So here it goes, I happen to drink beer about 3 times a week, I’m talking about a bottle or two tops at a time. I’m currently cutting and I don’t feel hunger and continue to lose weight and even gain some strength. My question is does the beer affect my progress as long as it fits my macros?
That’s not very much beer. If you really stick to 3-6 beers/week, I don’t think it will have any impact on your results.
If you add in a weekend bender or two, that’s a different story.
I’ve drank and cut before. Usually, I just did it one night every week or two and just got pretty buzzed and not blackout drunk or anything. I made great progress. Having a beer or 2 won’t kill your progress.
It won’t likely make much difference. If you were attempting to diet for a contest obviously cut it near contest time especially, but if not then it’s not a deal breaker.
The way I see it, the potential problems of a moderate alcohol consumption have a lot more to do with the way in which you behave as a result of the alcohol. Three to six beers per week aren’t going to make a dent in your progress if you don’t tend to do stupid stuff when you drink. If, however, those three to six beer easily turn into nine to twelve, or if you always go for junk food while or after you drink, you’ll have more trouble working against the deleterious effects of the drinking.
But if everything else is on point and it doesn’t affect your behaviour, go to town. Besides, life is too short to only drink water, green tea and protein shakes.
Keep in mind that Beer can be many things to many people. From light 55 cal to barleywine styles which can be 400+ cal.
I have a hard time cutting and drinking beer. Wine seems to be a much better alternative for me, but then again everyone is different.
Dude … Been cutting for 4 months - not for a show or anything, just to get leaner after a winter bulk gone awry …
Dropped 33 libbies so far and have 2-4 beers (light) per night
Is it optimal? No …doable? Yes
…I like beer …
Yeah, I drink quite alot of beer too. I was doing a ketogenic diet for about two months not long ago and I found I could have about one beer a night without kicking myself out of keto. I’d have a few more on carb refeed days, and I still made good progress.
What I’m curious about is the effects of beer (or alcohol in general, I guess) on the hormonal state of the body. I’m in no mood to Google stuff at the moment, but I read somewhere that alcohol can either increase cortisol or decrease testosterone production while it’s in your system (or both?) which is pretty bad for anyone trying to look better naked. Not that there is a huge amount of alcohol in beer anyway-- I think one bottle will metabolize away in about an hour.
I agree with the rest though. If progress stalls, maybe try cutting it out for a week or two and see what happens, but I doubt 3-6 beer a week is going to make or break your physique.