All About Booze

Ever wonder if your drinking could be hindering your weight loss? We hear this question almost every day. Today, Marchelle and I discuss this in detail, and we'll get you up to date on the latest research on "addiction transfer" which is the tendency for people who struggle with sugary foods to have trouble with alcohol when quitting sugar... and vice versa... for alcoholics to struggle with sugar when they quit drinking. There's a lot to understand, and as always, compassion is key!

Some of this weeks episode highlights are:

4:31 So let's just make it really, really simple here. When you're drinking alcohol, you're not going to burn fat. And depending on your biochemistry, you may be actually making fat from the alcohol you drink.

17:32 There's this phenomenon called Reward Deficiency Syndrome, or RDS. Surgeons were reporting that their patients were replacing their compulsive overeating with other compulsive disorders, like alcohol or gambling or drugs or compulsive shopping or exercise.

24:45 Please understand that if you notice that your brain seems to be really sensitive, its not that there’s something wrong with you or your willpower. This is biological!

--- Full Raw Transcription Below ---

Dr. Angela Zechmann (00:00):

You are listening to the Keep The Weight Off podcast with Dr. Angela, episode number 34.

Introduction (00:05):

Welcome to The Keep The Weight Off podcast, where we bust all the dieting myths and discover not just how to lose weight, but more importantly, how to keep it off. We go way beyond the food and we use science and psychology to give you strategies that work. And now your host, Dr. Angela Zechmann.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (00:27):

So welcome back, everyone. Marchelle and I are so happy to have everyone listening this week. We just wrapped up our registration for Journey Beyond Weight Loss, and we're super excited to welcome in all the new students. If you wanted to join, but you missed the deadline, don't worry because we'll be opening it up again in a few months. So that's something to look forward to. And it's going to be an expanded program much, even better than it already is. So I'm excited and I'm excited to get our new, our new group moving through. So there's, there's lots and lots and lots to learn about lasting weight loss. So, Okay!

Marchelle (01:07):

All you call people can still get in on this.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (01:12):

Yeah, exactly. So sign up. So today we wanted to talk about alcohol because we get this, I get this question a lot. I'm sure you do too. A lot of people wonder if their drinking could be holding them back and preventing weight loss. And so I really wanted to give this a pretty thorough investigation, and we've got a lot to share with you on this. I actually did quite a bit of research in preparation for this podcast. So there'll be a little science mixed in here too. So…

Marchelle (01:46):

And I have life skills to add to this, because this is a topic that's very near and dear to my heart.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (01:53):

Okay.

Marchelle (01:54):

Yes, you go with the science and all this, you know, like all my experience.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (02:01):

Okay. All right. The question becomes, is drinking alcohol going to prevent weight loss? And the short answer is probably,

Marchelle (02:11):

Probably,

Dr. Angela Zechmann (02:13):

Probably, but of course it depends on how much you're drinking, right? So if you have a glass of wine on a Saturday night, you're out at a restaurant, that's not likely to hinder you, but if you're drinking two or three glasses of wine every night or more, or a bottle every night or drinking, you know, even more than that, then yes, your drinking habits are going to get in the way of your weight loss efforts.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (02:43):

So this is what I want you to understand because here's how it happens. The first thing that you want to understand is that alcohol is actually empty calories. So there's the calories without any nutritional value in it. A glass of wine has about 90 calories. So two glasses is 180 calories, right?

Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:07):

That's a lot of food, an ounce and a half of liquor also has about 90 calories. A beer is about 150 calories. So beer actually has more calories than liquor or wine. So I would avoid beer at all costs, frankly, because it has maltose in it, which has got a very high glycemic index. Now there are some light beers that will be less, but I just avoid beer. I just don't like it anyway. So it's no problem for me.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:38):

Now what I want you to understand about alcohol is that it gets metabolized in the liver and it gets burned for energy in preference to fat. So your body has a choice between burning fat and burning alcohol. It's going to burn the alcohol instead of burning the fat. That's not what we want really, you know, think about it. That's a big bummer. So, and I've also heard that in some situations, each molecule of alcohol that you drink, it gets converted to a molecule of triglyceride fat.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (04:10):

So it could actually replace the fat that you've burned. So I heard that at a conference and I can't seem to find a specific scientific paper to back that up, but I just want you to know this was an expert I respect. So either the alcohol is going to get metabolized before fat, or it's going to get turned into fat.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (04:31):

So let's just make it really, really simple here. When you're drinking alcohol, you're not going to burn fat. And depending on your biochemistry, you may be actually making fat from the alcohol you drink. So that's why I say, yeah, you might want to like watch the amount of alcohol you're drinking. So any questions about that, Marchelle?

