The short answer: Yes! But, not surprisingly, there is a but. The trick is to be smart about your alcohol intake to ensure you can enjoy an alcoholic beverage every once in a while and still meet your weight loss goals. Read on to learn how.

Alcohol and Calories

Alcohol contains approximately 7 calories per gram (you’ll remember from previous articles that fat comes in at 9 calories per gram, while protein and carbs have 4 calories per gram). Alcohol is a relatively concentrated source of calories, so regular drinking can negatively affect your weight loss goals. However, when consumed in moderation, you can still include alcohol in your diet without adding too many extra calories.

Beyond the calories in alcohol itself, an even more important consideration is what the alcohol is mixed with. There’s a substantial difference between a shot of tequila and a pina colada: we’re talking around 70 calories versus 600 calories. The most common way alcoholic drinks rack up calories is through added sugars. Mixed, sweet drinks are typically the highest in calories, so they’re not the best choices when trying to lose weight.

How The Body Processes Alcohol

When you consume alcohol, it moves quickly through your digestive system into your intestines. From there, it is absorbed into your bloodstream and travels to the liver for detoxification from the body. Your body prioritizes detoxifying alcohol because it treats alcohol as a toxin. This means that if there’s alcohol in your system, your body focuses on that: detoxifying alcohol.

Metabolically, this creates a scenario where your body isn’t prioritizing breaking down other calories you consume. If you pair alcoholic drinks with meals that are very high in calories, your body won’t concentrate on metabolizing them because it’s busy with the alcohol.

You can imagine how this can scale quickly. Asking your body to detoxify the alcohol from one drink won’t burden your body, and it will soon return to its other metabolic duties. But asking your body to detoxify multiple drinks throughout an evening will keep it busy without much opportunity for anything else. Those high-calorie foods that went along with the multiple drinks then get pushed towards the easiest path: fat storage.

Keeping It Weight Loss-Friendly

Alcohol is often a part of social occasions, or it may be one method you use to wind down at the end of a busy day. But, let’s clarify one thing: drinking alcohol for weight loss has no benefits. It’s also not something you need to avoid entirely if you want to lose weight. Find the balance for what works for you, keeping in mind that being overly restrictive and overly lenient is likely to slow your weight loss success.

Here are the top strategies you can use to enjoy the occasional alcoholic drink without derailing your weight loss goals:

• Moderation is key. Regular drinking leads to a calorie build-up over time, eventually leading to weight gain. If you’re going out with friends or family, set a limit of one or two drinks for the evening. As always, be mindful and enjoy your drink.
• Choose your drinks wisely. Mixed cocktail-style beverages tend to be loaded with calories, so think twice before choosing these options. Drinks like dry wine or gin and tonic will contribute much less to excessive calories than drinks high in added fat and sugar.
• Don’t forget to hydrate. If you’re drinking alcohol, you should also be drinking water. Alcohol has a dehydrating effect on the body, so you’ll want to stay well-hydrated to prevent any unwanted effects of dehydration (you’ll also feel much better the next day!).
• Don’t skip meals to make “room” for extra calories from drinking. While skipping a meal may sound like a good idea, if you head out for a social evening on an empty stomach, you’ll be much more likely to binge on less healthy foods later in the evening. Have a light meal before heading out that’s high in protein and full of veggies.

Another thing you can consider is why you’re drinking, and whether or not it’s something you enjoy. Enjoying a drink during a social occasion or savouring a glass of wine at the end of a long week is different than drinking just to have something in your hand at a gathering or mindlessly drinking a glass of wine every night. If you want to lose weight, you’ve probably reevaluated many of your priorities; alcohol is no different.

What Do You Mean by Moderation?

You hear the word “moderation” all the time, but what does it actually mean? It can be frustrating to constantly hear “it depends,” even though that’s usually an entirely true and accurate answer. In the case of alcohol, the definition of moderation will indeed differ for everyone, but we can get a bit more concrete.

The public health definition of moderation is up to two drinks per day for men and one for women. However, we recommend avoiding daily drinking (even if it’s only one drink) if you’re trying to lose weight. Why? A glass of wine or beer every night for a week will anywhere from 1000-1500 extra calories to your weekly intake.

Here’s what we recommend for weight loss-friendly moderate alcohol intake:

• Limit your alcohol intake to 1-2 drinks per day on days when you do drink.
• Try to avoid daily drinking. If you drink alcohol regularly, limit drinking to only 2 or 3 days.
• Don’t stress about your alcohol intake on special occasions like weddings or holidays. 
• Choose more weight loss-friendly drink options, as you learned in the last section.

Takeaway

Alcohol intake doesn’t benefit your weight loss, but it’s not something you need to avoid entirely. You can find a balance of still enjoying alcohol while meeting your weight loss goals. Aim for a moderate intake and implement our weight loss-friendly recommendations.