Understanding Alcohol in Fitness

Starting a fitness journey often leads to questions about drinking alcohol while training and dieting. Which drinks have the least impact? How much alcohol is okay? How often can you drink? Moderation is key, but it's crucial to make informed choices. Although research is clear on the negative effects of alcohol on fitness, many still make unsustainable choices due to the social aspects of drinking.

Introduction

There is no doubt alcohol has negative effects on your fitness and health. They include reduced growth potential of muscles and increased difficulty in maintaining muscle. Furthermore, alcohol consumption promotes fat gain (directly through added calories and indirectly through signalling) and limits the ability to recover together negatively impacting your performance and health.

Calories in Alcohol

Firstly, alcohol contains energy in significant amounts. It has 7 calories per gram. Considering fat contains 9 calories per gram, and the fact alcohol is so easy to consume, this alone helps to explain why weight gain is so quick to occur with regular drinking. We could compare drinking alcohol to drinking fat from the energy intake perspective. Moreover, this calorie content is just in the alcohol itself, and not yet considering the calories in mixers and preparation methods.

Processing of Alcohol

During the process of metabolizing alcohol after consumption, protein, carbs, and more importantly, fat is all put on hold, and the body focuses on metabolizing and getting rid of newly introduced alcohol. Since alcohol itself has no nutritional value to the body and is toxic in substantial amounts, the body prioritizes the process of breaking down and eliminating alcohol before metabolizing any other source of calories. Consequently, any effort to lose body fat (or maintain body fat loss) is put on hold until the alcohol is fully broken down and out of the body. This causes delayed fat loss and more easily accumulated body fat.

Furthermore, alcohol acts as a diuretic and merely 3-4% dehydration impedes performance. This, put together with the typically neglected water consumption when drinking, leads to dehydration. Dehydration itself, along with its contribution to hangovers can make the following morning workout after a night out drinking suboptimal. For someone who drinks frequently on weekends- creating an insufficient environment for optimal training 1-2 workouts per week can add up over time to create a significant loss in potential improvements throughout a training career.

Training and Alcohol

Whenever it comes to improving our physiques or competing against our opponents or ourselves, we are constantly looking for the next big challenge or next big edge and breakthrough which is why workout performance is important. Together with the timing of nutrients, the periodization of training, supplementation, and hydration are all factors to consider when looking at optimizing your efforts in the gym. As mentioned above, chronic alcohol consumption can negatively impact mental & physical performance, recovery (alcohol intake has been shown to inhibit recovery of muscle tissue after exercise through reduced muscle protein synthesis, as well as other mechanistic effects), and even hormone balance (alcohol has been shown to reduce testosterone levels). This may ultimately result not only in impeding your weight loss but also in facing some training plateaus, making all your efforts in the gym and kitchen redundant.

There are still some ways and practices to be able to enjoy a drink now and again. In general, the more you drink, the worse your outcomes will be. It can be scaled by the quantity of total alcohol you have each day or week, and also by your habit of drinking to the point of inebriation. In either case, the more time spent intoxicated per week and the higher the total weekly alcohol consumption, the greater the negative impact.

What To Do

Many people respond to this information by eliminating alcohol. While this may be suitable for some, it may be unnecessarily extreme for others, who can drink in moderation and enjoy it. Tabooing alcohol for a non-addict can increase its desirability and lead to "binge-purge" behaviors.

Other people try to compensate for alcohol consumption by exercising more or eating less. It might keep your calories-in, in, and calories-out in check, but it also amplifies the damaging effects of alcohol (impacting recovery, muscle maintenance/growth, performance, and health). When individuals punish themselves with exercise or restrictions for indulging, they may also develop unhealthy attitudes and behaviors.

Final Thought

As with most things, the best answer depends on the individual. A moderate amount of alcohol can bring joy, and distraction, and enrich social interactions. In most cases, moderate drinking is probably the best course of action when it comes to alcohol - except for those with addiction issues to consider.