Is drinking a "diet death sentence"?

Short answer? Yes. Alcohol makes you hungry, lowers your resolve to fight your rising appetite, temporarily halts your body's fat-burning, and stewards ingested foods to your belly.

Long answer, paraphrased from this writeup by Sport Nutritionist Graeme Thomas, explains how alcohol sabotages weight loss efforts.

The first way that alcohol impairs weight loss has to do with hunger control. Ghrelin is a key hormone involved in hunger signaling and satiation. A 2005 study featured in the European Journal of Endocrinology connected alcohol intake and ghrelin inhibition. This probably confirms what you already know - drinking makes you hungry! It’s difficult to lose weight when alcohol induces the munchies and you inadvertently overeat, often at night.

Secondly, alcohol lowers your inhibitions. Your resolve is stronger when you are sober. But after a few drinks, you're mindlessly overeating on bar nuts, another slice of pizza, or whatever food is within reach, explains Christine Gerbstadt, RD on WebMD. Drinking alcohol can also make you feel hungrier because alcohol can lower blood sugar.

Thirdly, alcohol stops fat-burning in its tracks, as made clear in a 2004 report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Unlike carbs/protein/fat, the body cannot store alcohol, which it regards as a poison. Your body drops everything to prioritize processing and eliminating this toxin. Now your liver, where most of alcohol processing takes place, is a shitty multitasker. While it's seeing to the alcohol, any fat/carbs/proteins in your system are told to go sit in the waiting room (stored in your fat cells). In effect, when you drink, any food you happen to ingest will likely turn straight to fat.

Lastly, A study from the Graduate School of Medical Science at Kyushu University demonstrated that regular consumption of alcohol correlated with decreased insulin sensitivity. In other words, makes you insulin resistant, a condition that puts you at risk for type 2 diabetes in the future. Of more immediate concern, insulin resistance tends to foster weight gain, particularly abdominal body fat.

Well, what a damning post for America's favorite past time of getting schwasted. A beer in each hand, does not a balanced diet make. And I had to go post this just before the Superbowl too, when all you want is to have a beer ready, either to toast to your team's victory, or drown your sorrows after their loss.

Bright side? My next post will have tips for smart drinking. But really, whether you end up with a beach body or beer belly, it's a a win-win. If you curtail your chugging, you'll be fit and hot and people will love you because we love the pretty people. If instead you fugg dieting and drink to bacchanalian excess, remember that beauty is in the eye of the beer holder. Take comfort knowing that "the greatest love–the love above all loves, even greater than that of a mother… is the tender, passionate, undying love, of one beer drunken slob for another.” - Irish love ballad