Binge Eating, the devil or a useful tool?

Lets be realistic, if you're on a diet, you're probably on it because you love food, maybe even a little too much. The fact is we've all been there, on a diet, uncontrollable urges kick in and we just eat everything in sight. The next few days are made up of guilty feelings and poor attempts of overexercising/undereating to try and control the damage before the urges kick in again and the whole process repeats itself, or the diet ends.

It doesn't have to be like this! While it is expected that a binge can easily go hundreds, even thousands of calories over the intended amount for the day, there are ways to control and prevent the damage so that one does not feel compelled to punish themselves for their gluttony. In fact in lower % bodyfat individuals it is even beneficial to overeat once in a while, sometimes even several times a week at extreme leanness (under 10%). Here are the benefits of a letting your inner fat kid out -

1. It provides a temporary boost in metabolism, even more so in high carb binges (1).
2. It provides a boost in Leptin, this is specifically a problem for people already lean that are dieting to lose the last few %'s of bodyfat or people on a prolonged diet. Low Leptin is effectively the 'starvation' mode of the body where the priority is keeping the body going. This is accompanied by intense hunger and negatively effects things like libido and metabolism.
3. The temporary boost in Leptin is essentially 'tricking' the body back into homeostasis so that fat loss can continue at a normal rate. This is because the body is assuming that the calorie intake is now back on track to regain that lost weight.
4. It's a huge psychological release. Once you get past the mental barrier that you're eating far more than you normally would and relax about it, you begin to realise that it makes continuing with your diet far less stressful and a lot less demanding on your will power.
5. At the end of most diets, people plan a binge to release themselves from the diet, this normally lasts for several days and results in undoing a lot of the work of a diet. By including them into your diet you're setting yourself up for a much easier transition into maintenance mode at the end of the diet.

Preparation

 

So now you're sitting there drooling with images of pizzas and that great genetics ice cream on your mind, just wait a second before you begin to plan your feast as there's a few things to bear in mind -

1. The day before the binge try to eat mostly protein, to use a 2000kcal 40% protein 30% carb 20% fat macronutrient diet as an example, I would attempt to eat 200g protein/50g carb/50g fat which comes to a total of 1450 calories the day before the binge. Only do this the day before the binge, if you have starved yourself leading up to the binge you will eat far more.
2. Fasting as much as possible prior to the binge is also beneficial. I strongly recommend this over doing exhaustive amounts of cardio to deplete glycogen stores. This just sets you up to eat even more on your binge as your body will sense a huge energy deficit and in response to this lower Leptin levels further unless you are heavily overweight (2).
3. Eat some protein on the day of the binge a few hours before the feast, this will effect your satiety and result in you eating less. If at a buffet, prioritise high protein/veg foods as this will also result in you eating less. The higher % of protein of the binge, the less fat gain there will be.

Post-Binge

Post-binge you're feeling bloated, the scales have gone up several lbs (don't worry if this happens it's more than likely sodium/water bloat if the steps above have been followed and will dissipate in a few days) and you now wonder what to do to control the damage. Here's what you do -

1. DO NOT go and do excessive amounts of cardio in an attempt to burn off the calories, this will greatly deplete your now topped up muscle glycogen and make the next week of dieting much harder.
2. DO NOT feel guilty or bad about it, the benefits of the odd binge often outweigh the potential bad sides!
3. Continue with your diet as if nothing happened.

When to binge

When and how often depends on your level of leanness. You can look at a rough guide here, these are the maximum amounts that I recommend and what has worked for me and my clients.

18%+ untrained - Once/month

18%+ trained - Bi-Weekly

12-18% - Weekly to Bi-weekly

10-12% - Weekly

<10% - Several times/week

Personally on my last diet, I had one day/week once I got below 12% where I ate double the calories that I normally would while dieting. If anything, this sped up my diet due to the hormonal benefits and made it a lot easier to deal with the hunger. The temptation to cheat on my diet also became a lot easier to handle because I knew that I would be able to eat until I'm full and bloated in a few days time regardless of what happens. If you have problems with uncontrollable binging on your diets try incorporating these guidelines and you may just find those urges disappear.

