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Can Weekend Alcohol Consumption Ruin Your Progress
When I start with a new client who is wanting to improve their body composition the first thing I get them to focus on is improving their diet. The best training program in the world can’t compensate for a bad diet. I don’t expect clients to be able to turn their lives upside down straight away. However, one of the easiest things you can do straight up is reduce or eliminate your alcohol intake. If you’re a weekend social drinker I’ll demonstrate below how even a moderate weekend of drinking will throw your weekly calorie average out the window.
In terms of energy density, alcohol is almost as energy dense as fat.
- Carbohydrates and protein contain 4 calories per gram.
- Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram
- Fat contains 9 calories per gram
Here is a small snapshot of the calorie content of some typical alcoholic drinks:
Alcohol has no nutritional value and is treated as a toxin by the body. Alcohol metabolism is therefore given priority over other energy-containing nutrients (1). It is estimated the liver can metabolise between seven and ten grams of alcohol per hour (2). This means that calories from the food you have consumed won’t be burnt until alcohol is removed from your body.
For example, there are 21 grams of alcohol in 1 pint of beer. If you metabolise ten grams of alcohol per hour that means it will take you 2 hours to metabolise 1 pint of beer. If you consume 5 pints of beer it will take 10 hours to process the alcohol from those five pints. This means you won’t start burning fat again until 10 hours after you have begun drinking.
So how does a weekend of social drinking upset the apple cart of your weekly calorie intake?
Say for example you are following a 2,000 calorie per day diet over 7 days which would give you 14,000 calories over the week. You’re good from Monday to Friday lunchtime then head out after work for a few drinks. You have five pints of beer (1040 calories) then have a burger, fries and soft drink (1320 calories) before heading home giving you a grand total of 4360 calories for the day.
Saturday rolls along and your food intake is spot on again until Saturday evening when you head out for 3 pints (624 calories) bringing your total to 2624 calories for the day.
Sunday comes, you’re good all day then decide to have 2 sneaky pints (416 calories) taking you to 2416 calories for the day.
So as you can see from the graph over the course of the week your daily calorie average has increased from 2000 to 2485. Keeping in mind I’ve only allowed for a single meal blow out on a Friday night.
Why is it that when we start consuming alcohol we feel like eating fries, potato chips, corn chips and even worse when the night is drawing to a close we are looking for the nearest fast food outlet that is open? Or the following morning when we are nursing a hangover again we want pancakes or anything else that is calorie dense and easy to consume in large quantities. Simple, alcohol consumption drops blood sugar meaning we will crave carbs in order to bring our blood sugar back to normal. Hence why when you cut out alcohol consumption you cut out the bad food choices that go with it.
From my own personal experience and from working with clients I know that it is easier to drop weight or keep weight off once you eliminate or reduce your alcohol consumption. Having a glass of wine with dinner each night or isn’t going to break the calorie budget, however, the big nights compounded with bad food choices and lack of motivation to train or do anything the following day certainly will.
References.