Marchelle (04:55):

Not at all. I mean, I wasn't under the impression that like alcohol and sugar and metabolize in your system the same way, like your liver doesn't know the difference.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (05:11):

Yep. It's for, it's not sugar per se. It's fructose, which is a form of sugar fructose and alcohol get metabolized through the same biochemical pathways. Yeah. Yep. All right.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (05:23):

Second thing that I want everybody to understand is that alcohol will inhibit, what's called restraint. Now restraint is a term that's used in the world of eating disorders to sort of indicate your ability to avoid overeating. So, you know, you, you, you express restraint when you're able to just eat a certain amount of food or not overeat, but when you're drinking, you're more susceptible to food cues that are around you. So for you go to a restaurant and you think you're not going to have the dessert, but then you have a glass or two of wine, and then the dessert menu comes around and you can't say no, or you decide, you don't want to say no. Right?

Marchelle (06:11):

Yeah, even the alcohol that goes along with, you know, like, okay, for me margaritas and Mexican food, and then you're doing the chips and dips because how many of us went out, you know, taco Tuesday, you know, had margaritas with our tacos because it all goes together. So, you know, it's yeah. Cause like everyone loves taco Tuesdays when I was drinking and I did too. And like I sat in and I would eat a lot more chips because you know, you're not really paying attention. And then margarita is full of sugar. So I mean, that's just like a double, triple whammy.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (06:44):

Exactly. Well, they actually did a study to prove … cause, cause you know, you could kind of notice this stuff, but unless you prove it with a scientific study, then it doesn't really, you can't really say that this exactly what happens. So they did do a study to prove it in 2016 and guess who they use. They used college women, undergrad college women, captive audience, but they did, what's called a prospective case control study. So this is a best kind of study because you have people who are the cases. So some gals get, get the alcohol and then other gals don't get the alcohol. So those are the controls and it's prospective because you're not like looking backwards to find out what did they do? What had they done beforehand? You're watching them to see what they're doing. And so this is a good study. So some of the gals, they had 60 women, then they divided them into two groups. Some of them both groups completed a food craving questionnaire before they even started. And then half of them were given a drink with alcohol in it. And the other half were given a drink that was made to taste and smell like alcohol, but didn't actually have any alcohol in it. Don't ask me what they used, but it didn't have any alcohol.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (08:09):

Then the women completed another food craving questionnaire after their alcoholic beverages. And then after that, they were asked to taste cookies for 15 minutes. So can you guess what happened? Any ideas?

Dr. Angela Zechmann (08:24):

Based on your life experience? What do you think has happened.

Marchelle (08:28):

Yeah, the cookies were happening.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (08:32):

Yeah. Well, those who drank alcohol definitely had a harder time with the cookies. However, there were a few women who scored very high on restraint in the questionnaires that they gave beforehand, who were actually able to continue to be careful with the sweets, even though they had the alcohol.

Marchelle (08:54):

They're all interject something really quick because I'm thinking about, you know, these, these women and this is like pre COVID, right. They need to do a new study on like this last year of like parents that were locked up during quarantine that were you know doing homeschool with their children, like drinking and then the only place they could go is the grocery store. So they're getting done because like, yeah, this is all great, like pre COVID. But honestly we have so many patients that have come in post COVID with like drinking issues, drinking issues then before.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:39):

I agree, they should redo this study now.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:46):

Okay. So, well, you know, there's also evidence that it's not just the restraint issue, but that alcohol just makes food, tastes butter. So you were talking about your taco Tuesdays and the margaritas, having the Margarita's along with the chips and all the Mexican food just makes the Mexican food tastes better. So you're going to end up eating more if you have alcohol.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (10:09):

The third thing is that a lot of people drink to help them calm down so they can go to sleep and it will help you fall asleep. But your sleep quality, if you're drinking is not going to be very good, it's going to be quite poor actually. And we already did a podcast on sleep and how important it is to get high quality sleep if you want to be successful at weight loss. So alcohol in that way is just one of those things that we do that are actually causes horrible sleep, and that's going to slow your weight loss down.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (10:42):

