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Have you ever felt like you're doing everything right , but those stubborn pounds just won't budge ? Well , you are not alone . But have you considered that your drinking could be the silent saboteur in your weight loss journey ? Well , today we're going to be diving into the three shocking ways that alcohol might just be keeping you from reaching your gold weight .
The second one might just have you rethinking your weekend plans . So stay tuned while we dive deep into the science to help you not only on your alcohol free journey , but also on your weight loss journey . Now , part number one is that alcohol calories are additive to food .
So the first thing that you need to understand is that our body does not adjust our appetite to compensate for calories from alcohol . Our alcohol calories simply get added to those that we already get from food . So let me break this down a little bit . So , for starters , a lot of the alcohol that we consume is just before or during a meal .
Let's say a meal is 600 calories and a glass of wine is 150 . If we drink the glass of wine with our meal , we don't reduce our food consumption to 450 calories , so we consume as normal , or 600 of them plus the 150 calories from the wine . For whatever reason , alcohol does not trigger the normal satiety mechanisms like other sources of energy .
This is what scientists mean when they say that there is no compensation mechanism and that calories from alcohol are additive to food . For regular food , calories before the main meal are compensated to a larger or lesser degree . For example , if you have a snack before your main meal , then you're likely to have less of the meal .
With alcohol , this does not happen . Not only that , but there is also evidence that alcohol stimulates our appetite . In other words , we get the full calories from the drink , the calories from our regular food consumption , and then some on account of alcohol stimulating our appetite . Which brings us to the next point , part 2 . Meet Grelin .
So Grelin is a hormone that is primarily produced in the stomach . Discovered just over 20 years ago , in 1999 , scientists soon realized that this hormone is critical to the regulation of numerous physiological processes .
Research quickly revealed that Grelin could stimulate the release of growth hormone , regulate the movement of our gut and the secretion of gastric acid , as well as the metabolism of glucose and the sensation of taste . A picture also began to emerge of this hormone being intimately involved in the regulation of appetite and meal initiation .
So , for example , administering Grelin to animals makes them eating conditions where they would normally not do so . On the flip side , artificially inhibiting Grelin reduces food consumption . Now scientists also found that Grelin levels rise in animals that are starved , but quickly fall when the animals are fed .
Findings like these gave Grelin its popular name as the quote hunger hormone . In 2005 , just a few years after its discovery , we got the first evidence that alcohol interferes with the Grelin system . A team of researchers out of Germany compared 118 alcoholic patients to 24 healthy controls .
Some of the heavy drinkers were still consuming alcohol and some had stopped drinking 1-3 days prior , but in fact , compared to the healthy controls , both groups of heavy drinkers showed increased Grelin levels , and the heavy drinkers that had just started to abstain from drinking showed the highest Grelin levels of all .
So it became apparent very early on that alcohol interferes with the Grelin system and this is potentially linked to waking Now . It's important to note , however , that the correlation between alcohol intake and Grelin levels is not always positive . Other researchers found that in healthy people that drink occasionally , alcohol seems to actually suppress Grelin levels .
Now this squares up with alcohol's appetite stimulating property , which we discussed earlier , is not yet clear . At part 3 , enter leptin . Just like some hormones that have associated with increased appetite , others have the complete opposite effect . One of these is leptin , from the Greek word leptos , meaning thin . Now , leptin is basically a satiety signal .
It signals to the brain that we've had enough , that it's time to stop eating . Whereas Grelin is primarily synthesized in the stomach , leptin is produced by fat cells , so this serves as a kind of control mechanism . The fatter that we become , the more leptin is produced , acting as a negative feedback mechanism to control our eating and weight .
In 2001 , a team of researchers out of Sweden set out to see how alcohol affects our leptin levels . They recruited 14 healthy volunteers and administered alcohol to them at various times of the day and at various intervals . They actually found that alcohol acutely inhibited the secretion of leptin , in other words , it lowered leptin levels .
This effect was independent of the time of the day that alcohol was consumed and lasted for up to eight hours afterwards . Now it's not clear exactly how alcohol affects leptin in this way . It might be indirectly through its effects on other hormones , or it might have a direct action on the fat cells .
Whatever the reason , it now seems very likely that at least part of alcohol's stimulating effects on the human appetite are mediated via its effects on the leptin system . Thanks for checking out the Stop Drinking podcast by SoberClear .
If you want to learn more about how we work with people to help them stop drinking effortlessly , then make sure to visit wwwsoberclearcom .