Does Drinking Alcohol Ruin Your Weight Loss?

Alcohol stops you from losing fat, or at least that's what you've been told. After coaching over 25,000 clients, I can tell you what alcohol actually does to your body, and I'll give you 5 rules for how you can drink it and still lose fat, because without them, one Saturday can undo your entire week of progress. But before we get into the rules, here's why people say alcohol stops you from losing fat. And it's what happens the second a drop of alcohol enters your system. And when most people hear alcohol stops fat loss, they go into one of two camps. The first camp is, well, alcohol is going to stop me from losing weight, so I'm going to cut it out completely. If that's what you choose to do, totally fine. The second is, well, I'm not willing to give up my Friday night or Saturday night or glass of wine here and there, so screw it. I'm just going to go all in when I drink because I'm not going to make progress anyway. And both of these, in my opinion, are wrong. And that's because you're treating alcohol like a light switch that flips on or off when you have alcohol in your system when it comes to burning fat. And instead of thinking of it like a switch that turns fat burning on and off, I want you to think about it like a fire alarm. If you were sitting at your desk at work and the fire alarm went off, what would happen? Everybody in that building would stop and they would listen to the fire alarm. They would do what they need to do. They would get out and they would come back at their desk when you knew it was safe to do so. Alcohol is like that fire alarm. When it gets into your system, all of the fat burning process stops. That is correct, because fat burning and alcohol are— think of it like alcohol is a toxin. So when there's a toxin in your body, your body has to stop everything it's doing and get that toxin out. Once the toxin is out, You can get back to burning fat, but getting rid of the toxin is more important. But here's the nuance that most people don't tell you is think about even when you were at school and you had a fire drill, maybe you would get out of school. I like this because I didn't like school. You would get out of school for 10 to 15 minutes and then you would do the fire alarm drill. You would get back to class and everything would be fine. That is similar to if you have 1 to 2 drinks, yes, technically your fat burning might stop, but it might only stop for 30 minutes or 60 minutes. It's not that long of a period of time, so it's not gonna be that big of a deal. Now, if you have 10 drinks, that may take you 24 to 36 hours To fully get rid of that alcohol in your system. So that would be a longer period of time where the alcohol would stop your fat burning. And here's the last part. Even though, let's just say you went crazy and had 10 drinks, as long as you are in an overall CFD, calorie fucking deficit, you are still going to lose fat. Now again, it might take you longer. It might push and delay the process out, but you're still going to be able to lose fat if you're in your calorie deficit. And a perfect example of this is one of our clients, Leanne. She's dropped over 50 pounds since she started working with us. And in the beginning, she actually did cut out alcohol for a period of time. She felt that was right for her, for her journey, for her relationship with alcohol. But as she got 30, 40 pounds down, she felt more comfortable being able to control herself with alcohol and not let it ruin her progress. And so every now and then she'll have a drink or two, and she is still seeing fat loss progress. She is still losing weight week over week. And so when she reintroduced some alcohol here and there, it didn't stop her fat loss because she followed the 5 rules. I'm about to give you, she was able to work in alcohol and still be able to lose body fat. So the lesson here is alcohol causes fat loss. It does not completely stop your fat loss. But that's actually the problem, because once the alcohol is out of your system, your body goes back to what it knows, which is total calories and being in a calorie deficit. And alcohol can actually mess with your calorie deficit unless you follow this first rule I'm about to give you. And rule number 1 is what I call the trade. And let's just lay out, a beer might be between 100 to 150 calories. A glass of wine might be between 120 to 250 calories. A margarita, depending on how you get it, might be between 250— 300. And 350 calories. So all of these alcoholic drinks do have calories. And the mistake that I see a lot of clients make before they start working with us is they know these things have calories, but they don't really adjust their plan earlier or throughout the day to ensure they can still do this Without ruining their calorie deficit for that day. Or most people just think, oh well, I'm gonna have this, so my day is ruined, so why even try? And you can think of this like a checked bag at the airport. There is a specific weight limit that that checked bag can