Tracking alcohol

Alcohol itself has calories (aside from the carbs/fats/proteins it might have, too). You’ll notice that if you just scan or search for alcohol in your App, it will show up as an entry and take away from your total calorie goal, but those calories from alcohol are not taking away from your protein, carbs or fats. You have macro goals and not just an overall calorie goal, so that makes a difference. That means that you need a way to be able to track those grams of alcohol. Since you don’t have a specific alcohol gram goal (just protein, carbs and fats), you can track the alcohol calories by converting them to grams of protein, carbs, or fats.

If you AREN’T doing this step for tracking alcohol in your macros, your body will get an excess of calories that day. If fat loss is your current focus and you have even just one excess calorie day per week, you will likely slow progress down.

What to do: I don’t recommend tracking alcohol in place of any protein calories. You want to get those calories from food. That leaves carbs or fats. It’s typically easier to give up some of your carb calories for alcohol than it is to give up fat calories (plus there are essential fats you need, too), so an example for tracking alcohol as carbs is on the next page.

In order to figure out how many grams of carbs to track for each drink, just take the total calories of that drink, and divide by 4 (because there are 4 calories/gram of carbohydrate).

Step by step:

1. Find out the total calories of your drink via Google or your tracking App

2. Divide that calorie amount by 4

3. The resulting number is the amount of carbs (in grams) you will track for that one drink

A specific example:

6oz red wine = ~150 calories / 4 = ~37g carbs per glass

With that said, consume in moderation!

Alcohol is a toxin. Therefore, when it’s in the body, your body will do whatever necessary to metabolize it as quickly as possible. This includes possibly storing extra calories from food in the meantime.

Even if you’re tracking it correctly, it’s taking away from more nutrient-dense food you could have that day. Alcohol typically doesn’t give you any micronutrients.

Alcohol often causes digestive issues.

Hangovers often increase feelings of anxiety and depression.

Excessive alcohol consumption can lower testosterone levels – a hormone that plays a role in muscle building, fat distribution, sex drive, strength and red blood cell production.