Part 2: Is alcohol keeping you from meeting your goals?

Recently, I gave some info on booze and why it’s not the best for fat los/muscle building and it stirred up some controversy. I like to enjoy a glass or red wine every now and again, but guess what– it still slows progress.

If you drank 8 oz. of wine each day for a year, you could theoretically gain 21 pounds!

Sounds crazy right?

I have a quick story about a client I work with.  I won’t give any names, but I want everyone to understand a few things.

When we were working together she would be doing great losing weight, toning up, and she was looking great!  However, I began to notice that when she drank a few glasses of wine on a Friday or Saturday night after a busy week, she wouldn’t lose weight for almost TWO weeks afterwards! And of course with the wine came some not so perfect food choices. Now, I’m not trying to say that you should never drink alcohol ever again, but you should drink in moderation, especially if you have fitness/health goals!

If you are currently working on losing weight and you choose to indulge a little bit, be prepared to potentially not see the scale go down that week. For a rare few it will, but often times it is due to dehydration.

This doesn’t mean you need to hold off on your weight loss plans or bring them to a halt.  It means be aware and be prepared.  I want to share My Seven Tips I used with my client to help reach her goal!

• Plan the times you will consume alcohol. If you plan for them then you know what to expect.  This way it won’t put you into a state of failure when you don’t lose as much that week.
• Enjoy in moderation. Stay away from high calorie mixers!  Alcohol itself is a simple sugar which will cause inflammation in your body (weight gain), so the more bad stuff you mix into that drink, the more damage it does.  Your stomach will also over secrete histamine which produces inflammation and causes weight gain.
• Drink Slow. Sip on water too and, if you have more than one alcoholic drink, alternate that alcoholic beverage with a glass of water.  Alcohol flushes the water out of your body–therefore making you thirstier, so naturally you drink more.  Make it water vs. more booze!
• Take your vitamins. Since alcohol is a diuretic, it flushes your body out.  So, you lose all of your electrolytes and other nutrients stored in your body.  These nutrients include Magnesium, calcium, B vitamins, and more.  Losing these nutrients is partially what gives us so many cravings after drinking.  You got rid of all of the nutrients in your body and the cravings are your body’s way of saying it needs to be replenished!
• Try something different. Switch what you are putting in your glass. Instead of alcohol have coffee, tea, etc… for a change.  Drinking something often becomes part of our social interaction and we just keep drinking because everyone else is.
• Pick and choose when you will have alcohol. If losing weight and getting fit is more important to you, then drink something different.  Be aware that once the alcohol goes in your system it shuts down your metabolism (not good for weight loss).
• Check the serving size of your drink. A glass of wine is 5 oz., a beer is 12 oz., and hard liquor is 1-1.5 oz.—so, don’t pour that glass of wine all the way to the top!  Keep in mind that alcohol has 7 calories per gram in comparison to other carbohydrates which are only 4 calories per gram.So, the client I was talking about earlier—once she started following this advice, the pounds continued to fall off once again! I hope this helps you out!