Alcohol on Keto: How Does Alcohol Affect Ketosis?

Will alcohol kick you out of ketosis?
Here's how alcohol really affects your metabolism!

Whether you are anticipating the holidays and want to know what to expect when in ketosis, or you are on Atkins Induction and breaking the rules with a drink, you might be wondering how alcohol affects ketosis. 

Dr. Atkins has always said that alcohol is compatible with a low-carb diet, provided you follow the carbohydrate restrictions, but drinking is not allowed during the initial Induction period regardless of which version you're following.

Even so, many people cannot make it completely through Phase 1 of the Atkins Nutritional Approach without having a drink with dinner, after dinner, or while socializing. 

For them, alcohol plays a huge role in life.

They have a drink when they come home from a hard day. They have a drink when they go out to dinner or want to celebrate a special occasion. They even have a drink when they just want to relax and kick back with a few friends.

Alcohol is as interwoven within traditional American society as food at every single gathering is. Drinking and eating go hand-in-hand for a lot of folks, especially during the holidays and at social events.

But what if you've decided to go Keto?

If you're trying to follow the rules for alow-carb diet and need to keep the pounds coming off, what happens to your fat loss efforts if you want to have a drink now and then?

How does alcohol really affect ketosis?

Dr. Atkins’ Views on Alcohol

When Dr. Atkins’ wrote his first low-carb diet book back in the early 70s, he believed that alcohol was the number one problem with weight control. 

Back then, corn-syrup sweetened sodas were not a thing yet, and even the sugar-sweetened ones were viewed as a treat. Few drank a bottle of Coke or Dr. Pepper every single day. 

Alcohol is not a carbohydrate, but Dr. Atkins handled it as if it were:

“But this is one diet where alcohol acts just like a carbohydrate. It makes your body discharge insulin and stops you from putting out FMH.”

Almost everything you eat or drink will cause you to secrete insulin, but this was not known until recently.

FMH stands for fat-mobilizing hormone. 

Due to the upswing in metabolic rate while handling dietary proteins and oxidizing amino acids, Dr. Atkins believed there was a fat mobilizing hormone that made body fat more accessible when carbohydrates were restricted. 

However, FMH hasn’t turned out to be true. 

There is no fat-mobilizing hormone. Not in the way that Atkins used to talk about it. However, alcohol does interfere with what a low-carb diet is attempting to do. 

Not because of insulin secretion, but because of its toxic effects on the body.

In the 70s, low-carb dieters were counseled to count each ounce of alcohol as 20 total grams of carbohydrates. 

This was for one ounce of distilled alcohol or four ounces of wine.

20 carbohydrates! 

Later on, as more information about how the body metabolizes alcohol became available, the restriction on alcohol was relaxed.

Alcohol puts your weight-loss efforts on hold until after it is metabolized. 
Therefore, the 2002 version of the Atkins’ diet allowed you to occasionally indulge in a glass of wine or shot of distilled alcohol provided you count the carbohydrates. 

Instead of counting wine as 20 full grams, a 3-1/2 ounce glass of wine contains about 4.3 grams. 

However, like all carb additions that you include after completing Induction, Dr. Atkins also cautioned readers that if you stop losing weight, and are drinking alcohol, it's best to cut it out.

How Your Metabolism Works

When you eat or drink something, the body breaks down what you eat or drink and can choose to either oxidize those nutrients (burn them for energy) or store them for later use. 

All nutrients except for alcohol can be stored. 

Some nutrients, such as dietary fat, are more easily stored than others. This is because the body doesn't have to change fat into something else. Triglycerides can be stored as is. Carbohydrates and protein have to be broken down and then changed into a storeable form.

Despite what most people believe, stored body fat isn’t static. It isn't stored away in your fat cells like a drawer of socks. The body constantly moves triglycerides into and out of your fat cells, as needed. 

When you eat a meal, what the body doesn’t need immediately for energy or repair is stored. Since dietary fat is the easiest nutrient to store and your fat stores have an unlimited storage capacity, fat gets taken care of first. 

It doesn’t matter if you are following a low-carb diet, or not. Metabolism works the same way. Dietary fats not immediately needed for energy or hormonal function are placed in storage until the body can use them. 

