 

When taken into the body, alcohol is immediately recognized as a toxin and your body will focus all of its energy on getting rid of this as soon as possible.  It will even stop digesting food to get the booze out of your body.  This leaves any food you have consumed recently in the body for longer periods of time, which can lead to greater overall weight gain. 

By lowering inhibitions, alcohol also makes you more likely to select poor dietary choices as snacks. If you’re at the bar and feeling great, the salty tray of honey-smoked peanuts on the table may taste great with the beer, but each handful can add a couple of hundred calories to your diet.

If you are going to drink alcohol and still wish to lose weight, there are a few tips.  Avoid mixed drinks that contain sugars, milk products, or other mixers.  Pure liquor, such as vodka or rum has the fewest ingredients that cause weight gain, followed by red or white wine.  Beer is packed with calories, and mixed drinks are detrimental to weight loss by combining simple sugars such as pineapple or cranberry juice with the booze. 

With that in mind, you can enjoy a drink now and then without putting your weight loss plans aside entirely – just do your body (and your diet) a favor and know when to stop..