1. Pubmed (1979) Dietary-induced alterations in thyroid hormone metabolism during overnutrition. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/500814

2. Pubmed (1999) Regulation of body weight in humans. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10221987

Why you shouldn't be afraid of Carbohydrates!

Carbohydrates are, in fact, not quite the same as eating lumps of fresh lard as the media would like you to believe. Influential phrases such as 'NO CARBS BEFORE MARBS' are gleefully preached as if going near a source of carbohydrates will instantly cause you to gain fat. Now I don't know many people who don't love carbs, but I do know many people who would love to just eat them and diet. The problem is they're stuck in the thought that eating carbs and losing weight are like separate dimensions. While I've gone over this quite in depth in the IIFYM blogs (read them before this one if you haven't), people I've spoken to about this still appear to be overly confused by carbohydrates and their general purpose/role in the body. Here are 4 incredibly common myths.

MYTH 1 – CARBOHYDRATES MAKE YOU FAT

SOURCE – NO CARBS BEFORE MARBS AND VARIOUS OTHER CELBRITY/MAGAZINE STUPIDITY

Lets take a brief look again at the metabolism of carbohydrates (1) -

1. You eat them, they're tasty, you wonder why on earth you stopped eating them.
2. Digestion begins in the mouth and they get broken down further in the stomach.
3. In the small intestine they get broken down into glucose/galactose/monosaccharides and then absorbed directly into the bloodstream.
4. The pancreas is informed that the blood sugar levels have risen and releases insulin*
5. Insulin transports the glucose to the cells that require it (mostly muscular cells)/liver.

Now where in this chain of events do you see 'HOLY SHIT I'VE EATEN A CARBOHYDRATE BETTER GET A NEW WARDROBE AND PREPARE FOR OBESITY TO SET IN'. Wait, you don't. For de novo lipogenesis (conversion of carbohydrates to fat), you must consume so many carbohydrates you become completely saturated with glycogen, this is actually quite a rare thing to happen.

Lets look at it in a metaphorical way, your glycogen stores can be seen as a bucket -

This is where people begin to believe the no carb dietary myths simply because their inactivity is causing their muscular stores (80% of the bucket) to be untouched. They are untouched because the body prefers to use fatty acids as fuel when in a state of inactive/low activity (2). Consequently you're not going to gain bodyfat eating any type of carbohydrates unless you go on some truly excessive binge or do no exercise.

CONCLUSION – IT TAKES A LOT MORE THAN JUST EATING TO STORE CARBS AS FAT

*Insulin is often cited as the fat storage hormone, it's main purpose is transporting glucose. What it does do is inhibits glucagon and the resulting lipolysis (breakdown of fat) until blood sugar levels return to normal. Insulin is not a fat storage hormone in times of normal carbohydrate consumption as you are led to believe, it is a transport hormone.

MYTH 2 – YOU CAN ONLY EAT LOW GI FOODS OR YOU'LL GET FAT/DIABETES

SOURCE – FOOD COMPANIES

So now you know you won't gain any weight with carbohydrates, lets dispel the thought that eating a diet of wholemeal bread and fruit is healthy whereas haribo and white bread will cause rapid fat gain. This is down to the glycemic index (GI, 3) and the erroneous way it has been pushed to the public by the media. Here are my issues with it -

1. The GI index of foods was worked out in a study using fasted subjects and using pure carbohydrate sources. I don't know anyone who eats a diet of 100% carbohydrate sources while fasted. As soon as fat/protein or even food that's still digesting enters the equation, it completely changes the glycemic response (blood sugar levels) to eating said foods. This alone completely discredits the GI scale.
2. The GI index does not take into account quantities at all. If you think eating 5 bananas (110g of carbohydrates roughly) is going to have a lesser glycemic load on the body than eating a packet of fruit gums (40g of carbohydrates) because of the scale saying they aren't absorbed as quickly, then you have been misinformed.
3. The human body itself is incredibly sensitive to small changes in blood sugar and will regulate it very fast and efficiently with insulin and glucagon.

