Alcohol: what you can drink without wrecking the plan
Short answer: clear spirits and dry wine, with food, now and then. Long answer below, including why the healthiest drink is still the one you didn't have.
The short version
- Best
- Clear spirits neat, on ice or with soda water. Zero carbs.
- OK
- Dry wine, brut nature sparkling, a G'spritzter.
- Avoid
- Beer, cider, cocktails, liqueurs, sweet wine, and every sugary mixer.
- Never
- On an empty stomach or on a fasting day.
- Our take
- Alcohol lives on Rebel Day. It isn't a daily habit.
First, the bit nobody wants to hear
There's no healthy amount of alcohol. The World Health Organization says it plainly: the cancer risk starts with the first drink, and there's no level below which it's safe.1 Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, including bowel and breast cancer.
We're not your parents and we're not going to ban it. But we're also not going to pretend red wine is medicine. If you drink, drink smart. If you don't, don't start for the "heart benefits."
What alcohol does to fat burning
Your body treats alcohol as poison, so it gets rid of it first. While your liver is busy with that, fat burning goes on hold. In a study at the University of California, two drinks cut fat burning by around 73% for hours.2
The alcohol itself doesn't turn into much fat. The problem is what happens around it: everything you eat while drinking gets stored instead of burned. The kebab at 2 am lands exactly where you think it does.
Drink by drink
Carbs per serving, rounded. Brands vary, so check the label when there is one.3
| Drink | Serving | Carbs | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vodka, gin, whisky, rum, tequila, Obstler, baijiu | 4 cl | 0 g | Best |
| Spirit + soda water + lime | long drink | 0 g | Best |
| G'spritzter (dry wine + soda water) | 250 ml | ~2 g | OK |
| Sparkling wine, brut nature / extra brut | 150 ml | under 1 g | OK |
| Sparkling wine, brut | 150 ml | up to ~2 g | OK |
| Dry red or white wine | 150 ml | ~4 g | OK |
| Light beer | 330 ml | ~5 g | Sometimes |
| Sake | 180 ml | ~9 g | Sometimes |
| Sparkling wine, "dry" or "sec" | 150 ml | ~3–5 g | Sometimes |
| Regular beer | 330 ml | ~12 g | Avoid |
| Non-alcoholic beer | 330 ml | ~10–20 g | Avoid |
| Cider | 330 ml | 20 g+ | Avoid |
| Port, dessert wine | 75 ml | ~10 g | Avoid |
| Liqueurs (Baileys, Aperol, limoncello, Jägermeister) | 4 cl | ~5–10 g | Avoid |
| Gin and tonic | 200 ml tonic | ~18 g | Avoid |
| Rum and cola, vodka orange | 200 ml mixer | ~20 g | Avoid |
| Cocktails (mojito, piña colada, margarita mix) | 1 glass | 25–50 g | Avoid |
| Flavoured soju, alcopops, sweetened hard seltzer | 1 bottle | varies | Avoid |
"Extra dry" sparkling wine is dry. Nope. Under EU wine law, "extra dry" is sweeter than "brut", and "dry" is sweeter still.4 Whoever named these was already drunk. The driest bottles say brut nature or extra brut.
"Non-alcoholic beer is the healthy option." For your liver, yes. For your blood sugar, often worse: brewers keep the malt sugar the alcohol would have used up. Some alcohol-free beers have more carbs than the real thing.
The mixer trap
Most damage doesn't come from the alcohol, it comes from what you pour on top. A gin and tonic sounds innocent. The tonic alone brings about four teaspoons of sugar.
Mix with
- Soda water, sparkling mineral water
- Fresh lime or lemon
- Ice, cucumber, mint, a slice of ginger
Forget it
- Juice, cola, lemonade, tonic
- Energy drinks
- Syrups and cocktail mixes
- "Diet" and "zero" mixers
Why not diet mixers? Sweeteners are on our never list anyway, and there's another catch: in a lab study, vodka with a diet mixer gave people about 18% higher breath alcohol than the same vodka with a sugary mixer, and they didn't notice.5 Sugar and food slow alcohol down. Fizzy water and sweeteners don't. Which brings us to the most important rule.
The rules
- Never on an empty stomach. Food slows how fast alcohol hits your blood. Eat protein and fat first.
- Never while fasting. Your liver normally keeps your blood sugar up during a fast by making new glucose. Alcohol blocks exactly that. Fasting plus alcohol can drop your blood sugar dangerously low.6 Drinks only inside your eating window.
- Not on the fasting day after Rebel Day. The fasting day is water, black coffee and green tea. A hangover is not an exception.
- One glass of water for every drink. Boring, effective.
- Alcohol is a Rebel Day thing. A glass of dry wine with dinner on a weekend is fine. A daily beer is a habit, and habits are what we're here to change.
Can't give up your beer?
- Switch from regular to light beer, and stop at one or two
- Turn your wine into a G'spritzter: half the alcohol, same glass
- A small sake with dinner instead of a large one
- If you must have a cocktail, make it a spirit with soda and fresh lime
Still a no: drinking on an empty stomach or during a fast.
Allergies and intolerances
- Sulphites in wine, especially white and sweet wine, are one of the 14 EU allergens and must be labelled.7 Spirits contain little to none.
- Gluten is in beer (barley, wheat). Distilled spirits are generally considered gluten-free, but if you have coeliac disease, check with your doctor.
- Egg and milk can be used to clarify wine. In the EU, that has to be on the label.
- Histamine is high in red wine and sparkling wine. If wine gives you headaches or a red face, that's a likely suspect.
Don't drink at all if you…
- are pregnant or trying to get pregnant
- take insulin or other blood-sugar-lowering medication
- take medication that doesn't mix with alcohol: check the leaflet or ask your pharmacist
- have liver disease or pancreatitis
- have ever had problems with alcohol
- are under the legal drinking age where you live
How alcohol fits into your plan
It doesn't, on normal days. Your plan is built without it.
On Rebel Day you decide. If you drink, pick from the green list, eat first, and drink water in between. The next day is your fasting day, and that's water only.
This article is general information, not medical advice. If you have a medical condition or take medication, talk to your doctor before drinking alcohol.
Sources
- World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe. No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health. Statement published in The Lancet Public Health, January 2023. who.int
- Siler SQ, Neese RA, Hellerstein MK. De novo lipogenesis, lipid kinetics, and whole-body lipid balances in humans after acute alcohol consumption. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1999;70(5):928–936. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10539756
- US Department of Agriculture. FoodData Central (carbohydrate values for beverages). fdc.nal.usda.gov
- Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/33, Annex III, Part B (sugar content terms for sparkling wine). eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2019/33/oj
- Marczinski CA, Stamates AL. Artificial sweeteners versus regular mixers increase breath alcohol concentrations in male and female social drinkers. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 2013;37(4):696–702. doi.org/10.1111/acer.12039
- Sumida KD, Hill JM, Matveyenko AV. Sex differences in hepatic gluconeogenic capacity after chronic alcohol consumption (review of alcohol-induced hypoglycemia). pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2111402
- Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on food information to consumers, Annex II (the 14 allergens). eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2011/1169/oj