Author: Alex Thompson

Does Alcohol Make You Gain Weight? 5 Ways It Sabotages Weight Loss

So, your system prioritizes getting rid of alcohol before it can turn its attention to its other work. You probably already know that excessive drinking can affect you in more ways than one. Beyond bloating, make sure you remember alcohol should be consumed in moderation. Besides weight gain, alcohol can also lead to irritation of your gastrointestinal tract, which can cause bloating. Alcohol can irritate the stomach and intestines, causing gastritis, which can cause abdominal bloating. Below is a list from least calories to most, based on serving size.

  1. Damaged DNA can cause a cell to grow out of control, which results in cancerous tumors.
  2. All of the available studies have examined moderate intake of alcohol, and the majority have reported results on beer and wine intake, but not other forms of alcohol 3•, 5.
  3. Alcohol can irritate the stomach and intestines, causing gastritis, which can cause abdominal bloating.
  4. But prolonged alcohol abuse can lead to chronic (long-term) pancreatitis, which can be severe.
  5. If you consume too much of it, you can develop alcohol poisoning or even die.

You may have heard of the term “beer belly.” Still, the belief that alcohol causes increased fat stores around the abdominal area is inaccurate. A small percentage of the calories you drink from alcohol turns into fat. Some evidence suggests that heavy drinking may cause your adrenal glands not to regulate how much cortisol they secrete.

Cancer risk

If you consume too much of it, you can develop alcohol poisoning or even die. This is important for potential weight gain because it dictates how your body reacts to alcohol. As a result, people with diabetes may need to practice caution with alcohol. Drinking alcohol with diabetes medicine, especially on an empty stomach, may cause low blood sugar. That’s because your body already has processes in place that allow it to store excess proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

The Connection Between Alcohol and Weight Gain

Those messages aid in your body’s stress response and help control your energy and metabolism. Instead, your liver prioritizes breaking down alcohol rather than fat. The morning after a night of over-imbibing can cause some temporary effects on your brain. Things like trouble concentration, slow reflexes and sensitivity to bright lights and loud sounds are standard signs of a hangover, and evidence of alcohol’s effects on your brain. “Some people think of the effects of alcohol as only something to be worried about if you’re living with alcohol use disorder, which was formerly called alcoholism,” Dr. Sengupta says. If you find yourself consuming more alcohol than you plan, or you feel out of control when you’re drinking, seek medical help.

Other Literature Sources

A review by Yeomans 5 highlights some of the potential explanations for alcohol’s influence on weight gain or obesity. First, as previously mentioned, energy from alcohol appears to be additive to energy from other sources 5. Several studies suggest that consuming alcohol before or during a meal does not influence the amount of food eaten in that meal, despite increasing the energy density of the meal 5.

Males are more likely to gain abdominal fat from drinking than females. Females may gain weight in their abdominal region after menopause when estrogen levels naturally decline. In reality, there’s no evidence that drinking beer (or your alcoholic beverages of choice) actually contributes to belly fat. All kinds of alcohol — beer, wine, whiskey, you name it — are relatively calorie-dense, topping out at about 7 calories per gram. Add other ingredients to alcohol — like sugar — and the calorie count increases even more.

Alcohol Intake and Obesity: Potential Mechanisms

You’ve likely considered what you’re eating, what you’re not eating and of course, how much you’re moving. If you’ve been drinking alcohol, you should drink water to quickly get rid of bloating in your face and stomach. If you’ve noticed you’ve gained weight or tend to bloat when you drink alcohol, you may want to consider cutting back on your alcohol consumption. A 2023 study found that alcohol consumption contributes to fat deposits around the body, including the stomach, which can cause a bloated appearance.

By working in these strategies, you can still enjoy alcohol in moderation while working toward your weight loss goals. “Across the board, for people who are trying to lose some weight, cutting out empty calories is a good place to start,” emphasizes Dr. Heinberg. More research is needed to fully understand how much alcohol may affect weight and why it may do this.

Are there ways to lose weight while still drinking alcohol?

Furthermore, beer and spirit drinkers appear to have poorer dietary habits in general than wine drinkers 3•. Thus, accounting for both sides of the energy balance equation (intake, expenditure and lifestyle habits) is crucial to evaluate adequately the association between alcohol intake and obesity. Not taking into account some of these potential confounding factors can certainly lead to biased estimates of the relationship between alcohol intake and body weight given that large inter-individual variations exist. Prospective studies have looked at the association between alcohol intake and adiposity gain in various populations, with follow-up periods ranging from several months to 20 years 4, 30, 31.