Originally Posted by bronco67

Regarding alcohol, it's not just bad because it's calories empty of protein and good fats, but it also affects your hormones which are very important in the regulation fat loss/gain.


snipped from T Nation----------------------------------------------------------

When you drink beer, wine, or spirits, the ethanol in those beverages is given priority by your body in metabolism. It stops pretty much everything else and goes to work in a four step process that looks like this:

Ethanol → Acetaldehyde → Acetate → Acetyl-CoA

Acetate and acetyl-CoA can be used for energy by the body but it's costly. One gram of alcohol is said to contain 7 calories, but like protein, its conversion into energy is inefficient and 17 to 20% of its energy is lost. In other words, like protein it has a very high thermogenic effect.

Also like protein, and contrary to popular belief, alcohol is not easily converted to fat. That process is too costly. But all that acetate and acetyl-CoA showing up in the cells does signal to the body that no sugar or fat needs to be burned. So rather than a fat storer, alcohol is more of a fat burning suppressor.