Vegetables and other incidental carbs are quickly converted into glycogen and then stored in the liver. As the brain or other cells without mitochondria need glucose, the liver rations out the glycogen and dumps it into your bloodstream. 

If you eat more carbohydrates than your body can store in your liver or muscles, glycogen can be converted into triglyceride and stored. 

This doesn't really happen very often, unless you seriously pig out on carbs. 

Between your muscles and liver, they can hold up to about 400 grams of carbohydrate at any one time.

Protein can be converted into glycogen if glucose and body fat stores are low, but this is a complex process, so the body generally just burns amino acids directly instead. 

Gluconeogenesis takes time to complete. 

The body has ways of recycling some of the substrates for glucose, which it prefers to do over turning protein into glycogen. 

This is because life is seriously dependent on the amount of muscle tissue you have, so the body avoids using protein for glucose unless there is no other alternative. In general, this occurs only during starvation.

The liver needs energy to perform gluconeogenesis, so as insulin levels return to normal and glucose supplies run low, the liver pulls the fat back out of your fat cells and oxidizes it for energy and other purposes. The glycerol attached to the triglyceride can be used to make glucose.

In short, metabolism is a dance between glucose, protein and fatty acids.

Restricting carbohydrates doesn't mean you will burn
body fat for energy. Metabolism is like a dance
between macronutrients.

A low-carb diet drastically lowers insulin levels, and sets up a metabolic situation where your body has to predominantly burn fats for energy rather than other sources. 

Whether those fats come from dietary fat or your fat stores depends upon the number of calories you eat on a daily basis.

As both Dr. Eades and Dr. Phinney have consistently warned, if you are eating all of the fat your body needs and your body doesn’t need to use your fat stores to supply energy, it won’t.

What Alcohol Does to Your Metabolism and Ketosis

There is no way for the body to store alcohol. 

When metabolized, alcohol is converted into acetate – which is toxic.

Acetate oxidation is 100 percent. The body will rev up your metabolism and do everything in its power to burn the acetate as quickly and efficiently as possible.

This is why it appears that alcohol is good for weight loss. Alcohol metabolism takes precedence over everything else. 

While many people like to point out that dietary fats are stored when you eat them along with alcohol, any carbohydrates or proteins you eat along with the alcohol are also stored. 

The body puts all dietary metabolism on hold when alcohol is around. 

This is why the Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. tells dieters that weight loss is simply placed on hold when you drink. What they don’t tell you is that everything you eat with that alcohol will be placed in storage.

Because the body metabolizes alcohol aggressively, it carries a high TEF score – about 20 percent. 

TEF is the amount of calories it takes to metabolize the alcohol. 

Of the calories that alcohol provides, one-fifth are used during the metabolic process. This is not enough to make up for the increased fat storage, but it helps. 

In addition, alcohol carries an odd ability to increase insulin sensitivity. Probably, because this is how the body is able to get protein, carbohydrates and dietary fat stored so quickly.

What to Do if You Want to Drink on Keto

If you’re having problems with weight gain or if you have stalled in your weight-loss progress, and you’re drinking alcohol on a regular basis, you might want to take a close look at your dietary habits during those occasions. 

Although the bottom line is always about the number of calories you’re consuming from day to day, many people lean toward a high intake of fatty foods and carbohydrates while drinking.

Keep in mind that protein is stored as muscle rather than body fat. 

Heading off the body’s tendency to move everything into storage when alcohol is around can be made easier by cutting way back on your dietary fats and carbs and increasing your consumption of lean proteins on the days that you drink. 

While munching on un-breaded chicken breast strips may not be as exciting as hot wings and bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers, sometimes keeping your weight manageable requires trade-offs.

In addition, eating lean proteins, such as:

• low-fat cottage cheese
• tuna mixed with sour cream instead of mayonnaise
• pork loin chunks
• or a protein shake made with cottage cheese rather than heavy cream

Can help fight against alcohol’s lack of satiety. 

While an occasional drink or celebration is nothing to worry about because weight loss will continue as soon as the alcohol is metabolized and calories return to a deficit, if you need to drink more often, the best way to handle the situation is to keep a close eye on your calorie and fat intake.