All food that we eat contains calories and we need to be eating a certain amount of calories each day to live. Overall, it’s thought that the more you drink, the higher your risk of gaining weight and developing a beer belly (8, 19). Because of their phytoestrogen content, it has been suggested that the hops in beer might cause hormonal changes in men that increase the risk of storing belly fat. It’s been suggested that beer drinking may increase belly fat in a number of ways.
- There are also other elements that can cause weight gain outside of calorie content.
- Alcohol consumption isn’t as black and white for weight loss and weight gain.
- Beer may increase the number of calories you consume and prevent your body from burning fat.
This study suggests that alcohol can actually trigger hunger signals in the brain, leading to an increased urge to eat more food. There are several direct and indirect ways that heavy drinking can make you gain weight or, more specifically, gain body fat. Alcohol can also cause weight gain, which can resemble bloating. This weight gain stems from the high number of calories in many alcoholic drinks.
But, some meal replacement shakes are lacking in the right nutritional value. Let’s dive into some healthy habits you can start incorporating into your weight loss journey and get rid of that alcohol belly for good. Exercise is also a really effective way for both men and women to lose belly fat. Both cardio and high-intensity exercise can help (45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51). The reason for this is unclear, although it’s been suggested that wine drinkers have healthier, more balanced diets compared to beer and spirit drinkers (7, 36). This could be important since beer contains more calories than many other sources of alcohol.
That said, further research into this topic is needed (72, 73, 74, 75). Gut bacteria are collectively known as your gut flora or microbiome. Gut health is important for maintaining a healthy immune system and decreasing disease risk.
And beyond that, moderate drinking is linked with lower risk for heart disease and diabetes and increased levels of “good” HDL cholesterol—how could it do that and be working overtime to make you fat, too? As I suspected, the story is more complicated than the diet book author suggested—although, sadly, she was not totally off base. How alcohol affects your figure depends on genetics, your diet, your gender, and your habits. The association between alcohol intake and body weight is generally stronger in men than women [15], especially because of the amount and type of alcohol consumed by men. Alcohol has been reported to account for 16% of adult drinkers’ total energy intake in the United States [68], with men consuming about three times the amount consumed by women [68]. Men are also more likely to drink beer, which is carbohydrate rich, and provides more energy than wine per standard drink [5].
Alcohol affects judgment calls… especially with food
However, according to some of the studies referenced in the Traversy and Chaput article, lifestyle, rather than alcohol per se, may promote weight gain. Replacing a brisk walk with watching a game, drinking beer, and eating nachos drenched in melted cheese may promote weight gain, but the alcohol may be only one of the factors responsible. Over time, alcohol may make you gain weight if you drink it in excess. Heavy drinking may activate hormones that signal appetite, hunger, and stress. Alcohol is also high in calories but lacks nutrients supporting good health.
Weight gain
Spirits, when drunk neat, can be one of the better choices for alcoholic drinks for losing body weight. A simple vodka, lime, and club soda will be one of the best bets if you don’t want to keep the pounds off. Insulin resistance is also higher how to flush alcohol from your urine after not getting enough proper sleep after consuming alcohol, making it more likely your body will preferentially store calories as fat (8). So achieving insulin sensitivity is a big part of losing weight and getting rid of abdominal fat.
When people discuss alcohol’s effect on weight, they typically refer to the calories in alcohol as the leading cause of weight gain. Otherwise, keep reading as we look at the three ways alcohol can lead to higher body weight, waistline, and health problems in the long term. At Second Nature, you’re provided with a registered nutritionist or dietitian who can support you manage your alcohol intake to suit your lifestyle and preferences. Furthermore, wine provides slightly more calories art therapy for addiction than most hard liquors and light beers but usually fewer calories than heavy beers. Since the liver plays a large role in processing alcohol, heavy alcohol intake can lead to the accumulation of fat inside your liver and may eventually cause chronic liver scarring and damage known as cirrhosis (16). On the other hand, heavy alcohol use is defined as drinking four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men on a single occasion on 5 or more days in a month (15).
