🍻🍷Cheers!🍸🍹🍾
*I’ve since updated this blog post for a few reasons.
For one, I misspoke about the calories for each macro at the start of the video, oops!
Fat is actually 9 calories per gram, (carbs and protein are 4 calories per gram).
Secondly, I’ve amended and simplified food logging for alcohol, so you can skip that in the video and see below.
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Life is all about BALANCE!
I’m all about flexible dieting so if having an alcoholic beverage is important to you, there’s a way to fit alcohol into your plan without sabotaging your fat loss results…
Keep in mind that alcohol has 7 calories per gram (carbs have 4 cals/gram, protein has 4 carbs/gram, fat has 9 cals/gram).
Alcohol is metabolized differently than all other macros. It gets preferential treatment by being processed in the liver first over all other food.
Basically drinking alcohol will slow down or stop fat burning.
It’s important to understand that you CAN have an alcoholic drink, but doing so will slowdown your fat loss.
You can decide the pace at which you want to go, it’s just important to know this fact to manage expectations.
Below are some tips on how to have a drink without sabotaging your fat loss.
- Focus on the social experience (friends and the event) not on the food/drink.
- Hydrate (lots of water early in the day and match each alcoholic drink with H2O).
- Eat protein – if you’re drinking alcohol, load up on protein choices for food, not carbs or fat
- Drink clear alcohol (vodka, gin, tequila) over dark spirits and drink red wine over white – all in MODERATION
- Keep the calories OUT of the mix – use soda water or water (not soda pop or tonic water)
If you’d like to fit a drink into your calories, simply log each beverage as a full sugar 12oz Coca Cola for 156 calories. While this isn’t accurate, and the drink won’t be processed as a full sugar soda, it ‘may’ create enough awareness when you see how the calories can really add up when you have multiple drinks that you’ll put the brakes on…This strategy creates a top of mind awareness to keep your health front and center and this is more important than complicated math.
Honestly, if you want to over complicate things, do as I suggested in the video, but, overtime, I’ve come to realize that splitting hairs over a drink to determine exact macros is more trouble than it’s worth.
*The point is, no food/drink should be ‘off limits’ …
Weigh the cost-benefit ratio for YOU – and if alcohol is something you enjoy, fit it in accordingly
Remember, life is all about balance!
I can help you balance your nutrition to get the body you deserve. Let’s talk.