have. And what happens if there's 2 pounds over the weight limit? Are you gonna throw the entire bag No, you'll probably open the bag, take some things out, pull some things away so it fits within the weight limit. And that's exactly what you're gonna do with your alcohol and your total daily calories. The drinks are going in the checked bag, your diet, so we're gonna have to pull something out. And this may look like, let's say at breakfast you normally have 2 pieces of of toast. You now may have to go to 1 piece of toast to save yourself 50 to 100 calories at that specific meal. And then let's say at lunch you normally have 150 grams of potatoes. You may go to 100 grams of potatoes to again save yourself 50 to 150 calories. Depending on how you make your potatoes. And then let's say you normally have a snack that is, I don't know, 200 grams of popcorn as your snack. You may have to swap this out for 200 grams of watermelon to save yourself 100 calories for that snack. So between this, this, and this, you're pulling things out of the checked bag so that when this, this, and this roll around, you can fit in 2 glasses of wine at dinner and still be within your calorie deficit for that day. But if you didn't make the trade by decreasing portion sizes, decreasing calories the rest of the day, you wouldn't be able to fit these things in they would push you over your calorie deficit for the day and you would not make progress. But it's not inherently because of the alcohol, it's because you didn't make the trade. And notice how I didn't say cut out all of your food, fast all day long, eat no calories, because what would happen is you would just go into your social event and just eat and drink everything because you're starving. You pull back slightly from each meal, and you typically pull back either fat or carbs. You don't want to pull back a ton of protein because you need that protein. It helps you lose fat, and the protein will keep you more full so you don't end up overeating. But you pull back a little bit—100 calories there, 70 calories there—to make room for the couple of drinks that you want to have. And by the way, if you need to know exactly how many calories you should be eating per day, I have a free calorie calculator. Calculator. It's the same one I use with our online coaching clients. You can click the link in the description below to use that for yourself as well. But here's the issue with rule number 1. It doesn't matter if you make the trade if you don't know what you're going to have at the table. And this is something I call rule number 2, set the GPS. The problem that most people will make when they go to social events where there is alcohol, you just kind of think to yourself, I'll be good. I'll limit myself. I won't go too crazy. And then what happens? You get one drink, and the waiter comes by. Everybody's laughing, having a good time. Would you like another drink? Okay, sure. I'll have another drink. Everybody's laughing, having a good time. Now you're really kind of feeling it a bit. Somebody orders a bottle for the table. Somebody else gets a third drink. So now you get a third drink. You're feeling good. Alcohol lowers your inhibition, which means it basically lowers Your motivation and discipline and willpower to stay on track. And before you know it, you're 4 or 5 drinks in when you told yourself, I was gonna be good. That is a bad strategy if you're trying to lose fat. Instead, what you should do is set the GPS beforehand. And what I mean by this is you are going to pre-decide how many drinks you will have. be having. And bonus points if you can actually pre-track in your calorie counting app what drinks you are going to have. So are you going to have beer? Are you going to have a few glasses of wine? Is it going to be an Old Fashioned? I personally don't drink that much at all, so I don't really know any other like drink names other than that. But whatever you are going to have Pre-track it. This will force you to decide upfront what you're having, and you'll also know the calories you're going to be consuming from alcohol. Which then, what do you do? Rule number one: you make the trade. If you know it's going to be 350 calories, you know you have to trade 350 calories earlier in the day. To fit this in. What does this also do? It makes you— forces you to see how many calories it's going to be, and then you'll ask yourself, do you want to make this trade? Do you want to trade 500 calories of alcohol for 500 calories of food? For me personally, it's one of the reasons why I don't really drink. I like eating. I like eating a lot. So I don't want to waste 300 calories on alcohol when I could use that same 300 calories To eat food. And the best part about this is you are setting your GPS when you're in your driveway. This is when you're calm, you're not influenced, you know where you want to go, and you're going to make the route to get there versus trying to get there and then decide. When you're at the table, you're being influenced, your goals usually aren't