So those are three things. The last thing I want to talk about is that I find that I don't exercise as much when I'm drinking. So if I have, you know, two glasses, I can do one and still get up and fine. But if I've gotta have two glasses of wine or two drinks, it's really hard for me to get up the next day. And then if I don't work out and I'm tired, my whole day is just like, you know, it's hard to get through it and I end up eating stuff. I otherwise wouldn't eat. I'm just not stable from a mental and psychological standpoint. And I'm just more likely to give in to cravings. So so that's another piece of alcohol that can really kind of, you know, throw a monkey wrench in your weight loss plans. So those are, those are a few reasons why drinking alcohol can cause weight gain or prevent weight loss.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (11:41):

Now I want to say .. It does. Yeah, I'm sure there are others, but those are the, those are the major ones from my experience. A lot of people feel that their brain responds to alcohol and sugar in the same way. I actually have a friend who is an alcoholic. She's been sober for 10 years now, but every now and then she sends me a text and she says, oh geez, I'm drinking again. And what she means by that is, is that she started eating sugar and to her, it feels the same as her alcohol cravings felt. So I have a lot of people who, you know, notice that if they're drinking, they don't eat as much sugar, but when they stopped drinking, they end up eating more sugar. And I've also heard that when people have gastric bypass surgery, they're at higher risk for alcoholism.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (12:34):

So I looked up the studies on that too. And those are actually really fascinating. So there was a study that was published in 2017 on gastric bypass and lap band patients. And they wanted to find out how many of these people had drug and alcohol issues after the surgery. And this again was a prospective study. So they watched people over time. They watched them over seven years as a matter of fact. So they enrolled people from 10 different bariatric surgery programs around the country. So this was a robust study and they found that within five years, one in five people, who'd had bypass surgery, developed alcoholism and by bypass, I mean, gastric bypass surgery the Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass one in five developed alcoholism or some other substance use disorder in five years, the people who had lap bands were also at higher risk, but less so, so instead of one in five, it was more like one in 10 of them developed alcohol or other substance use disorders.

Marchelle (13:46):

So I am, I mean, I have not had gastric bypass surgery, but this, you know, this part of our podcast is like, it's really it hits home for me because I, when I quit drinking because you know, like I was overindulging over a period of time and, and it wasn't so much, like I was drinking a ton. It was more like consistency, like, you know, waiting, like, can't wait to get off work, you know, to go home and have your beers. And, and my drink was White Claw. I'm not sure how many of you out there drinking it, but I know a lot of people are drinking it because, you know, there's been times I've gone to the store and it's sold out. So White Claw is popular. So, and those White Claw, because in my mind I thought, okay, well it's because it's just boozy seltzer. There's no calories, you know, it's, it's,

Dr. Angela Zechmann (14:36):

It's only a hundred calories. It's flavored seltzer water. I drank the white claws too. Yeah.

Marchelle (14:46):

So for me it was more consistency. And and, but also, you know, I'm a little bit weird and I don't tend to eat when I'm drinking because I just don't, I don't, I don't know. It makes me kind of feel nauseous. So I, so I wouldn't eat and I, I would, I would replace, you know, the drinking with eating, you know, dinner or whatever, and that became consistent. So what happened with me is when I stopped drinking, all of a sudden I had like the sugar monster cravings, like from hell I could not even control the cravings. And like I had quit taking the medication. And I just, I mean, it was like a total shit show for me. I started eating, like stopping off on the way home. And I know a lot of it has to do with the dopamine feel good hits, you know, because I didn't have like that lemon(?) to tap out after work and, you know, you know, check out and relax.

Marchelle (15:44):

And so then, you know, like what do I do with myself? Because then what's my relaxed time, you know, like, how am I going to, you know, what am I going to do? And then my brain was like, oh yeah, you can stop by the store and get a bag of pretzels and a candy bar on your way home. And then, you know, you can have that. And, and it was like working and all of a sudden, like in this last month, the scale has just been going up and up and I'm like, what the hell is going on? And I know that, like for me, my brain is just wired in this way that like alcohol and sugar, that just doesn't know the difference. And when I, when I abstain from alcohol, then I have like these horrible cravings for sugar and not everybody's like that.

