Does alcohol inhibit fat burning? Is there some truth in the famous “beer belly”? Find out if alcohol is holding you back from your dream body.

You may have somehow learned that alcohol is a central nervous system antidepressant that can cause intoxication and harm you in any way, including if you are a bodybuilder looking for a figure.

Later, you probably learned that alcohol can also boost your self-confidence, help you relax, and turn you into a very good dancer!

Alas, the story doesn’t end there.

Despite the pleasure you can get from drinking this liquid, which gives you “courage”, it is important to know that excessive consumption for a long time can lead to a number of serious health consequences, such as liver damage or addiction.

Plus, if you pay attention to your belly size, seven calories per gram of alcohol and their effect on fat storage can wreak havoc on your body.

In other words, if you want to build an elite physique, chain beer is probably not the best way to do it.

But you already knew that.

However, you may not know how alcohol affects your body and how it might affect your ability to burn fat.

Drink the knowledge and study the effect of alcohol on achieving your goals instead!

Alcohol, scientific shot

How deeply your body can express it, alcohol is a toxin.

Imagine that you are digesting food, assimilating it, and the storage system is like a large dashboard with many buttons. This metabolic console has a large red button labeled “pause”.

When you drink alcohol, your body pushes this “pause” button.

Result

As a result, the regulation of the food you eat and how your body uses it to produce energy is stalled, giving priority to alcohol processing.

Once consumed, alcohol (ethanol) breaks down into acetaldehyde and is converted into the so-called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). You wouldn’t have guessed, but this process is not good for the storage of nutrients and for your body.

The end product resulting from the decomposition of alcohol is acetyl-CoA, which is a molecule actively involved in the synthesis of fatty acids or the creation of fat molecules.

Excessive accumulation of acetyl-CoA can lead to increased production of fatty acids, which ultimately leads to increased fat storage. In addition, an increase in NADH (caused by alcohol breakdown) signals your body to have a lot of energy (calories).

The body naturally wants to store this energy, which means that an increase in NADH also promotes the formation of fatty acids and their storage.

Over time, these molecules create changes in your body to prioritize the storage of fatty acids.

Of course, this change is quite a challenge if you’re trying to achieve a lean / lean super physique.

I don’t want to be a spoiler. Trust me, I love drinking a good drink just like any other. That’s one thing, but we shouldn’t ignore some of the circulating data.

For example, in a groundbreaking study published in the Journal of Clinical Research, researchers observed the effects of alcohol consumption on carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism. These researchers evaluated the intake of fatty acids and glucose over 4 hours. To do this, they injected glucose and insulin simultaneously into subjects IV (intravenously).

The researchers then took blood samples at 0, 30 minutes, and every 15 minutes. minutes later to determine how subjects used their fuel.

Two hours after the start of the experiment, the glucose injection was replaced with an alcohol injection equivalent to 2 glasses of standards. After the infusion of alcohol, the rate of fat oxidation decreased by 87%!

So, instead of using fat as fuel, the subjects’ bodies began to use alcohol as energy. Fat oxidation levels remained low for more than 4 hours after the alcohol infusion, which is bad news for those looking to burn fat.

While the rate at which everyone’s body weakens and gets rid of alcohol varies greatly, it is probably more reasonable to keep in mind that even a small amount of alcohol will remain in your body long enough to trigger fat breakdown.

The same researchers also administered alcohol and glucose to patients at the same time. Many of us enjoy eating some carbohydrates to snack on with our drinks, and this should be said: The results showed that the simultaneous infusion of alcohol and glucose lowers the rate of fat oxidation to about 0 milligrams per minute! Thus, alcohol + glucose completely limits fat loss.

Usually, when you accompany your beer with chips, you reduce your ability to burn fat to almost zero.
If you regularly combine snacks and alcohol, you will be faced with a surplus of calories that will therefore not be used. This means that these calories are more likely to be stored as fat.

In general, in addition to trying to build a physique, storing too much fat is bad for your health.

Even a small amount of alcohol will temporarily stop fat burning.

Research also shows that alcohol consumption causes a marked decrease in fat burning and, conversely, an increase in its storage. If you continue to abuse alcohol for an extended period of time, it can become nearly impossible to start losing fat.

While moderate alcohol consumption has been shown to bring some minor health benefits, such as lowering blood pressure, it is simply impossible to get what you want if you overeat and drink alcohol. Personally, I hardly drink it, there is no secret.

Therefore, I advise you either not to drink alcohol anymore, or not to exceed 1-2 alcoholic drinks 2 times a week and not to snack in parallel, like a pig.

To take care of your health through nutrition, I advise you to subscribe to this blog about bodybuilding and nutrition.