Will Drinking Beer Give Me A Beer Belly and Ruin My Diet?

I recently received an email from a reader that read:

Hey,
Tomorrow I am gonna be going out with friends for drinks, should I eat less during the day to compensate for my drinks or just go over a little on the calorie side.

Ben

My response:

Don t worry about it.

Yes, that was my actual reply. I sincerely meant all four of those intricately crafted words too. He is a college student and likes to go have a few drinks now and then. We all know there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. I enjoy a cold brew every once in a blue moon as well. While I do not partake regularly, when I do I am particularly partial to stouts, porters and ales. There is just something that I love about dark, foamy beer; I cannot explain it. I love the hoppy taste, the tantalizing aroma and the calming effects I experience after 2-3 rounds of an oatmeal stout.

Don’t Worry About It

Now, allow me to explain my short response. I have Ben on a muscle building diet. He had successfully dieted for a bit and got in touch with me when he was ready to put on some mass. So I set him up with a personalized training routine and some dietary guidelines. If you have ever been to this site before, you already know I take a very relaxed, no BS approach to all things fitness related. To me, drinking a beer or two now and then is no big deal. It’s not going to make a difference in the end. As long as you aren’t drinking your life away day in and day out, a few cold ones aren’t going to hurt you. Perhaps a little alcohol may even have some slight health benefits.

Beer is Good so Drink and Be Merry

In moderation! Remember that too much of anything is hardly ever a good thing. You couldn’t tell my fraternity brothers this though as Keystone seemed to be their best friend. So while it may not have been the best idea for them to be drinking beer all the time I am not so sure it was going to inhibit their progression too much while participating in their fitness related pursuits. Believe me, some of these guys were fit. I did my best to keep up with some of them during joint functions with the sororities and they drank a lot more than I ever dreamed of. Alan Aragon wrote a really great piece properly titled: A Musclehead’s Guide to Alcohol.

To quote Alan:

We all know that serious alcohol abuse brings with it the risk of addiction, liver disease, heart failure, and a life rich in f***ed-upedness. Goes without saying, right? But on the flip side, moderate alcohol consumption seems to have measurable health benefits.

Some of the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption:

• Increase in HDL(good cholesterol) – reduces risk of heart disease.
• Blood thinning properties – reduces risk of blood clots.
• Possible anti-aging benefits from resveratrol and other antioxidants.

Personal Benefits of Moderate Alcohol Consumption

• Helps you sleep due to the calming effects and slight buzz after a few drinks.
• Reduces anxiety in unfamiliar or uncomfortable settings such as first dates, social gatherings, parties etc. Just don’t overdo it unless you want to be that person at the party.

Drinking Beer in Moderation is Probably Best

I say this to make a simple point. I had friends throughout school who would get absolutely sloshed on the weekends. Many of them athletes and boy did their training suffer that following Monday. Coach used to deliberately trash them during our morning sprints of death as he knew how late they were out the night before. I will never forget some of the excuses they tried to pull over the coaching staff. As you might have guessed, they never worked.

So, the main point is if you are an athlete, bodybuilder, cardio bunny, power lifter, whatever, excessive beer drinking(drunkenness) will not likely yield the most optimal results. This is mainly due to the time it takes you to recover after a nights worth of drunken debauchery as I am sure you are probably not interested in training when you have a hangover. I know my peers never were but they wanted to play and forged on through the Monday morning agony. It may have been a different story if athletics weren’t so important to them.

So Will Drinking a Beer Break My Diet?

Yes! I mean No! Actually, it depends. If you are on a strict diet, trying to drop body fat and on a limited amount of kcals you might not want to make a couple beers your top choice for food energy. The average beer contains ~150 kcals with about 14 grams of alcohol(7 kcals per gram). So if you are a larger individual on a moderate deficit, you could have a drink or two and still manage to get enough protein and other macros quite nicely. If you are a small female, you had probably skip the casual post 9-5 grind beer. I am not saying to skip it forever, but you may need to sacrifice it for the short term in the name of fat loss. That is unless you want to live on a few beers and lots of protein daily during your fat loss diet.  Hey! I just may have created the perfect diet!?

If you are focused on maintenance, just go out and have that beer. Leave room in the daily caloric goals for 2-3 cold ones. It won’t hurt one bit. The same goes if you are on a mass gain diet – just don’t drink yourself into oblivion in the name of muscle building. I would rather see you stuffing yourself with protein and starch(not the liquid bread though).

Will Drinking Beer Give Me a Beer Belly?

No. It only will if your intake greatly exceeds your expenditure. The only guys and gals I have witnessed who have a true beer belly are those who sit and drink a ton of beer and eat a lot of calorie dense food at the same time. I am not saying they are magically getting fat due to some food combining nonsense. I am saying that tons of beer plus extra calories are contributing to their ever expanding waistline.

So be content in knowing that just because you decide to drink a beer now and then you needn’t fear the dreaded beer belly. You also have no need to worry about losing muscle or growing an extra eyeball or anything weird like that.