Marchelle (16:29):

But for me, that was the case. And, you know, I've just learned a whole lot in the last month about my body and about my brain and what, what I need to do, you know, to keep myself safe in the future. I know what I'm going to be doing …. another five days, sugar and flour detox. I'm doing, I'm starting that on Monday. And so I've gotten everything, you know, prepped for that. And if anybody wants to know what that is I think we have that linked somewhere.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:59):

Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (17:01):

Yeah. We'll put it in the show notes, but yeah, so that's like, and, and I feel for people who have gastric bypass, if that happens, because, you know, it's like, you don't know until, you know, right. You don't know this is what's going to happen to you. And so yeah, it's a struggle and I'm just learning a whole lot about it. And, you know, every day I'm just trying to, you know, become a better me. And I just have to realize that I'm sensitive in that way and after.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (17:30):

Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting because when I was doing the research, I discovered that there's this phenomenon called Reward Deficiency Syndrome, or RDS - Reward Deficiency Syndrome. It's a really interesting thing because the way they found out about it is that they notice, you know, these bariatric surgeons were reporting that their patients were replacing their compulsive overeating with other compulsive disorders, like alcohol or gambling or drugs or compulsive shopping or exercise. How many times have we heard people come in and they're like, I'm off the sugar, but now I'm gambling or I'm off the sugar, but now I'm like spending money like crazy, or I'm off the sugar, but, you know, I can't seem to control these other things. And so…

Marchelle (18:24):

You know, one, since this dopamine hit, like, that's, that's a real thing that yeah, we have to be so careful of.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (18:32):

Yeah. So essentially what they think's going on here, they're actually calling it transfer addiction transfer the neural pathways between food addiction and other addictions are really, really similar. And so what they're saying is get this Marchelle - overeating and obesity may actually protect people from addiction to drugs or alcohol or gambling, or some of these other, you know, really horrible addictions. Now, what am I going to say? Well, let's go back. Let's go back to eating. I, no, we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that, but it is all about the dopamine pathways in the brain. And so the dopamine is the pleasure hormone. And what the scientists have found is that there are specific genetic defects that can disrupt dopamine function. And for some people it's just difficult to feel pleasure unless it's like this compulsive behavior, right? So those are the people that become susceptible to addiction or obesity. So they're thinking that it's possible that reward deficiency syndrome might be the root cause of substituting some other addiction for the food addiction that used to be prevalent. So I don't know. I think it's just, it's so fascinating. It's like the brain is saying, okay, if we're not going to get our pleasure from food, what are we going to do to get some pleasure here? Where can we get our hit?

Marchelle (19:58):

My brain is a tricky little jerk. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (20:02):

And where are we going to get our hit from? So yeah.

Marchelle (20:06):

Yeah, it's a struggle, but awareness is the key. See, so that's why we do these podcasts because you know, when something comes up, I asked Dr. Angela, I'm like, Hey, this is going on. Can you figure out the science of this for me? Because I don't understand what's going on with my brain. And, and this is what I'm struggling with. So this is, you know, like I said, this is, this is something that's kind of at the forefront of my life right now. And, and I'm not sure, you know, how many other people that are listening to this are struggling with this, but now when you have like some science behind it, you realize that it is….

Dr. Angela Zechmann (20:44):

You're not crazy!

Marchelle (20:46):

It's a disease.

Marchelle (20:47):

And we have to treat it as such. We have to be ourselves and we have to, you know, and it it's, it's a battle, but it's something that we can, we can overcome.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (20:58):

Yeah. Yeah. They, you know, I also, I found some other studies. I was just like really looking at all this research. It was so fascinating to me. They did some studies on whether alcoholics versus non alcoholics tend to prefer the sweet taste. Cause that's kind of what you're saying. And that's kind of what this addiction transfer idea would get. Is that okay? Maybe we like sweets better because our alcoholic, you know, our brain, the susceptible to alcoholism is looking for an addiction transfer. But this was very interesting. So they did a study of male alcoholics. So male alcoholics, and then the controls were men of the same age who were not alcoholics. And they were trying to find out if there was any difference in their preference for sweet tastes. So they gave them like different solutions of sweetness and they asked them what tasted, you know, how these things were tasting to them. And what they found is that generally there wasn't any difference between these two groups, which doesn't make any sense, given what you just told me and what we just heard about from the industry.

Marchelle (22:12):

And you'd like, don't you think that sweet drinks are more like something that women like, you know, you know what I'm saying? That they wanted to do a control on, you know, a test on, you know, they should've done women because, you know, like I know for a guy to have, you know, like a foofy daiquiri, you know, I mean, those are women's drinks, you know?

Dr. Angela Zechmann (22:37):

So you raise a very good point because most of the lottery research is done in men. And we don't know what's going on with women, but I do want to point out that they did find a difference in the alcoholics who had fathers, who were also alcoholics. So those guys liked the sweet stuff better. It's like it's called paternal family history of alcoholism tends to be associated with a higher preference for sweets. Is that interesting?

