How Alcohol Affects Body Fat

This is possibly my favourite post to date! I’ve always regarded alcohol as highly calorific, and not just calorific, but they’re empty calories – meaning no nutrients or health benefits. One would think that consuming them therefore, would increase your body fat percentage. It transpires, that in moderation, this isn’t always the case. Granted, if you’re binge drinking, you’ll put on fat for sure, but a glass or two an evening may not be such a bad thing. In fact, it might even help. Red wine, for example, has a number of health benefits as it contains antioxidants and helps to thin the blood. Be mindful about what you drink though. Beer is the killer in my opinion and I notice it the next day or two when I have a few. A pint contains 250 calories if you choose a premium beer. 4 pints of that and you’ve had half of your average daily quota of calories – plus the effects of phytoestrogens which the beer contains, which mimic the effects of oestrogen on your body. Wine too, has been proven to contain phytoestrogens, to a lesser degree. As many experts claim, stick to red wine, and in small doses.

Consuming alcohol isn’t automatically bad. In fact, it has a myriad of health benefits at low-to-moderate doses. Fitness author and nutritionist Martin Berkhan states:

Moderate alcohol consumption improves insulin sensitivity, lowers triglyceride concentrations and improves glycemic control. Not only in healthy folks, but also intype 2 diabetes. There is no clear consensus on the insulin sensitizing mechanism of alcohol, but one viable explanation may be that alcohol promotes leanness bystimulating AMPK in skeletal muscle. It’s not a stretch to assume that this might have favorable effects on nutrient partitioning in the longer term.

If the effect of alcohol consumption on insulin sensitivity doesn’t impress you, then consider the fact that studies have consistently shown that moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers. This can be mainly attributed to a lowered risk of cardiovascular disease. However, alcohol also contributes to a healthier and disease-free life by protecting against Alzheimer’s disease, metabolic syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, the common cold, different types of cancers, depression and many other Western diseases. The list goes on and on.

Still, alcohol physiologically decreases fat loss, so it should impede your results, right? According to nutritionist and frequent Vitals contributor Alan Aragon, the research is surprisingly inconclusive:

One study found that men consuming an average of 56 grams of ethanol per day (four beers) took in 16 percent more total calories than a matched group of non-drinkers. The two groups — drinkers and non-drinkers — had identical amounts of physical activity. So, logically, you’d think that the drinkers packed on some pounds. They didn’t. Both groups had the same body-mass index, despite all those excess calories for the drinkers.

This study wasn’t just a fluke. Alan continues:

Another study compared two weight-loss diets (1,500 calories per day, or the equivalent of the crumbs from one of John Berardi’s mid-morning snacks). In one diet, subjects got 10 percent of their total calories from white wine — 150 calories, or just over a glass per day. The other group got 10 percent from grape juice. After three months, the white wine group lost almost a kilogram more total body weight (a kilogram is 2.2 pounds), although the difference wasn’t statistically significant.

In other words, when it comes to your waistline, alcohol is a bit of a wildcard—some people may be impacted, but some aren’t. For those with more sensitive waists, the culprit might be the decisions from alcohol, rather than the substance itself. According to a 2013 study by theAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutrition, subjects consumed a higher amount of calories and saturated fat when moderate drinking occurred.

Read whole article on Lifehacker