This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hey, it's Annie Grace. I hope everybody is doing great. I just wanted to come and make this quick video.

I actually got a question today that I thought it was totally appropriate. I just got done exercising myself.

And I thought that it was totally appropriate to respond to this question, make a quick video.

The question is, do you really lose weight when you stop drinking? And there's no easy answer to that. Everybody is really different.

I'd say enough people lose weight that it is kind of a thing that you could lose a few pounds for sure when you stop drinking.

And there's a lot of different reasons for that. Number one, your body stops retaining so much water because when you're drinking,

you're really depleting your hydration levels on a cellular level. It is very, very dehydrating alcohol itself.

If you think of a beer, like a 5% beer, it's basically 95% water, but there is enough alcohol that 5% of alcohol in the beer is so dehydrating that it overcomes in further depletes your hydration levels from drinking the 95% water.

So those 12 ounces of what's basically water in beer are not going to hydrate you as opposed to that 5% of alcohol because it's taking, it's a diuretic, it's making you pee, it's taking the water from your cells and things like that.

So your body as a response to that bloats sometimes. So when you're dehydrated, you can actually bloat because your body is trying to retain water and hold on to water.

And so people can lose a lot of water weight when they stop drinking because your body breathes this huge sigh of relief. And you're like, oh, okay, if you have like a let go of some of that.

You know, a lot of people actually do lose fat. I mean, alcohol is very high in caloric density. So alcohol, you know, it's kind of a method. Alcohol is a lot of sugar. Alcohol itself doesn't have a lot of sugar. Actually has no sugar.

But it mimics sugar in the body because it is so high in terms of its caloric density. So what that means is I think like fat is like nine calories per I forget the measurement.

And alcohol is like eight. So it's it's really close to fat and sugar in terms of how much energy it has per volume. So very dense, calorically, very dense energetically.

But of course, alcohol has no nutrients. So if you're going to eat something at least like fat, you're still getting nutrients. You're still getting a lot of benefit from that.

And assuming a lot of course, the word is empty calories and very dense empty calories. So a lot of calories without any nutrients to back it up. And so when you're doing that, you can feel full. I mean, I literally was drinking so much wine that I was feeling full.

I was eating very little food when I was drinking so much wine. But I wasn't actually getting a lot of nutrients. And so your body will go through a readjustment phase. And for some people that does look like actually losing weight.

But for some people, it looks like gaining weight and getting healthier. There's a thing called drunk or exia, which is basically that you're just consuming all of your calories and alcohol. And your body is almost starving because it's not getting any nutrients outside of alcohol. So it really, really varies.

There's so much that goes into it. Another thing that does happen though is that alcohol. It, you know, it knows your prefrontal cortex in the moment and over the long term and your prefrontal cortex is a part of your brain that you used to make really good solid decisions.

So when you're 3 a.m. and drinking and I'm laughing because this was my story and talk about sounds like a great idea. You might eat way more at way different times of day than you would ever eat if you weren't drinking. So there is this lack of inhibitions and numbing of the prefrontal cortex.

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