The conclusion of this being that the science behind carbohydrate metabolism does NOT support the notion that eating 'bad' carbs will make you gain fat any more so than 'good' carbs, nor does it support the notion that rapid increases in blood sugar will happen by eating faster absorbing carbs. Because to be quite honest, unless you're eating a diet consisting of 100% carbohydrates, you're not going to notice any difference between white refined bread and brown wholemeal bread for example, other than the mineral/fibre intake.

CONCLUSION – A CARB IS A CARB, 1G=4KCAL REGARDLESS

MYTH 3 – NO CARBS BEFORE BED

SOURCE – MAGAZINES/SUPPLEMENT COMPANIES

Your metabolism does not change into a fat storage machine over night. The processes are the same, the rumours are pushed by companies/magazines to sell various products that promise to repartition the nutrients. If your 'bucket' is not full when you go to sleep it's not going to suddenly overflow, to test this theory, please purchase a bucket, put some water in it and then tell me if it somehow overflows while you're sleeping.

CONCLUSION – YOUR BUCKET WON'T OVERFLOW

MYTH 4 – MY METABOLISM IS SLOW I CAN'T EAT CARBS

SOURCE – OBESE PEOPLE TALKING RUBBISH/BLAMING GENETICS

Leptin is a hormone and like most hormones it is governed by homeostasis. The body wants to keep body fat at an optimal set point, not shredded with striated deltoids and most certainly not obese.

This is where leptin comes in. Leptin is produced in fat cells, so essentially the more body fat you have, the higher your leptin levels will be and the lower your appetite should be. This is also a reason why woman generally eat less than men because of naturally higher fat levels.

The issue here is that chronically obese people have so much leptin that they become leptin resistant, resulting in eating ridiculous amounts of food to feel 'full' and just worsening the problem. The other side to this is ridiculously lean individuals such as a competitive bodybuilder after a show having an insatiable appetite. This is because the body attempts to restore itself to a homeostatic amount of body fat, this is not ripped with striated deltoids, nor is it obese with several chins. The body actively attempts to prevent this happening with the hormone leptin.

What people like to say however, is that they got obese because of eating carbohydrates and having a slow metabolism due to genetics.

 

If this was a photo, that may be true. The reason people get obese and end up in the leptin resistant hole in the first place is down to poor dietary choices combined with disproportionate amounts of diety fat (basically over consuming food). Often combined with lack of activity.

Another note to make on the subject of leptin, low carb dieting (4) tends to reduce the short term output in Leptin which can lead to large amounts of hunger. This is why refeeds and carb cycling tend to be popular at lower levels of body fat (<10%). It's also why large uncontrolled binges tend to happen on low carbohydrate diets, even more so when alcohol is involved and the impulse to eat an entire loaf of bread at the end of the night overcomes logical thinking and leads to a bit of fat gain.

CONCLUSION – YOU ARE OVERWEIGHT BECAUSE YOU EAT TOO MUCH, NOT BECAUSE 'GENETICS', YOUR METABOLIC 'DISORDER' IS MORE THAN LIKELY A BYPRODUCT OF YOUR WEIGHT

A short anecdote of my own experience of carbs and dieting is that I was able to drop about 70lb, from an obese state, to under 10% bodyfat without the exclusion of any carbohydrates at any point in my transformation. The last stages of the dieting phase were full of wonderful cheesecakes, chocolate and various other things that one would just simply not think to include on a diet. How? IIFYM!

To conclude, the thing that matters the most is ENERGY BALANCE (calories in<calories out). If your bucket overflows, it will spill into fat storage. If not, enjoy your tastier new way of eating. 

