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Wine Night with the Girls- Low Carb Style!
If you are following a ketogenic diet, you might be wondering how to enjoy a wine night with your girls while still staying in ketosis. In this blog post I am going to walk you through how our body metabolizes alcohol and how to support ketone production while enjoying a glass or two on occasion.
Let’s first discuss how our body metabolizes alcohol. Alcohol is mainly metabolized in the body by the liver. However, the brain, pancreas and stomach also play roles in alcohol’s metabolism.
Two enzymes, alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) help with this process of elimination. When alcohol (or ethanol) is first ingested, our body recognizes this as a toxin, thus, prioritizing its elimination from the body. When this occurs, the body stops making ketones and stops breaking down glucose. While on a ketogenic diet, this can cause you to fall out of ketosis while your body works to eliminate the alcohol. While this is happening, our body stops burning fat and instead encourages our liver to produce new fatty acids. The amount of fat burning that is impacted is dependent on how much alcohol our body has to metabolize. You can estimate that for every one alcoholic drink, fat burning is slowed for at least one hour.
The good news is there are some strategies to combat this process so that you can enjoy a glass of wine with your girls while on a ketogenic diet.
Strategy 1: Pick dry wines
Your best options for keto-friendly wine are dry red and white wines like Champagne, Pinot Blanc/Noir, Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah. Some of my favorite dry wine brands are: Fit Vine, Secco Wine, Scout and Cellar, and Dry Farm Wines. These companies specialize in dry wines that have minimal residual sugar content and are keto-friendly.
Strategy 2: Consume food and water while drinking
Having a meal and drinking water while consuming alcohol can help slow down alcohol metabolism. Just be sure to add some electrolytes to your water to prevent dehydration. Our Keto Weight Loss powder sticks contain electrolytes and can be easily added to a beverage that you consume alongside your glass of wine.
Strategy 3: Slow down your consumption
When on a ketogenic diet, your body derives glucose from a process called gluconeogenesis. Because of this, alcohol gets metabolized even quicker than it did when you were eating carbohydrates before starting a ketogenic diet. This may cause a larger build up of acetaldehyde and result in worse hangover symptoms. Our body can only break down alcohol at the rate of one drink per hour. Pace yourself by consuming your glass of wine alongside a glass of our Keto Weight Loss powder sticks.
Strategy 4: Consume beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) prior to or after ingesting alcohol
Consumption of BHB before, during or after ingestion of alcohol can help you stay in a ketogenic state while consuming your favorite glass of wine. If you’re not a wine drinker, then you can even mix your favorite hard liquor with one of our products. Check out this pina colada recipe here for an example.
