A ketogenic diet offers a great way to stay fit and healthy by allowing you to lose weight. But, adopting a keto-lifestyle involves making several changes to your diet. It also involves giving careful consideration to what you should eat and what you should avoid and finding answers to common queries such as Does Alcohol Stop Ketosis?
Not paying proper attention to the dietary and lifestyle recommendations can prevent you from getting into ketosis and deprive you of the benefits of a ketogenic diet.
Hence, you must learn everything about ketosis including does alcohol stop ketosis or which form of it you can consume safely during your keto diet.
Let’s learn how does alcohol affect ketosis.
How Does Alcohol Consumption Affect Ketosis?
Alcohol can have an impact on the weight loss effect that you could achieve through the ketogenic diet.
The basic premise on which the ketogenic diet is based on is stimulating the production of ketone bodies.
For the unawares, a keto diet is a unique form a diet that allows the body to make use of fats and ketone bodies to fuel its functions. Your body can achieve this state only when it doesn’t receive carbohydrates, which are its primary sources of energy.
In the absence of carbs, your body has no other option but to fall back on fat deposits in your body to fulfill the requirements for energy. These fats are converted into ketone bodies as a result of which the number of ketones in your body rises sharply. This state is called ketosis, which can help you to lose considerable weight in a shorter duration.
The other benefits of getting into ketosis include:
- Fat loss from the tummy region
- Reduced blood sugar levels
- Controlled blood pressure
- Low levels of bad or LDL cholesterol and triglycerides
- Higher levels of good or HDL cholesterol
- Relief form neurological disorders as epilepsy
However, you may not be able to derive these benefits of keto diet if you do not stick to the strict rule of avoiding carbs in any form and that includes avoiding alcohol intake.
Alcohol can stop ketosis with its high carb content. Let me explain how the carbohydrate content of alcoholic beverages can be detrimental to your ketogenic diet.
How does Alcohol Stop Ketosis?
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Carbohydrates in alcohol can be used by your body as a source of fuel. Even the fact that alcohol isn’t stored in the body as glycogen, like other carbs, doesn’t help much.
In fact, most people are under the impression that since alcohol is burned off by the body immediately instead of being stored as glycogen provides them an unlimited free access to this beverage during a keto diet.
However, it doesn’t happen this way.
Though the alcohol is burnt off immediately, it is used up by the body as a fuel. So, drinking alcohol can actually cause your body to switch back to using carbs, albeit for a short duration, in place of fats. This would reverse the benefits you have so far achieved with the keto diet.
Your body will have to start all over again to get into ketosis by adapting to using fats instead of carbs to meet its energy requirement. This way, you will end up losing time and even the efforts you have put in so far to get into ketosis.
Other effects of alcohol consumption on ketosis
- A ketogenic lifestyle requires you to stay hydrated. Your body needs a higher supply of fluids while you are on a keto diet to stay in the state of ketosis. Hence, it is important to stay hydrated while on a keto diet.
However, alcohol does just the opposite. It causes dehydration. It can deplete your body of water. It can make you feel tired and unrefreshed throughout the day. It can even prevent you from maximizing the benefits of a keto diet. This is just another reason for you to avoid alcohol during a keto diet.
- There is one final consideration about alcohol. Don’t forget that alcohol is, essentially, a poison.
The byproducts released during and after the metabolism of alcohol can cause serious damage to your liver, pancreas, kidneys, and even the brain. Hence, a regular consumption of alcohol is not advisable, irrespective of whether or not you are on a keto diet. The people having addictive personalities should particularly refrain from alcohol consumption, period.
Hence, if you are worried thinking does alcohol stop ketosis, your concerns are not unfounded.
So, ideally, it is advisable to avoid alcohol to maximize the benefits of a keto diet.
However, is it that easy? Just like all the other restrictions imposed by a keto diet, even the restriction to avoid alcohol is difficult to implement.
This calls for the need to look for safer beverage alternatives for alcohol that would help you get into ketosis faster.
Alternatives to Alcohol During a Keto Diet
Though there is no best alcoholic beverage to drink during a Ketogenic diet, you may opt for the carb-free or very low-carb versions of the same. Check out a few sustainable ideas in the list given below:
- Whiskey
- Tequila
- Vodka
- Brandy
- Rum
- Scotch
Please note that you must choose the alcoholic beverages carefully. Always opt for the unflavored rum, vodka or whiskey as the flavored drinks may include carbohydrates that can prevent you from getting into ketosis.
You can also opt for the safer carb-free beverages such as hot Choco drinks that could help you get into ketosis without causing any damage to the vital organs of your body.
If you want to derive maximum benefits from your keto diet, you must do it in the right way, which involves eating the right foods and avoiding everything that’s not allowed. Everything that has been a part of your diet and lifestyle including alcohol consumption needs to be given a careful thought when you are on a keto diet.
Since we have already learned that the answer to does alcohol stop ketosis is yes, you might even have to sacrifice your alcohol intake while on a ketogenic diet or opt for the safer, low-carb alternatives to minimize the effect of alcohol on your special diet.
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