 

1. Self Nutrition Data (2012) Glycemic Index [Online]. Available at: http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/glycemic-index

2. Ripptoe, M. and Kilgore, L. (2010) Practical Programming for Strength Training. 2^nd Edn. Aasgard Company

3. Raw Food Explained (2012) How Carbohydrates are Digest and used by the body [Online]. Available at: http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/carbohydrates/how-carbohydrates-are-digested-and-used-by-the-body.html

4. Pubmed (2000) Twenty-four-hour leptin levels respond to cumulative short-term energy imbalance and predict subsequent intake. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10946866

5. Pubmed (1997) Effect of fasting, refeeding, and dietary fat restriction on plasma leptin levels.[Online]. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9024254

IIFYM Part 2 - Fad diets & incorporating IIFYM

Is IIFYM a fad diet? No it is not, IIFYM is an approach to dieting that removes the pain, the restrictions and generally makes dieting a far easier part to fit into your life. It's a diet that lets you lose weight without having to give up food that you love the taste of. Most importantly it is completely sustainable once the diet is over unlike fad diets such as -

• No/low carb diets (atkins)

• Paleo diets

• Baby food diets

• Liquid diet
• The latest and greatest celebrity diet

There's many more but you get the idea. The important thing to note about these diets is the following -

• They are pretty bland to follow
• If you attempted to stick to them for life you would go insane
• They are a quick fix, not a lifestyle change
• Last and most importantly, the majority of people on a fad diet regain the weight very quickly once they are 'done' with the diet by rewarding themselves with... FOOD to make up for the blandness and hardship of said diet.

A large majority of fad diets are based upon eating low amounts of carbohydrates and this greatly contributes to the irrational reasons that carbohydrates are feared and associated with rapid weight loss/gain. The rapid weight loss/gain that occurs is because of the water retention that comes with storage of carbohydrates (glycogen). When 1g of glycogen is stored, so is 3g of water, most people can store between 500-600g of glycogen, this alone is enough for you to see a weight loss of 2-3lb within a day just by exhausting these stores. How much of this is fat however? Pretty much none of it. How effective are these diets in the long term? No more so than a balanced diet that allows freedom, but only those with a huge amount of will power will be able to keep the weight off after a fad diet. Ever notice how most celebrities gain and lose weight like a YO-YO on these diets?

Two more things of note involving carbohydrates and bodyweight -

1. Those over eating on fast food carbohydrates or smothering their food in salt will also most likely have higher sodium levels than usual too, this means they will lose even more weight as sodium also effects water retention levels.
2. Low carbohydrate diets also negatively effect the levels of the hormone Leptin. Leptin is the hormone responsible for regulating fat storage.

How to incorporate IIFYM into your life -

1. Determine a calorie goal for the day
2. IF IT FITS IN YOUR MACROS (the calorie goal) EAT IT, this can be sweets/mcdonalds/your comfort food of choice.
3. If you go over calories for one day, reduce them for the next.

Providing the correct amount of calories are selected, you will lose weight regardless of the type of food you eat. The only thing you must do, is eat the correct amount of calories and macronutrients. One of the best macronutrient splits is roughly 40% protein 30% carbohydrates 30% fat, this works out to about 200g protein 150g carbohydrates 66g fat for a 2000 calorie diet. This is great for retaining lean body mass while dropping as much fat as possible due to the high protein count, it is also likely to be far more filling with a lot less calories because of this.

The calculations below are calorie amounts that will work for a large majority of people. I can't emphasise enough that the most important thing with IIFYM is the calories.

Calories to eat per day on IIFYM =

- Dirty Bulk – Bodyweight in lbs x 18

- Lean Bulk – Bodyweight in lbs x 15

- Maintenance – Bodyweight in lbs x 12

- Weight Loss – Bodyweight in lbs x 10

Multiply the total calories by 0.8 if you're a woman.

To lose 1 lb/week you need a 3500kcal deficit, if you are not losing weight then lower the calories further.

