Losing weight and consumption of alcohol is definitely a topic that comes up in every challenge. We want to lose weight but we don't want to live the life of a monk to achieve success. My opinion on that is that it's a balancing act, folks. The first thing I do ask them is how much they do drink on a daily or weekly basis, then I ask them 'are they willing to cut back'. For example, if they have two beers a day are they willing to cut back to a Friday reward for good dieting effort. I find people are much more willing to cut back than to give something up completely and that seems to be a good compromise.

Here are some information that may help people have a better understanding of what alcohol can do to any well intentioned weight loss program:

First, drinking one alcoholic beverage can increase your calorie intake by 200 to 400 calories. The thinking is that drinking may stimulate overeating, especially in social settings; in addition to its dis-inhibiting effects on a person, the calories in these liquids may fail to trigger the mechanism that produces 'feelings of fullness'.

 Now, pay attention to this: Although alcohol increases a person's metabolism, the amount of fat burned actually decreases. What happens is that the majority of alcohol consumed gets converted to fat by the liver and gets turned into acetate in the blood stream. The body will then burn the acetate instead of liver stores and the result is that you gain weight.

Chronic long term drinking reduces muscle mass which decreases your metabolism making you burn fewer and fewer calories packing on the pounds.