This means the more alcohol you drink the more likely you’re going to gain weight and develop an alcohol belly. Plus, if you’re consuming alcoholic beverages that are high in calories and carbohydrates (like beer), the more weight gain you’re likely to experience. Additionally, one study found that people who drank one drink per day had the least amount of fat. Those who consumed less overall, but had four or more drinks on drinking days, were at the greatest risk of weight gain (37). In fact, one of the most risky behaviors for developing a beer belly seems to be binge drinking. Studies have found that drinking more than four drinks at one time can increase your risk of belly fat, no matter what drink you choose (19, 37, 38, 39).
The Truth About Alcohol And Weight Gain
Heavy alcohol use is one of the leading factors in the development of obesity and chronic diseases. A drink is defined as 14 grams of alcohol, which equates to 12 ounces (355 mL) of beer, 5 ounces (148 mL) of wine, or 1.5 ounces (44 mL) of hard liquor (15). Here are some questions people often ask about alcohol bloating. Most people intuitively know that causes and risk factors of alcoholism alcohol equals unnecessary calories. This is because alcohol activates starvation mode in the brain, which is why you may suddenly catch yourself eating an entire bag of Doritos after a long night out as if your life depended on it. Alcohol is “kind of a stressor for your body, so it can cause your body to lose proper cortisol secretion,” Lashinger says.
Why You Need A Plan For Managing Stress In Sobriety
This means that drinking beer regularly could contribute a significant number of calories to your diet. Again, you can drink and still lose weight—just keep it within moderate levels and you should be fine. While cutting alcohol completely out of your diet isn’t necessarily the only way to lose weight, there are many improvements that can be made in your health journey by simply cutting back on the booze. Alcohol intake of all levels can lead to impaired digestion and absorption of these nutrients.
Alcohol and weight gain
In summarizing the recent literature it appears that light-to-moderate alcohol intake is less likely to be a risk factor for obesity than heavy drinking. Heavy drinking and binge drinking have been more consistently linked with adiposity. Another important confounding factor to be considered is physical activity level. Furthermore, beer and spirit drinkers appear to have poorer dietary habits in general than wine drinkers [3•]. Thus, accounting for both sides of the energy balance equation (intake, expenditure and lifestyle habits) is crucial to evaluate adequately the association between alcohol intake and obesity. Not taking into account some of these potential confounding factors can certainly lead to biased estimates of the relationship between alcohol intake and body weight given that large inter-individual variations exist.
Several experimental studies have been conducted to examine the short-term effect of alcohol intake on feeding behavior and appetite control [3•, 5]. In these studies, alcohol appears to have no effect on appetite, or to increase appetite [5]. However, to date there have been few intervention studies conducted to experimentally examine the effects of regular alcohol intake on weight gain or obesity in humans. All of the available studies have examined moderate intake of alcohol, and the majority have reported results on beer and wine intake, but not other forms of alcohol [3•, 5]. Crouse and Grundy [48] looked at the effect of adding 630 kcal/day of alcohol to the diets of 12 men in a metabolic unit. There were no significant changes in weight for normal weight participants over the four-week intervention study.
The day after drinking alcohol promotes weight gain for a variety of reasons. If you’re trying to lose weight, it turns out one of the BEST things you can do is stop drinking alcohol. If you want to enjoy a drink but limit your alcohol intake, try subbing in some of our favorite nonalcoholic drinks and spirits, several of which are low-calorie or low-sugar. Alcohol can also affect hunger levels, which may lead you to snack more, which then causes you to consume more calories, which ultimately may cause weight gain. So, if you’re eating pizza or even a light salad with your cocktail, the calories from that food get stored as fat instead of burned for energy. Males are more likely to gain abdominal fat from drinking than females.