One last thing to bear in mind when following an IIFYM diet, you still need to account for vital minerals and such, through supplements or vegetables/fruit etc. While IIFYM for weight loss will be identical with 'clean' vs 'good' calories and you could even go as far as to eat McDonalds every day providing it is correctly accounted for within the calorie limits, this is still not good for your overall health.

An ending note to make your life even easier, http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ is great for tracking calories and most phones also have a handy little app that syncs with the website that allows you to scan the bar code of most items that you can buy in a super market. If you are familiar with weight watchers points and don't like to count calories, substitute the calorie values with 1 point per 50 calories. This works out to about 40 points for 2000 calories and will provide very similar results.

IIFYM Part 1 - What are macronutrients?

IIFYM – If it fits in your macros

Macros – Your daily calorie intake broken down into the macronutrients, protein/carbohydrates/fats

To begin with here is a brief explanation of macronutrients and how they are metabolised.

Protein – 4kcal per gram – used to build/repair muscle and provide essential amino acids

Protein provides the body with amino acids that are used for a large array of bodily functions, one of note being the repair/building of muscle. Some amino acids however can metabolise to energy but this is only used in situations of low carbohydrate/fat availability.

This means you can pretty much eat as much protein as you want and I advise you to do so also. Not only does it have a great satiety value but it'll also retain lean muscle mass far better than any other macro nutrient when it comes to dieting. Protein itself cannot metabolise to fat, the excess protein is simply excreted as CO2 and urea.

Carbohydrates – 4kcal per gram – primary energy source

The most confused macronutrient of them all, one that people cower in fear at the thought of eating with such phrases as 'no carbs before marbs' being thrown around. Carbs are the body's primary source of energy. The media likes to advise you to eat complex carbs over simple carbs, but in terms of caloric value it makes absolutely no difference at all, if the calories are the same you will not start losing weight by eating brown bread over white bread.

The metabolism of carbohydrates is quite simple, after digestion the blood sugar levels will rise causing insulin to be released. The insulin will either transport the glucose in the blood to the cells that need it immediately for energy, or to muscle cells or the liver to be stored as glycogen*. If there is too much glucose needing to be stored, lipogenesis takes place and the carbohydrate is converted and stored in fat cells, i.e. fat gain.

Fats (lipids) – 9kcal per gram – energy/fatty acid source

Fats are the most dense source of energy. The fatty acids that are provided by fats are essential to many bodily functions. One of note being the production of essential hormones such as testosterone, thus having a low fat diet is associated with poor mood, low libido and depression. Stored fat will be used as a source of energy when rapid energy consumption is not required or is unobtainable due to low glycogen saturation levels.

When fat is consumed it is sent to the liver where it is processed (lipogenesis) and released into the blood stream as triglycerides. Your fat cells will happily store the triglycerides until your body needs them.

Where does IIFYM come in?

IIFYM is essentially a form of portion control that lets you eat the kind of foods you want, when you want, how you want. When it comes to losing weight the only essential factor is calories in vs calories out, there is no other factor that comes into it. If you are not losing weight, you are eating too much, plain and simple. The most common reason for not losing weight this way is simply delusion and the inability to correctly count portion sizes.

The second part of this article will address fad diets, why they don't work and how to incorperate IIFYM into your lifestyle.

*Beware of overconsuming fructose, while this is not a huge issue in the UK and nor is it an issue with eating actual fruit because of the low fructose volume. Low quality sauces/sweets tend to be manufactured with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Fructose is processed in the liver and stored there, if the liver is full it will undergo lipogenesis and go directly to fat cells. This is not a problem with eating 5-10 pieces of fruit but when you're eating high HFCS products it will become a source of rapid weight gain. So beware when buying 20p bottles of ketchup and sweets that aren't a main brand!

Alcohol Part 2 - Rumours & Misconceptions

Part 2 is a conclusion to the short series on alcohol and a quick look at some of the most common rumours/misconceptions that get thrown around when it comes to drinking.

