How alcohol affects your weight loss

For many people, alcohol is part of festive occasions, but if you are trying to lose weight, it can be helpful to understand how it affects your results.
Here we take a closer look at why alcohol can be an unexpected challenge and what you need to consider to maintain balance.

Calories without satiety

Alcohol contains more calories than many people think. A glass of wine or beer can quickly add up to 100–200 calories, while cocktails often contain even more. However, it’s not just about the quantity, but also how alcohol calories affect the body. Alcohol provides the body with energy, but it provides no nutrition. This means that the calories you get from alcohol do not contribute to satiety, making it easy to consume more than you intended.

Alcohol and appetite

Alcohol can affect your appetite in several ways. Firstly, it is common to feel hungrier after drinking. This is because alcohol can reduce the body’s ability to regulate hunger hormones, making you more likely to eat more than you otherwise would. This often results in choosing fattier or more calorie-dense foods – not exactly ideal if you are trying to keep track of your calorie intake. In addition, alcohol can affect your willingness to make healthy choices. The relaxed feeling can make it harder to resist temptations such as chips, pizza, or other less healthy options.

The liver and fat burning

When you drink alcohol, your body prioritizes processing the alcohol first. This is because the liver sees alcohol as a toxin that must be dealt with immediately. When the liver is working to break down alcohol, its ability to process and burn fat is slowed down. This means that if you drink alcohol while trying to lose fat, the fat-burning process can be delayed. In practice, this means that alcohol can cause the body to store more fat than it would otherwise do during the same period without alcohol.

Blood sugar and insulin

Alcohol also affects blood sugar levels. When you drink alcohol, especially in combination with sugary drinks such as cocktails or liqueurs, it can lead to high blood sugar levels followed by a rapid dip. This blood sugar swing can increase your cravings for food and make it harder to maintain a stable calorie intake. It can also negatively affect your insulin sensitivity, which can make it more difficult to regulate your body’s blood sugar in the long term.

Sleep and recovery

Alcohol can disrupt your sleep quality, which is another aspect that can affect weight loss. Although alcohol can help you fall asleep faster, it tends to impair deep sleep, which is the phase during which your body recovers and burns fat. Poor sleep also affects your hunger hormones, which can make you feel hungrier the next day and make it harder to resist temptation.

No need to cut it out completely

Alcohol not only affects weight loss by adding empty calories, but it can also mess with your appetite control, fat burning, and sleep, making it harder to stick to your weight goals. But that doesn’t mean you have to cut out alcohol completely—with moderation and awareness of what you drink, you can still enjoy a drink now and then without sabotaging your progress. Choosing lower-calorie alcohol and being mindful of how much you drink can be crucial to maintaining balance in both your health and weight loss.

*Weight loss is individual, so we cannot guarantee how much/how quickly you will reach your goal. The important thing is all the health benefits. We distance ourselves from unhealthy ideals and crash diets, and do not recommend calorie counting if you are underweight, ill, or pregnant.