All alcoholic beverages are considered to have empty calories. Empty calories are food/beverages that are high in calories and low in nutrition. The calories from alcohol tend to be stored as fat in the abdomen, hence the term “beer gut” or “beer belly.” Beer is the most common alcoholic beverage of choice. You can find beer being consumed at sporting events, bars/clubs, parties, and happy hours after a hard day’s work. After awhile those beer calories add up and so is born the beer gut.

If you’re in that situation and ready to make the commitment to lose the beer belly then avoid these common pitfalls:

1. Switching to “light” beer instead

No one said it would be easy and you may feel like not drinking beer at all will put a cramp in your social life but who cares? You are trying to lose that gut right? Then don’t think all is well because you’ve switched to drinking light beer. It’s all or nothing - cut out the beer to begin seeing results.

2. Cutting your calories too low

You know the beer calories added up so now you think dramatically cutting your calories will make up for all of that beer drinking. This is unhealthy and your body will not cooperate the way you think it will. In fact, a huge decrease in calories will cause your metabolism to slow down. It is safer and more effective to reduce the daily caloric intake moderately by 500 calories or so.

3. Only exercising your abdominal muscles

Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who has thought that doing crunches everyday will lose that beer gut. Watch any ab machine infomercial and that is how they market their product. You can’t spot reduce any area of your body. Fat needs to be burned overall by performing exercises such as cardio and strength training. Interval training workouts will burn fat much more effectively and strength training will build muscles to burn calories throughout the day.

4. Not changing your diet

Cutting out the beer isn’t the only thing that needs to change. You’ll need to cut out the other junk foods that went along with it in order to see results. Begin eating clean and your exercise efforts will really pay off. No exercise program is effective without cleaning up your diet.

Deciding to quit drinking beer or cutting back on it can be done. Keep a positive attitude and avoid situations that will tempt you to begin drinking. Easier said than done right? - any challenge is. You can be strong in mind and body!

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