“Heaven for the climate, and Hell for the company” – Mark Twain

My circle of concern for this notion is getting smaller by the day (shout out to Louis CK for this commentary). But it’s a hot topic, so I do have an opinion on it.

But seriously Louis CK is hilarious, here is a link to one of his video’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sA38IUPN6o

So back to booze – Basically anything in high consumption has the ability to induce weight gain. However, the calorie in a cheeky beverage is not the same as a calorie in a nutrient dense meal. All calories are technically the same amount of energy, but they all have vastly different effects on your hunger, hormones and energy expenditure.

Personally, if I drink more than two alcoholic drinks on an empty stomach my appetite control switch decides to take a vacation and I end up eating everything in sight, and quickly. So I try to make sure I eat properly that day to avoid overeating.

There are two very important things to be mindful of:

1. Number of drinks consumed

2. What food you eat while drinking alcohol

There is controversial research out there discussing all the ways the body is effected by alcohol, i.e some say insulin sensitivity increases, while others say the opposite. An overarching belief that I feel is most helpful without getting too nitty gritty, is that it’s better to eat food with alcohol – it will help prevent the alcohol from rushing to your blood stream quickly. The type of food consumed should be high protein/veg, low carb/fat. This is because protein is satiating and has muscle sparing properties that won’t impact muscle fatigue as much (prevents additional muscle soreness, limited negative effect on training performance the next day, reducing feel of “sluggishness”).

Bottom line: You can be healthy inside and out while having a moderate consumption of alcohol in your diet (YAY!).