Most people don’t start drinking alcohol because they want to lose weight. However, drinking alcohol can cause you to put on weight. It has been shown in studies that drinking even one drink per day can increase your body fat by 1-2%. Let’s take a look at how drinking can affect your weight…
How Does Alcohol Affect Your Weight?
There are several ways in which drinking can put on weight. The first one is simple calories intake. Most alcoholic beverages are high in calories (especially the dark liquors). Drinking even one or two alcoholic beverages per day can increase your calorie intake by approximately 20-30%. This means that if you drink alcohol daily and don’t exercise at all, you could end up gaining weight instead of losing it.
Another way alcohol can affect your weight is though its effect on your adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are responsible for producing certain hormones that influence your metabolism. It has been determined that alcohol can interfere with the function of your adrenal glands and thus reduce the amount of hormones they produce. This, in turn, can cause you to gain weight. It is also possible that alcohol can cause your body to produce less of the hormone leptin, which enables you to eat more. Leptin is responsible for the feeling of ‘satiety’ in your body. Drinking alcohol can decrease the amount of leptin your body produces, therefore making you more susceptible to overeating.
Can You Drink Alcohol And Still Lose Weight?
If you want to lose weight, you should not drink alcohol. However, it does not mean that you have to give up booze all together. There are several ways in which you can drink alcohol and still lose weight. For example, you can take a few drinks before dinner to reduce your appetite, or you could try mixing vodka with plain water to make a non-alcoholic drink. Alternatively, you could try mixing gin with tonic water to make a non-alcoholic drink.
In most cases, if you drink alcohol, you will end up gaining weight. However, it is important to keep in mind that not all alcoholics are created equal. There are several factors that influence whether or not drinking will cause you to put on weight. For example, if you are an alcoholic, you will almost certainly put on weight regardless of whether or not you drink. This is because your body has become used to the chemical imbalance that comes with alcohol use. However, if you do drink and are not an alcoholic, you can still end up being affected by the effects of alcohol, particularly if you drink heavily or regularly. There is also evidence that shows that women who drink regularly may end up with better metabolisms than those who do not drink at all. So, while you should avoid alcohol if you want to lose weight, you should not completely disregard its effects either.