Alcohol carries seven calories per gram — between carbohydrate at four and fat at nine — and it isn't protein, carb or fat. That's why it gets its own line in Shift Fuel Pro instead of being smeared across your macro targets. A 5 oz glass of wine is roughly 16 grams of alcohol, so about 125 calories before any sugar in the glass. A regular beer is about 14 grams plus its own carbohydrate. A 1.5 oz spirit is about 14 grams; the mixer is what usually doubles the number.
Alcohol doesn't 'turn into fat'. Your body can't store it, so it stops what it was doing and clears it first. For those few hours fat burning is paused and the food you ate alongside it is more likely to be stored. That's the real mechanism — not the drink itself, but the drink plus the fries plus the pause.
The next-day effect is usually bigger than the calories. Even two drinks fragment the second half of your night's sleep, which shows up as lower training quality, higher hunger, stronger cravings for salt and sugar, and a shorter fuse. Add the appetite loosening at the time — nobody orders a salad four drinks in — and one evening can cost you two days.
Practical ways through it: eat a real protein-forward meal first, alternate each drink with water, decide your number before you go, and pick drinks whose sugar you can see (wine, spirit and soda, light beer) over the ones you can't (margarita mix, sweet cocktails, ciders). Recovery matters more than penance the next morning — protein, water, electrolytes and a walk, not skipping breakfast.
Two honest cautions. On a GLP-1, alcohol tends to hit harder and faster on a much smaller amount of food, and nausea and reflux are common — go low and slow, or skip it. And if you're chasing a lean, strong body composition, alcohol is the single easiest lever most women can pull: not zero forever, just fewer, and on purpose.
Log it. A wine you logged costs you nothing extra; a wine you hid from yourself makes the whole week's numbers meaningless.