Cutting Back on
Cocktails
Because of the high stress environments
that we find ourselves in, whether it’s at work or within social circles, we
often find ourselves drinking a couple of beers or a glass of wine to relax.
Alcohol at certain levels doesn’t really hurt your body and even helps boost
metabolism if you drink occasionally. One bottle of beer or one glass of wine
can actually be good for you, but only if you drink it once a week or once
every few days. But if you’re trying to lose belly fat fast, alcohol is the
first thing that has to go.
When it comes to losing belly fat,
alcohol is the devil and for plenty of reasons. The top reason on the list is
that it causes dehydration, and we’ve spent enough time emphasizing the
importance of water to your body to know it’s important. If you prefer
cocktails, you’re also taking in a lot of sugar, a lot more than your body can
handle. But the worst thing that you can
really do to your body and your belly with alcohol is to go binge drinking.
After another drink,
your heart starts to palpitate or beat more rapidly than normal. Your body
temperature starts to rise and you sweat more, making you even more dehydrated
than before. That’s your body reacting to the alcohol content that you’re
introducing into your blood – all its energies are now focused on dealing with
the rising alcohol level and toxicity and is now ignoring a lot of other
important activities like burning fat.
Another couple of drinks and you’re
giving your body a lot more toxicity than it can properly deal with. But that’s
not the worse part.
After a night of drinking, you are going
to wake up completely dehydrated. Even if you drink a litre of water right
after you wake up, the damage of being dehydrated for hours would already have
been done. For days, you will experience sleep disturbances which will
contribute to making you gain even more weight. And when you drink too much
alcohol, you’re dumping a huge workload on your liver. The liver is probably
one of the most underappreciated organs of the body but it’s also one of the
most important. It’s in charge of storing excess blood sugar and eliminating
toxins. It is also in charge of producing enzymes to break down fat. When you
drink a lot of alcohol, your liver has its hands full dealing with the added
toxins and sugars and it will be too busy to produce those much needed enzymes
that will help you get rid of fat. This leads to – you guessed it – a beer
belly.
It’s
not just the liver that gets wonky when you drink alcohol either. It’s the
stomach, the pancreas, your kidneys, and a few others that are just as
important, even if they don’t play a role
in losing or gaining fat. This means
that your metabolism, a process where fat is burned for energy, is off kilter
and not just for the day after. Studies show that high alcohol consumption
affects the body for as long as three days after it is consumed.
When
you have the waistline you’ve always wanted and you’re a picture of good
health, it doesn’t hurt to have a drink, occasionally and in small amounts. But
when you’re still in the middle of a battle to lose unwanted belly fat, you are
going to have to walk away from that cold bottle of beer or that Mojito.
Because when you’re trying to lose that persistent visceral belly fat, the last
thing that you need is to throw of your body functions with even a little
alcohol.
Just for added information, I’d like to
share a chart that shows how much exercise is needed to lose the calories you
take in with a few drinks.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services
If you’re serious about learning how to
lose belly fat fast, alcohol is your enemy. The next time you’re having dinner
with friends or when you’re out on a date, order an iced tea. Better yet, have
some water.
This is an excerpt from the book: The 9 Essential Ways of How to Lose Belly Fat Fast
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