Testosterone levels

Alcohol is portrayed by the fitness industry as a demonic substance that will immediately have huge negative effects on your training if a drop of the stuff is touched. A lot of this is due to the negative effect on testosterone that is said to happen when alcohol is drank. However this is not the case, a study conducted found that a small dosage of alcohol (1) produced a small increase in testosterone over placebo subjects. Also in a study done on moderate drinkers, (30-40g alcohol/day, or about 4-5 drinks) over 3 weeks the reduction in testosterone for the males was only 6.8% (2), for females there was no effect. This is from drinking every day for a long period of time, it goes very much against the portrayal of alcohol as a testosterone destroying substance.

Training recovery

Similar to the rumours portrayed about testosterone, alcohol is also said to greatly impair training recovery. There is very little evidence to support that normal amounts of drinking combined with normal levels (not excessive/overtraining) of training have any correlation with decreased performance levels (3).The findings of studies mostly acknowledge that recovery and the protein synthesis that accompanies it is only greatly effected by chronic drinking (4), although it is known to have a minute effect on protein synthesis when consumed regardless.

Eating before drinking

Many times before you go out your parents will tell you to eat something or drink some milk to line your stomach so you don't get as drunk. When alcohol is ingested, 80% of it is diffused in the small intestine directly into the blood stream (normal food needs to be digested first before it can do this, bear in mind only 10% of digestion occurs in the stomach). When you have food lying in your stomach the valve at the bottom of your stomach closes which stops the flow of alcohol into the intestine (5). What this does is greatly delay the rate of intoxication, but every drop of alcohol still needs to be processed and detoxified. The negative effect of this being, when combined with the university culture of getting off your face drunk, you usually end up drinking more to make up for the slower absorption which will not only lead to a bigger hangover but also more stress on the liver!

Real men drink beer!

It's a common thing amongst British men to be chastised if you're not drinking beer, there's also a great correlation between levels of above average body fat and beer drinkers. This is simply because beer contains many empty calories, as do alcopops, cider, nondiet mixers. Bear in mind the previous article that went into the metabolism of alcohol when looking at total calorie values, carbohydrates are 4kcal per g.

Let's take a quick look (6) -

Regular Beer – 13g carbs – 146 calories (52 carb)

Light Beer – 5g carbs – 100 calories (20 carb)

Cider – 27g carbs – 200 calories (108 carb)

Bacardi Breezer – 39g carbs – 220 calories (156 carb)

Diet Barcardi Breezer – 3g carbs – 96 calories (12 carb)

200ml coke+25ml vodka – 20g carbs – 135 calories (80 carb)

200ml diet coke+25 ml vodka – 0g carbs – 55 calories (0 carb)

It's easy to see how many calories you could be consuming over the course of the night just from drinking full sugar beer/mixers/alcopops, stick to diet/light. Contrary to popular belief your testicles won't shrink, but your gut probably will!

1. Pubmed (2003) Testosterone increases in men after a low dose of alcohol. [Online]. Available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12711931

2. Pubmed (2004) Effect of moderate alcohol consumption on plasma dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, testosterone, and estradiol levels in middle-aged men and postmenopausal women: a diet-controlled intervention study. [Online]. Available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15166654

3. Vella, L.D, Cameron-Smith, D. (2010) Alcohol, Athletic Performance and Recovery. Nutrients. [Online]. Available at http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/2/8/781/htm

4. APS (1998) Inhibition of muscle protein synthesis by alcohol is associated with modulation of eIF2B and eIF4E [Online]. Available at http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/277/2/E268.full

5. VirginiaTech (2012) Alcohol's Effects, Factors that Effect Intoxication.[Online]. Available at http://www.alcohol.vt.edu/students/alcoholeffects/intoxfactors.htm

6. Superskinnyme.com (2012) Calories in Beer. [Online]. Available at http://www.superskinnyme.com/calories-in-beer.html

Alcohol Part 1 - Fat Gain

Alcohol is one of the most misunderstood substances regarding fitness and health. While people state it has miraculous fat gain properties they tend to forget about the kebab and chips they had on the way home. Being at university, you're going to get ruined by alcohol at some point, how to fit this into a healthy lifestyle is what I'm going to delve into here.

