The Bad News about Alcohol and Fat Burning

Daily alcohol consumption will slow or stop your results. The drawbacks are probably going to far outweigh any health benefits. Your liver can't metabolize alcohol and fat at the same time. It will always get rid of the toxic substance (alcohol) first. That means that as long as there's alcohol in your system you won't be burning any body fat. If you have one or two drinks, you might stall your fat loss for a few hours. If you have quite a few drinks, it might be as long as four days before you're metabolizing fat again.

Drinking also dehydrates you, raises cortisol levels (goodbye muscles), raises estrogen levels (hello hips), lowers inhibitions (pizza anyone?). Combine that with the fact that alcohol promotes abdominal fat storage (of all places!) and it's really not worth it, not even on free day, not if you're serious about making a major transformation.

If wine with dinner is part of your lifestyle, and you're not in any particular hurry to have abs like a cheese grater, you might experiment a little. See if you can have a glass of wine a few times a week and still be making progress. If it's really slow going, keep cutting back the number of drinks until you're satisfied with the level of your results. Of course, if you're wanting to radically transform yourself for a Body for Life challenge, or a tropical vacation, or a big date with a little black dress, forget the alcohol. It's the enemy.

Here are some links about alcohol's impact on muscle building and fat loss:

http://www.femalemuscle.com/q_a/question18.htm

http://www.teenbodybuilding.com/bigalcohol.htm

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/dean3.htm

http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/2253.html


from http://www.skwigg.com/id54.html