Alcohol increases the % of fat on your body.

I can categorically report that clients have put in 5 exceptionally healthy-eating and exercise days in a week but their superb efforts are wiped out by 1 night of drinking alcohol. A Saturday  inevitably continues into the Sunday when a hangover demands stodgy carbohydrate food. By week 3 of this repetitive behaviour, motivation is gone.

Part 2

The advantages of reducing your alcohol intake

• You save money –   The levels of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase,  needed to clear alcohol from the body,  increases in response to long-term alcohol exposure. This means that the body becomes more efficient at eliminating the high levels of alcohol in the blood. That means that the person must drink more alcohol to experience the same effects as before, which leads to more drinking and an increase in the amount of money spent on alcohol. A night out is ridiculously expensive in comparison to what most of us earn!
• You lose weight– The liver breaks down alcohol using enzymes (alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase), and converts it to acetic acid. Acetic acid can be used to make-up fatty acids and increases the % of fat on a body. If you have eaten well and your carbohydrate stores are full, the excess sugar from alcohol is converted to fat. Alcohol can be a major reason for weight gain.
• You will be healthier– Cutting back on food to allow for alcohol calories is something I learnt of, when I worked for a weight-loss company many years ago. I heard women discuss it.They saved points across the week to allow for alcohol at the weekend. This is a health risk especially as the liver needs more nutrients to cleanse the body after an intake of alcohol. Alcohol is poison to the body, it cannot be stored, it has to be cleared. Look at what you are drinking and note the % of alcohol in it. The remainder will be water or carb.
• You might be less cranky and anxious- to compensate for the inhibitory effects of alcohol, nerves increase their electrical and chemical activity which helps people to function normally with higher blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level, however this effect makes us irritable when we are not drinking and may lead to cravings for alcohol or ‘rubbish’  food in general.

Too much alcohol has nasty effects. Be informed about the effects of alcohol and this might influence your future decisions and strategy – 

• Liver cells die and liver tissue hardens
• Brain cells die reducing the total brain mass.
• Gut inflammation – alcohol irritates the stomach and intestinal lining
• Blood pressure increases as the heart compensates for the initially reduced blood pressure caused by alcohol.
• Male sperm production decreases
• Alcohol depletes nutrient stores and dehydrates
• Overtime it ‘ruins your good looks’ producing a bloated, ruddy-faced and tired appearance, becoming evident in late 40’s to 50’s age group.

If you want to learn more about alcohol, continue to Part 3.

If you would like help losing weight, I offer 8 week packages and one-on-one motivational sessions. Contact me.