Eating Under the Influence: Alcohol Can Make You Hungry

If you're dieting and frustrated because you're having trouble shedding the pounds listen up, there may be one very good reason why your diet doesn't work.

Alcohol – even a little bit of it with a meal – could be culprit sabotaging your diet, Fox's Dari Alexander reported.

And studies have proven just that – alcohol can make you feel hungry, even if you are not.

Experts say when you drink the booze can make you crave carbs.

New York weight loss expert Dr. Howard Shapiro has a name for this. He calls it E-U-I for eating under the influence.

Shapiro says eating under the influence means you have too many drinks and lowering your blood sugar, making you hungry. The first thing you can find is usually fast, high-calorie food.

We all know that calories in drinks can add up, but you may be surprised how quickly.

And it isn't just about the amount calories. EUI can make it harder for you burn them because alcohol can't be stored in the body. It metabolizes right away and, as alcohol is being metabolized, it compromises your body from metabolizing the fat and the carbohydrates, so that slows down your metabolism, Shapiro said.

Alcohol can also prevent your body from absorbing important vitamins and nutrients, too.

Shapiro doesn't tell his patients to give up alcohol all together. He advises them to take a break for even just a week or two and see how much easier it is to shed the pounds, Alexander reported.

For more, go to MyFoxPhilly.com.