A lot of people try to lose weight while also consuming alcohol. These people are aware that alcohol has a negative effect on the body but very few people know the details. This vague understanding has tremendous consequences on their weight loss efforts.
As soon as you consume alcohol, it becomes the primary fuel in the body. Your body gives secondary importance to fat and carbohydrates. Calories from fat or carbohydrates are stored as fat as the body tries to use alcohol calories. This process effectively brings your fat metabolism to a complete halt. This can happen by taking as little as a single drink of vodka. This effect can last for up to 24 hours.
Alcohol also affects weight loss by disrupting your body's hormonal balance. Alcohol consumption has been shown to cause elevated levels of cortisol. Elevated levels of cortisol promote fat storage instead of fat burning. Cortisol also promotes the breaking down of your muscles. This will suppress your metabolism in the long-run as you continuously lose muscles. Cortisol levels remain elevated so long as there is alcohol in the body.
Alcohol also suppresses testosterone levels. Testosterone is a potent fat burning hormone in men and women. Testosterone carries out some essential functions in women as well, although they carry lower levels of testosterone. As such it is a useful hormone in women as well as men.
Alcohol has a more pronounced effect on testosterone in men. Apart from the liver, the body also breaks down testosterone in the testicles. As long as there is alcohol in the body, testosterone production will be disrupted. Men who consume excessive amounts of alcohol will find themselves developing feminine physical characteristics such as overdeveloped fatty tissue in the chest area resembling breasts.
Lastly, alcohol plays a role in increasing appetite levels. Research has shown that drinking even a single glass of wine before a meal, will increase the amount of calories that you would eat in that meal. A lot of people consume alcohol with their meals. Not only do you eat more while consuming alcohol but whatever you eat also gets stored as fat as the body works hard to metabolize the alcohol.
Anyone trying to lose weight should abstain from alcohol consumption until their weight loss goals have been achieved. This is the best way to make sure that the harmful effects alcohol do not sabotage their weight loss efforts.
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