Drink to Shrink: Can Alcohol Help You Lose Weight?

Many people skip going out for drinks when they are trying to shed some pounds. It is true that alcohol has empty calories and when drank in excess can and will cause weight gain. However, some experts are now saying that drinking in moderation could actually help your weight loss efforts.

How Alcohol is Digested in the Body

Alcohol generally contains sugar, ethanol and carbohydrates. Your cocktail goes straight to your stomach after you take a sip and then the lining of the stomach absorbs the alcohol and it gets into the bloodstream. Ethanol makes its way to the liver and then the sugar and carbohydrates are digested as normal. Since the ethanol is being worked on before anything else, it is believed that the sugar and carbs are not taken care of as efficiently, which in turn, leads to weight gain.

Now, this is true when it comes to drinking a lot. If you know someone that tends to hit the bottle hard and frequently, you will eventually notice that he or she is packing on some pounds even if they do not eat much and/or have a healthy diet. Calories are calories.

Losing Weight with Drinking?

If you are someone who enjoys a glass of wine – or even two – every evening to wind down after a long day you could be helping yourself in the weight department. New research that was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine is looking at those who have just a standard drink or two each night and how this resulted in less weight gain than those who binge drink on weekends. This is believed to occur because since you have a drink or two daily, your body becomes accustomed to this and has figured out a way to digest it in a way where the metabolism of alcohol is altered. You are torching more calories as you sip that nightly cocktail and the extra calories are not turned into fat.

Now, this does not mean that you can skip wine all week and then have six glasses between Friday and Saturday night. For the results shown in this study to hold true, you need to have at least one drink every night so that your body can make the necessary adjustments.

So, can I Skip Exercise and Diet?

No. Unfortunately, drinking wine does not substitute a healthy diet and regular exercise. However, if you are a healthy woman who eats pretty well and exercises at least three days per week then that evening glass of wine could be a good thing. The key is to drink standard-sized drinks. This means that a 32-ounce draft beer is not a good thing, but a standard four-ounce glass of wine is. You do not want to overdo it because then you are putting yourself at risk for weight gain and other issues associated with drinking too much alcohol. Don’t forget that red wine is also associated with other health benefits, such as boosting your heart health, when consumed in moderation.