It has been examined across small and large cohorts, in many countries, across various ethnicities and age groups 4. Within the large body of observational research, contradictory findings exist, which warrant further exploration 3•, 4. If you’re eating junk food, those carbohydrates will also hold onto water, making you gain even more weight. But once you go back to eating right and exercising, you should be able to flush out that water weight quickly.

It makes it difficult to choose healthy options

Although there is evidence to suggest that frequent alcohol intake may predispose to weight gain or obesity over the long-term, this effect is not strongly reflected in the recent research. First, it has been found that alcohol intake increases energy expenditure, likely due in part to the fact that it has a high thermogenic effect 53. It has also been suggested that some of the energy ingested as alcohol is ‘wasted’, due to the activation of the inefficient hepatic microsomal ethanol-oxidizing system (MEOS).

How Alcohol Can Affect Weight and Body Composition

Still, the researchers noted that more research is needed to understand how eliminating or limiting alcohol intake affects weight loss. It doesn’t help that many flavored vodkas have a sweet flavor profile (like vanilla, raspberry, peach) that can easily lead you to drink more than you intended, leading to weight gain. Vodka has around the same amount of calories as any other type of alcohol (around 100 calories per shot).

If you drink vodka every night in large quantities, you might become dependent on alcohol

And you’ve what is alcoholism probably noticed that you get the munchies after a night of drinking, even if you ate a full dinner. “If you enjoy a moderate amount of alcohol and it is something that is important to you, I don’t recommend restricting yourself to try to lose weight,” she says. In excess, alcohol consumption may cause adverse effects on your body, leading to weight gain.

How To Avoid Gaining Weight The Day After Drinking

Alcohol can also affect the risk of heart disease, nerve damage, and weight gain. Over time, alcohol may make you gain weight if you drink it in excess. Heavy drinking may activate hormones that signal appetite, hunger, and stress. Alcohol is also high in calories but lacks nutrients supporting good health. In contrast, light-to-moderate alcohol consumption does not cause weight gain. The truth is that all alcoholic beverages come with calories and potential health risks.

Temporary Weight Gain After Drinking Alcohol: The TL;DR

• Be careful of adding vodka to mixers, however, since they are frequently high in sugar.
• More human research is needed to understand how alcohol affects hunger.
• Moreover, what alcohol you drink is not as important as how you drink it.
• „Beer belly“ refers to that protruding stomach some men carry around.
• The answer depends on how often and in what quantities you drink it.

All of the available studies have examined moderate intake of alcohol, and the majority have reported results on beer and wine intake, but not other forms of alcohol 3•, 5. Crouse and Grundy 48 looked at the effect of adding 630 kcal/day of alcohol to the diets of 12 men in a metabolic unit. There were no significant changes in weight for normal weight participants over the four-week intervention study.

But if you drink heavily like that every night or even multiple times per night, you may find that weight gain sticks around, even when you’re not drinking or recovering from drinking. Those extra numbers on the scale are likely a result of bloat, water retention, and a digestive system that’s not firing on all cylinders. All of these can lead to long-term weight gain and contribute to the bloating and digestive issues that cause weight gain after a night of drinking.

Healthier Alternatives

Results of these studies have been varied and do not provide a clear picture. Several studies have found no association or a negative association between alcohol intake and changes in weight, BMI or other measures of adiposity 12, 30, 32–39. Other studies have found such an association only in women, while finding a positive association between obesity risk can drinking vodka make you gain weight and alcohol intake in men 40. This study, however, did not specify the amount of alcohol intake, and did not control for participant’s physical activity (PA) levels 40. Conversely, one study found no association between alcohol intake and increases in WC in men, but a small positive association in women 41. There have also been recent studies that have found a general positive association between alcohol intake and weight gain 42.

• Alcohol has a lot of calories but offers no nutrients and may affect hormones that control appetite, hunger, and stress.
• If you’re drinking, you may also be more likely to eat food that’s high in added sugar or fat or fried and processed food.
• Our writers include physicians, pharmacists, and registered nurses with firsthand clinical experience.

Do you need to give up alcohol to lose weight?

A summary of the effects of alcohol on important appetite hormones and central neurological pathways in humans can be found in Table 2. Therefore, the objective of this article is to provide an update on the link between alcohol intake and obesity. Furthermore, factors that may explain the conflicting findings in this research area are discussed. Finally, recommendations for future research are provided to promote a better understanding of the possible obesity-promoting effects of energy intake from alcohol. Moderate alcohol consumption shouldn’t cause any significant weight gain as long as you do everything else right.