If you enjoy having an alcoholic drink regularly, you may have wondered at some point whether drinking makes you fat. Drinking alcohol does indeed have a noticeable correlation with gaining weight.
In this article, we take a special look at the whiskey and consider findings of whether drinking whiskey makes you fat or helps you to lose weight.
Does Whiskey Make You Gain Weight?
The weight you gain mainly depends on how much whiskey you take in a day, as well as your general lifestyle, diet, overall health, and whether you are obese. In addition, if you have any calorie-rich food along with whisky, you may gain further weight.
Vegetables and fruits typically have far fewer calories, as long as they are not prepared in a way that adds calories like with fried vegetables or candied fruits.
How to Calculate the Number of Calories in Whisky?
It is not easy to calculate the number of calories you intake when drinking whiskey. In addition, you may not calculate the amount of sugar and mixers you add along with the whiskey. Let us look at these additives.
Residual Sugars
Producing whiskey involves the fermentation of sugar content in grains. Grains like malt are mainly used for whiskey as it gets easily converted to sugar. Most of the sugar content is consumed by yeast present. Most of the sugar content is lost during the distillation process, but whiskey still contains some sugar content.
Mixers
When you mix your whiskey with some other drink, you are adding more calories to it. Sodas, for instance, can contain a substantial amount of sugar, which equates to calories.
Nature of Consumption
So does whisky make you gain weight? If you drink whiskey occasionally or once a week, you generally would not have to worry about weight gain. Moderate consumption may not cause any weight gain at all.
However, if you consume a bottle of whiskey every day, then you are likely to gain weight. There are other factors you need to consider along with alcohol consumption, as weight gain also depends on your diet, lifestyle and any health issues you may have.
Alcohol and Fat
The alcohol content in the whiskey does not make you gain weight. The alcohol is mostly digestible, processed, and is eliminated from your body.
What remains is the sugar content and mixers that you have with whiskey. This can get converted to fat. Almost all the whiskey brands have some mixers and sugar content in them. In addition, it may have some added colors and flavors that can cause you to develop fat.
Thus, it is essential to look at the nature of your alcohol consumption. When you digest the alcohol, it produces some derivatives. These are harmful to your body, and your body needs to get rid of such harmful toxins.
So your body first metabolizes the alcohol in your body and eliminates it. The food and other beverages that you might have with the alcohol remain untouched for several hours. These then get converted to fat.
The sugar content, oil, and salt there may not get metabolized in the body. It may take some time to metabolize the remaining derivatives from the body. This depends on your alcohol consumption.
The Best Way to Consume Whiskey
Do you know your body can metabolize alcohol content every hour and eliminate the toxins quite efficiently?
If you have one peg of alcohol or whiskey every hour, you will not gain weight. But consuming a bottle all at once may cause you to gain weight. If you are going to consume a lot of alcohol at once, avoid having food that is rich in calories. Instead, try eating calorie-free and nutritious food with alcohol intake. Try to avoid fried foods and also sweets and colored foods.
Consuming alcohol makes you hungry as well. You may want to eat even if you are not hungry. What you can do is skip the meal you have after you have had enough alcohol.
Does Drinking Alcohol Slow Down Weight Loss?
Sometimes occasional drinking can also lead to weight gain and add calories to your diet.
A bottle of beer has around 200 calories, and a glass of wine has 153 calories approximately. If you have cocktails, it adds 175 calories.
But it is not just the alcohol that makes you gain weight. The plate of nachos and peas you have along with the alcohol can add a few extra pounds too. According to some studies, when you have a lot of alcohol intake, your diet choices go down gradually. It means it is easy to have high-fat content food along with drinking alcohol.
Parting Words
Alcohol does not make you gain weight in all instances. It is the calorie intake you have with alcohol that makes you fat. You can eat healthy all day and avoid calorie-rich foods so you can consume calories afterward and enjoy a balance.
It is an excellent approach to having a healthy lifestyle along with drinking alcohol. Have a proper plan, and you will be fit and fine. You may even lose some weight if you properly plan your diet.
