For people who are trying to lose weight, one common question they have is whether alcohol hurts weight loss. As you can imagine, during the festive season, people get confronted with the temptation of libations around every corner.
Office parties, family get-togethers, and even power shopping trips are all opportunities to have an adult beverage. However, if you are making an honest attempt to lose weight, the good news is that consuming alcohol doesn’t necessarily ruin your dieting efforts. Here are some items of which to be mindful.
Count Your Calories
Like any food or beverage, it’s essential to keep track of the calories in each alcoholic drink you consume or plan to consume. By counting each calorie accurately, you can avoid over consumption or going over your allowable daily calories to achieve your weight loss goals.
By making a plan before arriving, you have control over the situation. While the calorie counts in various types of alcohol vary, generally, one to one and a half-ounce servings of liquors, including vodka, whiskey, and rum, contain the lowest number of calories per drink. When combined with a low or no-calorie mixer such as sparkling water, or seltzer, you can still enjoy an alcoholic beverage without too much guilt.
Pace Yourself
Another way to enjoy alcohol responsibly, and without ruining your dieting efforts, is to pace yourself. An approach to pacing yourself if planning on drinking more than one alcoholic beverage in an evening would be by drinking a glass of water in between each alcoholic drink. Not only does this help to cut the number of calories you drink, but it also helps you avoid acute intoxication in a social environment.
Moderation Is Key
When you are attempting to lose weight, moderation is always critical to success. Like anything else, drinking too much alcohol can hurt weight loss when done excessively.
It’s worth noting that alcohol is somewhat tricky in that it works as both a stimulant and a depressant, so it impacts your physiology on a few different levels. Your body processes it the same way as pure sugar.
Calories from alcohol that aren’t quickly metabolized by your body get turned into body fat. Additionally, drinking stimulates people’s appetite, so it is more likely to overeat after a night out on the town. For people who are being mindful of their diet, this could leave little room for mistakes.
Focus On Your Goals
The question you should ask yourself is how badly you want to achieve your weight goals. While one or two drinks probably won’t have a lasting impact on your efforts if done occasionally, long-term use or misuse of alcohol can be detrimental to your health, well-being, and essential relationships.
Over time, excessive alcohol consumption can lead to dependency, high blood pressure, liver disease, kidney failure, stroke, multiple types of cancer, poisoning, and death.
If these risks aren’t ones you’re willing to take, don’t be afraid or ashamed of passing on the offer.
The Slim 4 Life program helps you lose three to five pounds per week by simply following the customized plan Slim 4 Life provides. We have one-on-one counseling that will help you control the temptation of that holiday overindulgence.