The first thing people note about alcohol is that it's valued at 7kcal per g, this is about 55 calories for your typical 25ml shot of vodka. 20 shots later you've consumed what is apparently 1100 calories of vodka, or about 31% of what could be a lb (3500kcal) of fat gained. This is not even taking into account any extra food consumed on a night out or mixers. If this was the case though, most students would be incredibly overweight by now.

When alcohol is metabolised, the majority of it is metabolised into Acetate. Acetate is toxic to the body which gives it a much higher priority to be processed than any other macro-nutrient, i.e. fat/carbs/protein. Due to this any fatty acid molecules that are waiting to be processed are sent to fat cells for storage (1+2). It is the precedence of Acetate that causes the suppression of fatty acid metabolism that leads to vast amounts of weight gain with alcohol. When the average diet of the UK is made up of 50%+ fat and the majority of late night post drinking snacking is also high in fat, it's easy to see why alcohol can lead to rapid weight gain.

Only a very small amount of the processed alcohol is left as fatty acids. The majority of the supposed 7kcal per g is lost in the metabolic process that converts alcohol to Acetate and the thermogenic effect of alcohol, ever not feel cold when drunk? This gives alcohol itself a low energy yield, as in, very little of it can be stored as fat. This puts the actual energy value of alcohol closer to the value of 1.1kcal per g and therefore puts the value of your 20 drinks to 172 calories of storable energy from the alcohol (1). Quite a large difference to the 1100 calories listed on the bottle.

Were Acetate not a toxic substance that has to be removed from the body, the full chemical reaction would be able to take place, you would then get the supposed full 7kcal of energy yield out of alcohol. The Acetate that is produced does eventually gets metabolised into carbon dioxide and water and excreted. This also explains why alcoholics are often below average BMI in spite of consuming excessive amounts of alcohol calories.

So now we know what happens when you drink, how do we stop the fatty acids being stored? Quite simple, we lower dietary fat intake to preferably less than 40g and keep our carbohydrates below 200g on the day we're drinking, if there's no queue of fatty acids then there's far less chance of them being stored (4). This is basically a simple form of damage limitation ensuring that any unwanted fat gain will be minimal. Note that protein isn't mentioned, you can consume as much protein as you want, protein itself cannot be processed into anything that could be stored as fat, (5) so eat your chicken. It probably goes without saying that you should avoid full sugar mixers and full sugar beers, as these add empty calories and can quickly add up to vast amounts of carbohydrates.

To conclude, alcohol is more than likely not the cause of rapid weight gain. An imbalanced diet swaying towards high fats or general caloric excess however when combined with alcohol is obesity waiting to happen.

Summary -

To minimise fat gains through alcohol consumption, control dietary fat/carbohydrate intake to less than 40g of fat and 200g of carbohydrates in the 12 hours prior to drinking. This is also why eating is cheating.

1. Pubmed (1994) Effect of alcohol on postmeal fat storage. [Online]. Available at

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8116538

2. Pubmed (1979) Effects of ethanol on lipid metabolism. [Online]. Available at

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/87483

3. Lide, D. (2000) CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. 81^st edn. CRC Press

4. Berkhan, M. (2010) 'Truth about alcohol, fat loss and muscle' [Online]. Available at http://www.leangains.com/2010/07/truth-about-alcohol-fat-loss-and-muscle.html

5. Ophardt, C. (2003) Protein Metabolism. [Online]. Available at http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/630proteinmet.html

Welcome

Welcome to the blog for SO.Fit.

This is a health and fitness blog that will be covering a number of issues mostly aimed at the myths and misunderstandings of the fitness industry.