Often people who are new to keto want to know whether alcohol is allowed on the keto diet. The answer is some types of alcohols are not strictly forbidden, while others are. There are also some drawbacks to drinking even the types of alcohol that are allowed on keto.
In general, alcohol is not good for your health, even red wine, because it speeds up aging and causes inflammation. Also one of the main drawbacks of drinking alcohol on the keto diet is that the body will burn the alcohol in your system before it burns fat, so it will delay fat burn until the alcohol is depleted from your system. This will not cause major issues unless you are a frequent or heavy drinker, which can cause significant delays of fat burning by your body.
So what types of alcohols are allowed on keto? First of all, beer and flavored alcohol contain carbs and sugar that can immediately knock you out of ketosis, so make sure you abstain from those. However, clear hard liquors such as vodka are the types of alcohol that are safest for keto, especially the ones with no carbs and sugar and very little calories. One thing to be aware of though is that some people have issues with all types of alcohol, even straight liquor and dry wine. At 7 calories per gram, it’s never a good idea to drink to excess, even the types of alcohol that have no carbs.
Other negative effects that alcohol can have on keto is influencing your mental state in a negative way, which can make it easy to stray off your diet. It can cause some people to lose focus and purpose, which may result in binging on carbs and disrupting their macros. Alcohol also hits the system harder on keto because there is an absence of carbs to absorb it, so you might want to drink less than usual once you get started on keto.