Questions & Answers

Alcohol And Your Weight: What You Need To Know

Can high alcohol consumption cause long-term weight gain?

I can talk about alcohol with a lot of experience. I grew up with an alcoholic step-father, and I drank excessively in my late 20s. I didn’t get fat, but I did drink too much alcohol.
Many people drink too much alcohol. It happens particularly with high stress and life transitions.

How many overweight people have you seen knocking back shots of Vodka? Usually, people who drink excessive amounts of hard alcohol are quite skinny.

Typical beer drinking is often associated with a beer belly. But, there are many studies that show that alcohol doesn’t make you fat. But, what it does do is severely impact your metabolic rate.

Alcohol slows the gut right down.

Further readings:

People who drink a lot of alcohol often don’t care what they eat. Big drinkers often like to have sweets to go along with their alcohol. Other drinkers want to have something salty to go along with their alcohol. If it’s bar food, it’s high-calorie food.

Drinking can also stimulate the appetite. Also, people drop their inhibitions when they are drinking, which can lead to eating too much food.

There is an even more sinister side to alcohol. In my experience, stool testing is always abnormal when people are drinking a lot of alcohol.

Moderate levels of alcohol intake can increase the lifespan of some women due to improving healthy cholesterol levels.

I urge people not to drink every day. I enjoy drinking, but I do it in a very controlled way. You don’t want to be controlled by alcohol.

Moderate alcohol intake won’t cause significant weight gain.

If you’re using mixes for cocktails, you can end up consuming a lot of sugar and calories. Now you can see how weight gain can happen.

I think it is the cheese and crackers that cause more of a weight problem than the glass of wine.

The key is nothing in excess – this holds not only for alcohol but for anything in life.
Yes, high alcohol intake can contribute to increased weight over time. I recommend moderate to light intake to avoid the complications associated with drinking too much alcohol.

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