Marchelle (23:11):

It is really interesting…

Dr. Angela Zechmann (23:12):

Paternal family.

Marchelle (23:14):

I do think that there should be some further testing on that just because, because I'm a girl I want to know. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (23:22):

Well, they found, they found it in a lot of studies that if a person's father was alcoholic, they seem more sensitive to things that taste sweet and it may manifest for some of them with an eating disorder. Yeah. So I'm going to read you a quote from a summary of one of the research reviews that was published in 2010. So this is a direct quote from the study.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (23:45):

"In the last two decades, research has noted that specific genes may underlie the sweet preference in alcohol and drug dependent individuals, as well as in biological children of paternal alcoholics." Now paternal alcoholics means the father is an alcoholic. Okay. Alcoholic, "there also appears to be some common genetic markers between alcohol dependence bulemia and obesity, and they named specific genetic markers A1 allele and a dopamine 2 receptor gene. So there appears to be some actual genetics involved with this, and there are discovering which genes. Now, you know, there are, they also said, you know, I didn't want to read the whole thing because it's all science and, you know, you guys don't want that, but, but they also said, it's, there's just, there's a lot of different variability in this.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (24:40):

There's a lot of different genes involved. So, but I just, you know, I just really want people to understand that, like, if you notice that your brain seems to be really sensitive, if it's not like there's something wrong with you or your willpower, this is like biological. Right. Right. So, yeah. So, so it's just something to really realize, like, some of us are doing,

Marchelle (25:05):

I think that sugar addiction and alcoholism go hand in hand. I mean, like, it's, it's, you know, if, if you have a really sensitive brain to sugar and you are, you know, going through some stress and you're overindulging, like, like it's, it's really something to be aware of that, you know, even if, you know, some of our patients are listening to this, like, it's, you know, it's a thing, like, I know it's a thing because I'm living it. And I hope, you know, that me telling my story would help anybody else that might be struggling with it. But I know that right now, like I am having a really hard time with, you know, giving up one thing and giving up the other thing. It's like, I got to go cold Turkey with all of it,

Dr. Angela Zechmann (25:53):

Because your brain…

Marchelle (25:54):

Is like, otherwise I'm going to be so pissed off at myself or going back sliding back so far, especially, you know, now I have like more more awareness, you know, and know more science behind it. And I'm so glad, you know, that you talked about this because I know I've been wanting to know like what the heck is been going on. So yeah. So just,

Dr. Angela Zechmann (26:19):

I just feel like all of the science is really still in its infancy though, too. Like, I just don't think we really get it. I don't think we have an identity.

Marchelle (26:28):

Yeah, no, I don't. And the more we talk about it and plus, and I just think like, the world is so different than it, you know, it was a couple of years ago and I think that so many more people have overindulged and drinking. And I think so more people have, you know, overindulged in sugar and flour and, you know, and all of that. And I do believe that, you know, that the American food industry is taking advantage of that for sure. Vulnerabilities and, and pushing this crap on us. And, you know, it's time for us to fight back. And the way to do that is just to gather our community and make people aware.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (27:06):

Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more … darn those makers of whitewash.

Marchelle (27:14):

I think that people, especially people that have really successful careers or that, you know, don't ha don't want anyone to know what's going on. It's hard to talk about, you know, people, people are afraid to talk about this stuff and, you know, we need, we need to not have judgment and, you know, and be more open about, you know, these situations. And so, yeah,

Dr. Angela Zechmann (27:35):

There's so much shame when it comes to this stuff. So much shame, so much hiding so much secretive behavior because people just like, they don't know, they don't know how to manage it. You know, they just don't understand that this is biochemistry.

Marchelle (27:50):

No. And I, and even like, even this last couple of weeks at work, you know, just kind of being open about my story and my struggles, you know, there's been, you know, patient after patient that says, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that you talked about this because I'm struggling with it. I didn't realize that, you know, the sugar addiction and, you know, the alcohol, like what it does, you know, they just, we'll just, aren't aware. And like I said, they're afraid to talk about it. So I'm glad that we're talking about it now, getting some, getting some information out there.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (28:26):

Yeah. Now have, so I'm understanding that the White Claw thing is a really big, like, it's a,

Marchelle (28:35):