top of mind, or at least it's very hard. hard to keep them top of mind and make the correct decisions. And so make the decision beforehand, set the GPS beforehand, and you'll have a much higher likelihood of still sticking to your calorie deficit while still enjoying yourself. And this is where you don't have to cut out everything, but you also can't just wing it and say, ah, well, I'll try my best. And the last part to this is you do get some bonus points, and it'll be much more likely you'll reach your goals if you not only pre-track your drinks, sure, but you pre-track the rest of your day. So what a lot of our clients do is, let's say they're going out to dinner on Saturday, they wanna have some food out, okay, they're gonna track their breakfast to know exactly what they're gonna eat, they're gonna track their lunch, they're gonna track their snacks, if any, that day, and then they're gonna track their drinks and dinner. And this is how, even let's say you start with the drinks and dinner, you'll be able to work backwards and know exactly how many calories you would be eating at each of these meals to be able to then still hit your calorie goal while enjoying yourself. So if you want to go above and beyond, I would pre-track your entire day, not just your drink. Now the first 2 rules are good, but here's the sneaky part. I've seen people make the trade. I've seen people pre-track their drinks. And still be up 4, 5, 6 pounds after a weekend of having some alcohol. And the crazy part is it had nothing to do with the alcohol. And that's what we'll be talking about in rule 3. And this is something I call the plus 1 rule. Let me ask you a question. When you go out, you have a couple of drinks. When is the last time you enjoyed a beer with a side of steamed broccoli or A side of cucumbers with lettuce. Rarely ever. When you're going out, you're being social, going to restaurants, watching games, you're typically snacking on higher calorie foods, whether it be wings, pizza, nachos. Not that these foods are bad, they're just higher in calories. And combined with the alcohol, which has calories, And it lowers your willpower, you're much more likely to rack up 1,000 calories of food. Even if you planned for the drinks, it's what comes along with the alcohol. It's kind of like if you RSVP'd for a party or a wedding and you had a plus one, the plus one was included. But if you brought 10 more people along with you, those people are not included. So it's gonna mess up the entire event. You planned for the alcohol, you planned to make the trades earlier in the day, but you didn't plan to have 800 calories of nachos along with it. Which, by the way, is so easy to do when you're out, you're social, you're just kind of picking at the appetizers on the plate. You'll rack these calories up without even knowing it. So to avoid bringing more than your plus one, We like to have our clients do one of two things. Number one, depending on when you're intending to drink the alcohol, a great rule I like to follow is to hit your protein goal before going out. So if you're going to go to a friend's house, you're going to go get a couple of drinks with your friends, hit your protein goal before you go out to eat. Again, if you don't know what your protein goal should be, use my free calorie calculator. It'll tell you exactly what that is. But this way you'll go out, you'll have your 200, 300, 400 calories of alcohol, but if you hit your protein goal, you're going to be way less hungry, so you're more likely to stick to the plan. And then number 2, you'll round out your daily calories because you would have allotted for these calories from drinks earlier if you followed rule 1. And rule 2. So that would be the best option, I would say. The second best option is maybe you're going to a day event, maybe you're going to your kid's birthday party, maybe you're going to one of your family events. If you can't kind of finish your day of eating, because that's really what we're trying to do here— before you go out, finish eating so all you do is have the alcohol because you already finished eating for the day— if you can't do that, you would then need to work in not only how many drinks are you gonna have, And yes, we would pre-track that. But then also you would have to make a rule that if you're going to drink and eat at the same time, number one, you have to have some source of protein at that meal. And number two, you have to have some sort of veggie at that meal. Because what does this do? Obviously, the protein will keep you full, the veggies will keep you full. And with the veggies and protein, you're typically choosing lower calorie options. That even if you can't track, track it perfectly, you will know if you get some sort of lean steak or pork chop or chicken or fish, it's gonna be lower calorie, higher protein than nachos or pizza. And then number 2, with the veggies, same thing. As long as you don't douse your veggies in like butter or oil, these will also be lower calories. And you'll know along