Does drinking alcohol make you fat?
Alcohol sits in this funny bracket of things people think are “free calories” - Basically some people think that alcohol doesn’t actually contain any calories and that they can drink all the gin they like. But what does the science say? Can I get fat from drinking alcohol? Or can I just drink vodka all night and not get fat? How many calories are in alcohol? And how can I lose weight while drinking alcohol? These are all common questions, and some, hopefully, will be addressed today.
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First off a calorie is a unit of energy. It is purely a way we measure energy. And there are 3 main macronutrients which make up the foods we eat on a daily basis. Proteins, Carbohydrates and fats. So how much energy is in the macronutrients, and how much energy is in Alcohol?
Protein - 4 calories per 1 gram of protein
Carbohydrates - 4 calories per 1 gram of carbohydrates
Fats - 9 calories per 1 gram of fats
Alcohol - 7 calories per 1 gram of alcohol
This means that even that shot of vodka would equate to somewhere between 85 - 130 calories and a pint of larger is roughly 200 calories.
Now let's break down what all these numbers mean and how we actually “get fat”
To gain body fat you need to be eating in what we call a calorie surplus.
Calorie Surplus - Eating more calories than you are using
Calorie Deficit - Eating fewer calories than you are using
Calorie Maintenance - Eating the same amount of calories as you are using
Being in a calorie surplus means you have consumed energy that needs to be stored somewhere, that somewhere is adipose tissue (body fat)
*Fun fact, you can’t choose where your body stores fat, hormone levels and genetics play the biggest part in where fat is stored. But the same is true for trying to lose body fat. You can’t choose where you lose body fat, meaning you can not do 1000 sit-ups to get rid of the fat on your stomach or 1000 bicep curls to get rid of the fat on your arms
The only way you can store body fat is to be in a calorie surplus, so how does alcohol make us fat? …By drinking too much of it.
Now it’s not the alcohol specifically that is making you fat, but if the alcohol you drink puts you into a calorie surplus then it is those excess calories that you are consuming through drinking alcohol, that are stored as body fat. Not to mention the takeaway pizza or cheesy chips you eat to soak up that alcohol at the end of the night.
So how do you make sure this doesn’t happen to you?
The best way to do this is to make sure you’re in a calorie deficit or maintenance and you can do this by either tracking your calorie or just being mindful of what you eat. Now as a health practitioner I can’t advise you to stop eating and just drink wine… but what I can say is there is a way you can have fun without it “ruining” all the hard work you put in the gym.
I would just keep an eye on my weight, by weighing myself I can see what is happening to my body, if week to week I am gaining weight, then the food I am eating and the cocktails I’m slurping contain more energy than I am using.
Now, this is where we need to understand what “empty calories” are - Empty calories are food/drinks that contain little/no nutritional value but contain calories, things like alcohol, coca-cola, crips, chocolates and sweets would come under this bracket. So two to three days before I join my friends in the pub I would reduce the calories I am eating, I would try to remove these calories by reducing the amount of “empty calories” I am consuming.
If you don’t want to track your calories you should keep a food diary to see where you may be wasting calories that you could be saving for that big night out. There are other tactics like changing the type of drinks you drink but that can also get frustrating for some people and may not make a huge difference. But simply swapping your mixers to things like diet coke or tonic/soda water could lower the calorie intake.
If your goal is to lose body fat then drinking alcohol is going to make that a struggle, the reason is that drinking calories are soo much easier than eating them. In 1 night you could easily drink 2000 calories worth of alcohol by just drinking beer alone. So if you are serious about seeing some weight loss occur, simply by removing alcohol from your diet you could see a big difference. My experience with clients is exactly this. That by having 2 - 3 weekends without social events, you can make a big dent in your fat loss progress.
As a recap
Track your calories/keep a food diary
Track your daily morning weight to make sure you aren’t gaining weight
2 to 3 days before you go out on a night out remove “empty calories” from your diet.
Again it all comes down to calories in vs calories out when trying to lose body fat, or at least not gain body fat, so make sure you are at maintenance/deficit by monitoring your food/drink and your weight.
