You might be familiar with the term “water weight,” as it’s often used when talking about people who have a lot of body fat but don’t necessarily need to lose weight. While there’s some truth to the statement, drinking alcohol can help you shed some of that fat. How? Let’s take a quick look at the evidence.
Reduce Your Water Retention
One of the primary reasons why you might want to drink alcohol is to reduce your water retention. The term “water retention” refers to the amount of water that is stored in your body, especially your limbs. This is a major cause of swelling, which in turn makes you look and feel less attractive. When you reduce your water retention, you’ll likely experience a decrease in the size of your waistline and other areas where you store fat. It’s well known that drinking alcohol helps people lose weight, and it appears that it does this by decreasing their water retention. How much alcohol do you need to drink for this to happen? The evidence suggests that a drink every day can help, but researchers suggest that drinking less than 20 oz (about the size of a sports drink) might not be effective. What’s the scientific explanation for this? It could be that moderate drinking helps reduce your water retention by increasing the amount of urine that you produce. When you produce more urine, you’re burning through more calories – even if you don’t realize it – so it’s not a bad idea to drink while on the go.
Improve Your Taste Buds
Alcohol has been known to improve your taste buds, so when you drink it, you actually start tasting things better than you normally would. Let’s say that you’re out with your friends and one of them orders food that you haven’t tried before. After you’ve tasted it, you might realize that it’s not something that you would usually eat, but it’s actually really good. Your friend might describe it as “tangy,” which is something that you would probably not have tasted if you hadn’t tried the food. It’s important to note here that your taste buds can only improve with repeated exposure to the substance. This is why it’s beneficial to drink alcohol occasionally rather than every day – you’re giving your taste buds a chance to change and grow accustomed to the taste of alcohol.
Burn Fat Faster
Another advantage of drinking alcohol is that it helps you burn calories more efficiently. This is mainly because alcohol is a diuretic, which means that it makes you urinate more frequently, and more efficiently. There is some evidence to suggest that diuretics, like alcohol, can increase your body’s metabolic rate. Increased metabolism often leads to decreased fat retention, so it would make sense that consuming alcohol might cause you to lose weight. How much weight? The evidence suggests that men who consume alcohol have on average, 3-4% fewer body fat than men who don’t drink alcohol. Women who drink alcohol have about a 1-2% decrease in their body fat. So, if you’re looking to lose weight, drinking alcohol can certainly help, but you might not need to be restricted to just water to achieve your goals.
Alcohol is frequently added to sports drinks and energy drinks to make them more appealing to consumers. While it might not be the most nutritious choice, it turns out that it’s not the worst one either. If you’re looking to cut back on your water retention and want to try something new, then drinking alcohol might be a good option for you. If you’ve got a lot of weight to lose, then it’s worth considering whether or not alcohol can help you out with that. Thanks for reading! I hope this article helped clarify some things about alcohol and weight loss. If you have any other questions about this subject, be sure to leave me a comment below! Happy drinking!