with the drinks, you'll still be hitting your goal for that day. So, you're only bringing your plus 1. You're not bringing 10 other people to the party. And now, don't get me wrong. This rule works really well. But I also know what you're probably thinking which is like, well, Eric. What about all the other appetizers? What about what comes along when I'm eating out? It's really hard to stay on track. Don't worry. This next rule is going to help you. The problem that a lot of people will make when they're drinking alcohol and being social and eating out Is you can easily eat 1,000 calories from your entree alone. In fact, most meals, unless you go to like Cheesecake Factory, which side note, they had that Skinnylicious menu, which I think is a great choice. And so if you're ever at Cheesecake Factory, that's what you should do. It's what a lot of our clients do. Um, I just think they're a great restaurant, although the bread is really good, so you got to be mindful of that, but we'll talk about that. But a meal could be 1,000 calories. And then If you have 300 calories of alcohol and then you have 400 calories of the appetizer, and then you go to have dessert, which could be 500 to 1,500 calories, now for this entire event out, you easily could rack up 2,500 calories just at this one meal, at this one social outing. And most of you watching this, it's probably more than your daily calorie allotment would be. So what do we do? We are going to use The pick one of 3 rule. And the way you can think of this is if you have kids, think of a kid in a toy aisle. You know how like they'll pick one thing and then they want this too? Well, please, Dad, please, Mom, let's get this too. Can I have this too? And you're like, no, I already said no 10 times. The answer is no. You pick one and you're done. That's what this rule is going to be. So you are going to pick between Alcohol, what we've been talking about. Appetizer or dessert. You are going to pick one of these, not all 3, because like we said, your entrée is already— let's just say it's going to be 1,000 calories, and maybe it's 800, maybe it's 700, but also you're not cooking it, so you don't really know how much it's going to be. So a guesstimate of 1,000 calories is probably pretty accurate. So you're gonna have to pick between one of these things. And by the way, you're gonna have to be okay with— just like the kid who wants all the toys and you tell them, no, you can't have 7 different toys every time we go into a store— you as a grown adult, you're gonna have to tell yourself, no, I can't have all of these. And guess what? There's gonna be some sacrifice required If you want to be less fat, I'm sorry, this is how it works. You can't just eat, keep eating and drinking everything that you want and also expect to lose fat at the same time. There's going to have to be some sacrifices that are made along the way. But if let's just say roughly this would be 300 calories, 300 calories, and maybe 500 calories just for sake of argument. Okay. Now if you have 1,300 calories between your entree and your pick one of 3, you can make that work and still stick to your calorie deficit for the day. You can easily still make that happen unless you're eating 1,300 per day, which most of you should not be eating that little calories, but that's a separate conversation for a separate day. Versus if you had the 1,000 and then you had the 300, 300, 500, Now you're working up to 2,000+ calories, and like we said, very hard to still hit your calorie deficit for that day. So if you're going to pick this, you got to be okay with making a sacrifice not to pick this, not to pick this, and don't pout like a little kid about it, okay? And this rule is exactly what our client James used to drop over 45 pounds, especially in his stomach area. He still wanted to enjoy himself here and there, but he knew he was going to have to make some sacrifices. And so using this strategy when he went out to eat still allowed him to enjoy himself, but also still make really good fat loss progress. So those first 4 rules are going to get you through the event. But here's the thing, if you walk out of drinking the alcohol, being social, and you're hungover, tired, you're sleepy, that could then cause you to mess up the next few days. So here's how you're not going to mess up. The next few days. And this is a rule I like to call salt the roads. The problem with drinking alcohol, being social, is number one, alcohol is going to typically decrease sleep quality. If anybody wears like a Whoop or an Oura Ring, anytime you drink alcohol, you go into that sleep and your, your Oura Ring tells you, oh, your sleep was worse. Like, what happened? Your heart rate was higher, your deep sleep was lower. You just had less quality, less overall sleep, which the less sleep you get the next day, the less energy you have, the less recovered you are and feel potentially hungover, tired. All of these things can bleed into missing a workout, not really wanting to meal prep, not wanting to get up early, not