A simple guide to tracking alcohol so you can enjoy a 4th of July drink without gaining weight this holiday weekend
You hear all the time that alcohol and weight loss don’t mix, but this isn’t necessarily true! Having an occasional drink, especially for a holiday weekend like the 4th of July, doesn’t have to throw off your weight loss progress! It’s 100% possible to enjoy a cold beer (or whatever you love) over the 4th without gaining weight!
As a macro coach, I like to teach my clients that they can enjoy life and still be healthy people. Having a long island iced tea during your 4th of July BBQ doesn’t make you an unhealthy person! Because the food we eat doesn’t determine who we are.
What makes us healthy people are the choices we make. Healthy people can drink, but they think about how that fits into their overall diet and they make choices that balance their diets out when they do drink.
That’s exactly what you’re going to learn how to do today! When we’re done here you’ll know how your body processes alcohol and what steps you can take to include a drink into your holiday plans without gaining weight!
How the body processes alcohol
In order to avoid gaining weight over the holiday weekend, you need to understand two things. One, how your body processes alcohol and two, why alcohol causes weight gain.
You already know that alcohol is processed in the liver. Your body sees alcohol as a toxin - which is why you get intoxicated when you drink - and the liver shuts down any other processes in order to flush the toxins out. It’s a great system! The only downside is that the liver is also responsible for breaking down fat.
One of the byproducts of drinking is that we hold onto a little more fat than we would have, had our bodies not needed to flush out alcohol. If you’re having the occasional drink, then this isn’t really a huge issue. The body can pick up where it left off and process the fat again.
However, if you’re drinking every day or drinking a lot, it’s going to cause your liver to put off burning fat on a regular basis, which will lead to weight gain.
The second way that alcohol causes weight gain is because when we drink our inhibitions are lowered and we don’t make the best food choices. This is especially true when you drink in social settings because in those situations you’re usually surrounded by high-calorie foods or you’re going to be pressured to eat something that you might not have if you were on your own.
Between the slowed fat burning and consuming more calories than you normally would, it’s a recipe for weight gain. The good news is that you can avoid weight gain just by planning ahead!
Create a plan to drink without gaining weight
The absolute best way to avoid gaining weight, especially over a holiday, is to have a game plan going in!
I teach my Macros Made Easy clients to have a meal plan every day and this is even more important when you’re going into a holiday, like the 4th of July, because holidays are usually food-based celebrations. You don’t want to be stuck eating something boring while everyone else enjoys burgers and hot dogs. You want to enjoy the celebration, the food and your life!
If you know what you’re going to eat, and drink, before you go to the family BBQ or the fireworks show with friends, it’s much easier to enjoy the party without being obsessed with what you can or can’t eat. A plan will allow you to enjoy your favorite foods and drinks and say no to the foods that you don’t want or need!
Having a plan for what you want to drink, is going to be especially important because as we pointed out before when you drink your ability to make smart, nutritional choices becomes impaired and that’s where you make nutritional choices that don’t keep you on your path to health and weight loss.
When you’re making your plan, decide how much you’re going to drink. The less you drink, the better decision-making skills you’re going to have throughout the day or night. However, if you really want to enjoy a few drinks, that’s ok too! Just do your best to have a game plan for what you’re going to eat while you’re drinking or after drinking so that you don’t make impulse decisions!
Find out what your alcohol is really costing you
The biggest part of drinking without gaining weight is understanding what alcohol is costing you nutritionally. Unfortunately, when it comes to alcohol this isn’t as easy as reading the nutritional label on the bottle.
A quick lesson in nutrition is required to understand alcohol and calories/macronutrients. Each macronutrient (protein, fat, carbohydrates) has a calorie equivalent.
1 g of fat = 9 calories
1 g of carb = 4 calories
1 g of protein = 4 calories
When you add up the total calories for each of the macronutrients it gives you the total calories per serving for each food or drink. The tricky thing about alcohol is that it doesn’t neatly fit into a macronutrient category.
1 g of alcohol = 7 calories
In order to track alcohol as a macronutrient, and find out what it’s costing you nutritionally, you have to either count it as a fat or as a carb.
It can be tracked as a fat because it is processed, like fat, in the liver. However, alcohol is also a sugar, which is a carb, so it can be tracked as a carb.
I prefer to track alcohol as a carb, but I want you to know it’s not the only way to do it.
In order to track it as a carb, you need to take the total calorie count and divide it by 4 (because there are 4 calories per 1 gram of carbs.) Once you have that number, you can plan for it as a part of your macronutrients and macro tracking.
When you know what your drinking is going to cost you nutritionally you can factor it into the rest of your eating for the day. Which means you’re going to stay on track with your goals overall and you shouldn’t see much weight gain!
If you do see the scale go up, keep in mind that that isn’t fat gain, it’s just your body taking a little more time to process the alcohol that you drank. Your weight will come back down in a day or two as your body goes back to processing fat at its regular intervals.
When you’re looking at a new diet, you shouldn’t have to change or give up your entire lifestyle to adhere to that diet. The flexibility that macro tracking gives you can help you create lasting change in your health and weight loss because you’re still able to enjoy life and food!
If you’re ready to change your outlook on food and weight loss, then let’s talk! Schedule a free discovery call to learn how to lose weight without giving up the food and drinks you love!
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