I came back from holiday a couple of weeks ago with a strong sense that I needed to detox! Today is the eleventh day without an alcoholic drink. That’s probably the longest stretch in over 20 years that I’ve gone without booze. Has it made any difference to me? Yes it has. I’ve noticed two significant changes: my quality of sleep has improved and I’ve lost weight.
If you read my sleep blog a few weeks ago you’ll already know how important a goodnights sleep is for weight loss and hormone balance, but what’s the impact of drinking alcohol?
Well, there are seven calories in every gram of alcohol and your body can’t store the energy or calories that come from alcohol because it doesn’t recognise it as a food source. So, essentially, when you drink you are stopping your body from being able to burn fat until the alcohol is out of your system.
On average it takes approximately 1 hour to get a standard unit of alcohol out of your system. So if you have 2 or 3 or maybe 4 standard drinks in a night then for 2 or 3 or 4 hours your body is NOT burning fat.
Now, if you enjoy a drink, I’m not suggesting total abstinence. I just want you to understand how it will affect your weight loss efforts.
If you’re enjoying my blogs why not connect with me on twitter – there’s lots of good stuff there too!
