5 Ways alcohol can affect your diet...

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(5 Ways alcohol can affect…)

Weeks of weight watching and diet control can all go for a toss on a night out when you splurge on alcohol.

A few drinks does not just add those extra calories, but also induces hunger, affects sleep and influences your metabolism, thereby effectively ruining your diet plans. If you think that a drink or two can easily be made up for, read on to find out how alcohol can affect your diet.

Extra Calories

A can of beer contains about 154 calories and a martini contains about 250 calories. These calories have absolutely no nutritional value. The same is the case with other alcoholic drinks. These empty calories are not utilised by your body in any way and you end piling on the pounds.

Increases appetite

You may consider skipping a meal to make up for the extra calories you consume while drinking, but drinking on an empty stomach will only make you want to binge eat later to overcome that queasy feeling. Drinking also impacts your control over food and you can end up eating a lot more high-calorie comfort food.

Dehydration

Alcohol is known to induce water loss through increased urination. Through these fluids, the body loses important minerals, which are needed to maintain the fluid balance in the body, thereby causing dehydration. Apart from that, salty food like peanuts and chips that you find at bars induces thirst, which will make you drink more. Dehydration can make you feel sick and will make you crave for more food, thus creating a vicious circle.

Slows metabolism

Alcohol can slowdown your metabolism by about 70 per cent. This means that drinking decreases your body's ability to burn fat. Your body will begin to focus on flushing out all those empty calories in the alcohol and ignore all the food you have eaten, which results in weight gain.

Increases body fat

Food and juices are easily digested by your digestive system but alcohol is quickly absorbed by the stomach and small intestine and then delivered to the brain and liver. Alcohol is now converted into fats by the liver. This fat is stored in your body, which eventually causes weight gain.http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-12-18/diet/45336772_1_calories-weight-gain-metabolism