Ok, first, let me say right up front i’m not a wowser. I partake of the occasional brew or six. So this article is not about bashing the ears of those of you who like a tipple every now and again.
What this is about is those of us who kid ourselves into thinking that regular drinking is not a factor in general health and weight loss. I advocate a diet of whole (as much as possible unprocessed) food, lower carbs, lower fat, higher protein. So my clients have to monitor the amount of carbs they intake, which means they get good at reading labels.
Good thing, right? Yeah, except when the labels lie….. well, not lie technically, but mislead us.
Scotch for example. Have a look at the nutritional label of a bottle of scotch – 0 Carbs.
Woo Hoo! Great! That means I can have as much scotch as I like, right?
Wrong.
Zero Carbs doesn’t mean that Scotch is a diet friendly drink. A shot of Scotch (35 ml) contains around 70-80 calories, (assuming you drink it straight) and 11 grams of alcohol.
It’s the alcohol that buggers up your diet.
You see, alcohol is processed largely by the liver. The liver is the largest internal organ of the body, and is said to be responsible for up to 500 individual functions, the principal roles of the liver include removing toxins, processing food nutrients and regulating body metabolism.
So if you are trying to lose weight, and you are forcing your body to use your fat cells as a fuel source (as opposed to blood sugars), healthy liver will chug away processing those fat cells.
Unless……..
Unless, it is busy processing alcohol you have consumed. You see, it takes the liver about an hour the process one standard drink (35 ml), so if you drink 4-6 scotch shots before bed, your liver will be so busy processing the alcohol for the next 4-6 hours that it will not be processing fat cells.
Like anything else, everything in moderation. If you want to have a drink, have one (i’m writing this in the car on the way to a family BBQ and i’m looking forward to a few beers!) but just remember, if you drink everyday, even a drink with “zero” carbs, you are without a shadow of a doubt inhibiting your weight loss progress!
Cheers!