wanting to go outside and get your steps and get your walks. And then now a Friday night turned into Saturday, I'm tired. Sunday, I'm tired. Monday, I have no food. I didn't meal prep. Now, I got to order out. Now, the entire week ahead is going to be chaotic and off track all because of that one night of you drinking alcohol. So, why I call this rule salt the roads is think about a snowstorm. If a snowstorm comes, it snows all day and then it's gone. The snowstorm could just be one day. But what happens the following days after? Maybe the roads are still covered in snow. Maybe it's icy where I live in Virginia for right now. Last year, we had a storm, but then there was ice for like 2 weeks. I couldn't— I couldn't get out of my driveway. I had to like— I was shoveling blocks of ice. And so, the next 2 weeks were affected by that 1 day. But if I would have salted my driveway. If the county you live in would have salted their roads, it would have been a lot easier just to plow the snow. There's no ice and everybody can get back to living their normal life. So, you have to do some prep work to make sure the snowstorm doesn't then cause you to ruin the next couple of days or a couple of weeks afterwards. And that's the same thing that you'll want to do If you know you're drinking alcohol, and how do you do this? Well, the first rule you would follow within rule five is hydration because one of the main components of alcohol is it's going to dehydrate you. So you want to make sure you stay properly hydrated. How do you do this? You could use some of those electrolyte packets. This is a really, really good time to use those. I actually have a company I work with. They're called Legion Athletics. They make an electrolyte packet. So I'm going to drop the link in the description of this video below. You can use my code ERIC at checkout. It'll get you buy one, get one half off anything else. And so if you do take supplements, you could take the electrolyte packet with creatine or the electrolyte packet with protein powder, like whatever. You can get buy one, get one half off. So you can use those electrolytes. And when would you use those? I would either use them the day of your drinking the alcohol, after, like when you get home, I would drink it after you have drunk the alcohol and/or the next morning after you have gotten done drinking. Because any one of those 3 times you'll be making sure you replenish your electrolytes. And when you are dehydrated, a couple things happen. Energy is lower, willpower is lower, you're less likely to go and do the things you need to do. But then also, when you're dehydrated, our bodies often think of that as hunger, so you'll be more likely to overeat if you are dehydrated, making you stay out of your calorie deficit. So hydration is a huge thing you need to make sure you're doing, even if you're having 1 or 2 drinks. Because that's the thing, any amount of alcohol is going to dehydrate you. Obviously, the more you drink, the more dehydrated you will be. But this is a super important one so you don't ruin the upcoming week. And then beyond the hydration that you should be doing, you should also be salting the roads with any sort of prep work. So this might mean if you know you're going to have some alcohol and kind of go out the next day, you might already have breakfast, lunch, and dinner already pre-made so that way you don't have to cook anything. This might mean you set an alarm and set a date to work out in the morning. I've seen a lot of our clients do this to where they know they're going to be working out at 8:00 AM. So number one, they can't go too crazy the night before, and number two, it forces them to get up and get their day started so they don't just lay around all day and then get into that kind of lazy mode where you're very easily more likely to not do the things that you know you need to do. So any sort of prep work along with hydration is going to make sure you salt your roads and you're more likely to see great progress. And by the way, if you're somebody who wants one-on-one personalized help, plan, and accountability so you can actually lose fat without having to cut out alcohol or all the foods that you enjoy, and you know having accountability is probably the key so you actually stay consistent, I run something called my 8-Week Fat Loss Challenge where you'll get paired up with a one-on-one coach who checks in all week to hold you accountable. We help build your nutrition plan to still incorporate alcohol and the foods that you enjoy. And we'll build you a personalized workout plan that actually fits into your schedule and your lifestyle. So if that sounds interesting, you can click the link in the description of this video to learn more about my 8-week fat loss challenge. And now if you're like, cool, Eric, this was really helpful. I want to lose fat and build muscle at the same time. How do I do that? Don't worry. I made a video covering exactly what you need to do. It will work for anyone. So watch this video coming up next.