The 1 Thing You're Doing That Might Be Stopping You From Losing Weight

It's basically common knowledge nowadays that calories don't count when you're drunk, right? RIGHT? Er, actually, it turns out they count more than ever - and those cheesy chips in the early hours of a Saturday might be the one thing stopping you from shedding pounds.

And whilst you probably definitely already knew this and feel like getting sassy with us for stating the obvious, there's more to it than you might think: your body can't actually process the toxins in food properly when you're drunk as it's too busy processing the alcohol.

Fitness First personal trainer Mishal Dasani explains the four reasons why your drunk eating habits might be stopping you from shedding any weight - even if you're hitting the treadmill hard the rest of the week.

1. Insulin sensitivity

Insulin sensitivity refers to where your body prioritises to store the nutrients from your diet. If you have really good insulin sensitivity, your body will preferentially store nutrients in muscle cells and if your insulin sensitivity is poor, it will dump them in fat cells. Even though you may have good insulin sensitivity normally, alcohol will throw a spanner in the works. Alcohol will blunt insulin sensitivity, so the majority of what you eat while drinking will be stored in fat cells, slowing down fat loss and even causing your body to store more fat.

2. Liver priority

The liver is your body's main fat burning organ. Its main job is to remove waste materials and toxins from the body and your body identifies alcohol as a toxin, essentially a poison. While there's alcohol in your system, the liver will prioritise its removal above all else, even fat burning. An average glass of wine will take your body about three hours to metabolise. All of these hours across the week add up to a lot of time your body is storing energy/fat instead of burning it off.

3. Lower inhibitions leading to poor food choices

Alcohol can lower your inhibitions - nothing new there. Apart from making us do things we might regret in the morning, you might find yourself making poor food choices when you're a little bit tipsy. You'll usually want something that's quick, convenient and easily available in the early hours of the morning. The danger here is that food which falls into these categories may have little nutritional value and contain a high number of calories.

4. Thyroid suppression

Your thyroid gland produces a bunch of hormones that control your metabolism. Having a speedy metabolism is great because it means you burn through calories and food a lot quicker, meaning faster fat loss. But having a few drinks suppresses the amount of hormones this gland will produce. What that means is a slowdown in your metabolism and the food you eat while drinking is not being used up as quickly as it normally would. Essentially, calories not being used, are being stored as fat.

Follow Dusty on Twitter.