I mean, it's so popular, I'm going to have to show you this it's so popular that they make these things called BrüMate and they are, there are coolers, like metal coolers that you put your White Claw and they keep your White Coat cold and they're just specially made for White Claws. Like they cause White Claw comes in, you know, like its own size cans. So yeah. I mean, and you get it at the, you know, the bougie you know, clothing/boutique stores. And so, yeah, it's like really trendy, but I think people are like overindulging and they don't realize, you know, what, what it's doing to them. And it's so, you know, and it's so closely related to sugar addiction. So yeah, and I mean, I did not realize myself until I gave up one thing and then I just wanted to eat sugar. So bad.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (29:25):

I know, well, in my experience, those white claws can go down really easily too, because they just taste like sparkling water. You don't even think that you're breaking anything. Like you don't even think, you know, you realize you're drinking any alcohol at all. It's like, it tastes so sweet and innocent,

Marchelle (29:45):

You know, it's a Wolf in sheep's clothing … BrüMate clothing!

Dr. Angela Zechmann (29:55):

All right. So I think that we have done a pretty good job on this podcast for helping people understand the difference or the similarities between alcohol and sugar addiction and all of this science. And really, I just really want people to understand, because they're always asking me how much can I drink at home and still lose weight? And the answer is, I don't know exactly, but if you're drinking two or three glasses of wine every night, you're not going to lose weight.

Marchelle (30:24):

I just remembered Angela is when I first started working for you. There was this handout that I found, it's like the 12 steps of getting, getting off of sugar. What does that handout?

Dr. Angela Zechmann (30:36):

12 Steps To Break Your Sugar Addiction…

Marchelle (30:38):

To take you to break your sugar addiction. And I was just like, wait, what? And so I, you know, cause you know, the 12 steps of AA and I kinda laughed about that and I didn't really realize that, okay, so this is going to come up in my future and this is going to become a real thing. Like I need to 12 step that sugar addiction now.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (30:57):

Well it's not a 12 step program.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (31:02):

Oh. I figured out by the time I figured out everything everybody needed to do, it turned out to be 12 different distinct things to do. I actually shortened it into three steps to break your sugar addiction. So I combined some of the steps. (https://www.journeybeyondweightloss.com/3%20steps) Yeah. But yeah, but the first step was, do not blame yourself. Do not feel badly about it. That was definitely get rid of the shame and guilt. That's definitely one. Definitely. Yeah. Okay. All right. So thank you so much for everything that you had to say about your own personal experience with this Marchelle. This is awesome. And I hope that our listeners got a lot out of this particular podcast because I think it's important to understand. And if you feel like you struggle with alcohol, if the idea of, you know, having two or three drinks a night or more, and that feels like you're not able to have less than that, I don't want you to feel bad about it.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (32:00):

Okay. So this is for our podcast listeners, I want you to do the best job you can to cut back. And then if you find that you're drinking and you can't stop, that means it's time to get some help. And you just need to go online and, you know, contact either you can contact your local AA or you can contact like a drug or chemical dependency office near you, but don't feel ashamed about getting help because this might be exactly what you need. And you don't like, it's really, really important to ask for help. If you're struggling.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (32:42):

Alcoholism is a disease. Obesity is a disease. And we need help with this stuff. So be sure that if you find that it's a struggle for you to cut back on this, that you get the help you need without shame, you gotta do what you gotta do for yourself and your health.

Marchelle (33:01):

So just to add that, if you are trying to lose fat, I don't like to say lose weight anymore. Like say lose fat because you don't want to lose weight. You want to keep your muscle. Yes. So that, and if you're, you know, and if you're doing Dr Angela's program and you are struggling with losing fat and you're eating the 30 grams of her doing everything you're supposed to be doing, and you're struggling with that, and the scale is not doing what you think it should be doing, and you are having a couple glasses of wine, even one glass of wine a night, every night makes a huge difference in weight loss. So I would cut out that glass of wine if you're trying to really, you know, get some make some progress.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (33:49):

And just maybe one or two nights a week instead of all seven. Yeah. Okay. So that is all for tonight. And we will see you all next time with… Next week with another podcast. Take care, everybody.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (34:04):

All right, bye.

Closing (34:07):

Hey, if you really want to lose weight and keep it off for good, your next step is to sign up for Dr. Angela's free weight loss course, where you're going to learn everything you need to get started on your weight loss journey, the right way. Just head over to JourneyBeyondWeightLoss.com/freecourse to sign up. Also, it would be awesome if you could take a few moments and write a review on iTunes. Thanks!

And we'll see you in Journey Beyond Weight Loss.

Subscribe to Angela's Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/keep-the-weight-off/id1553801095

https://www.journeybeyondweightloss.com/5-day-detox

Dr. Angela

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