Do You Have To Stop Drinking To Lose Weight?

This is a question I get asked a lot by clients looking to lose weight, drop body fat and get in shape… do I have to cut out alcohol?!

The short answer is NO. I don’t think there is a single food or drink you ever have to completely cut out in order to achieve weight loss. However particularly with alcohol, I would argue regular drinking can make weight loss harder, and here’s 5 reasons why!

1. It disrupts your sleep- Alcohol reduces your ability to get a proper nights sleep. If we don’t sleep well and we feel more tired we tend to be less active and we tend to eat more food than normal as we feel low in energy which obviously don’t help when trying to lose weight! It can also impact our blood sugar and hormone levels in a way that work against weight loss! In support of this, take a look at the sleep data on whichever tracking device you wear after you’ve had a drink or too and you’ll see first hand how it reduces your sleep quality!
2. It adds in calories - If we are drinking alcohol when trying to lose weight we are obviously either adding in calories which pushes us out of our deficit or replacing useful ones that could be keeping us full! Some alcohol can be very calorie dense and a few drinks can rack up to the equivalent of a decent meal or two. One sneaky cocktail could actually add in an extra 300 calories, a beer 250 calories and a large wine 200!
3. It reduces performance in the gym - Your performance in the gym will be negatively impacted  after a drink or two and if you are drinking regularly, this will effect the level of results you get in terms or strength and building some muscle. It will reduce your ability to recover from your sessions as well as the energy you have available to use in gym sessions and just the energy you have to move around day to day. This can lower motivation and again just make weight loss harder and less enjoyable than it needs to be!
4. Effects your mood- It has a negative effect on the brain meaning our mood can be effected. I have quite a few clients who report higher levels of anxiety or drops in mood and lows after drinking, which makes sticking to a consistent eating pattern more challenging and from my experience, increases the chances of comfort or emotional eating.
5. Reduces willpower and inhibitions- Sticking to a calorie deficit for long periods of time is challenging. When clients add alcohol in the mix their decision making is impaired and giving into temptation is much easier. Its often the thing that leads to poor food decisions which could look like a few chocolates, a pudding or a whole pizza!

Photo by Kelsey Knight on Unsplash

1. You can see from these 5 reasons alone that drinking alcohol doesn’t really go hand in hand with weight loss!

However that’s not to say you can never drink again! If you enjoy the taste of alcohol then absolutely build it into your diet and calories that are inline with your goal. If however you find after your drink you continuously go off plan then this is when I might question if its something you might need to cut out or pull back on even more, at least until you are back to maintainance calories or you feel you have more control .

Asking yourself why you are drinking is also a really useful exercise I give to clients. If they decide it brings a lot of positives to their lives socially or they really enjoy the taste than great, let’s build this in to their plan. If however when they reflect it’s just become a habit, it’s from social pressure, or because its a coping mechanism for stress ( which is often the case)  then maybe other approaches and options should be considered.

If you want to hear more on this then this weeks podcast episode with my fellow coach Saul is all about alcohol and the experience we’ve had with it coaching clients to reach their weightloss and fitness goals and you can listen to that now HERE on Spotify!

I hope you have a great week,

Lizzie

The One Percent Club