Alcohol and Training
Alcohol and Training
Can you drink and still make progress?
This is a question I’m often asked. The answer is it's best to limit alcohol, but that doesn't mean you have to be tee-total, but stopping the binge drinking is a good idea.
There are negative ways that alcohol effects your training, fat lose and muscle gain. These are some of them.
Alcohol impairs your body’s ability to repair, makes you dehydrated, affects the quality of your sleep as interrupts your circadian rhythm, reduces REM sleep and can result in extra trips to the bathroom. This can make you tired and sluggish.
Alcohol also can lead to people making bad food choices while drunk and the next day.
It takes about 1 hour for your body to break down one unit of alcohol. While your body is getting rid of the alcohol, it’s unlikely to be burning fat and building muscle.
Some alcoholic drinks are high in calories. A pint of Stella Artois is 227 calories. Having just four pints in an evening is over 900 calories.
What often happens is that someone will go to the gym and stick to their target calories, during the week but then at the weekend they binge drink, causing them to lose sleep, skip the gym as they don’t feel good and consume too many calories which wipes out the calorie deficit they had during the week. Undoing all their work and having to start again the next week from scratch, or end up worse off. It doesn’t have to be like this.
Training is an important part of my life, but I still like a drink as much as anyone. I have only just come back from the pub. Training shouldn’t mean you have to give up your social life, but if you're going to drink at all, drinking alcohol should be done in moderation if you want results in the gym. At most I have one or two drinks, once or twice a week. I can do this while still maintain a very low level of body fat and continue to get stronger in the gym.
You don’t have to be tee-total, but binge drinking and getting drunk regularly will have a negative effect and will likely stop you achieving your goals. Having one or two drinks won’t.
This is a question I’m often asked. The answer is it's best to limit alcohol, but that doesn't mean you have to be tee-total, but stopping the binge drinking is a good idea.
There are negative ways that alcohol effects your training, fat lose and muscle gain. These are some of them.
Alcohol impairs your body’s ability to repair, makes you dehydrated, affects the quality of your sleep as interrupts your circadian rhythm, reduces REM sleep and can result in extra trips to the bathroom. This can make you tired and sluggish.
Alcohol also can lead to people making bad food choices while drunk and the next day.
It takes about 1 hour for your body to break down one unit of alcohol. While your body is getting rid of the alcohol, it’s unlikely to be burning fat and building muscle.
Some alcoholic drinks are high in calories. A pint of Stella Artois is 227 calories. Having just four pints in an evening is over 900 calories.
What often happens is that someone will go to the gym and stick to their target calories, during the week but then at the weekend they binge drink, causing them to lose sleep, skip the gym as they don’t feel good and consume too many calories which wipes out the calorie deficit they had during the week. Undoing all their work and having to start again the next week from scratch, or end up worse off. It doesn’t have to be like this.
Training is an important part of my life, but I still like a drink as much as anyone. I have only just come back from the pub. Training shouldn’t mean you have to give up your social life, but if you're going to drink at all, drinking alcohol should be done in moderation if you want results in the gym. At most I have one or two drinks, once or twice a week. I can do this while still maintain a very low level of body fat and continue to get stronger in the gym.
You don’t have to be tee-total, but binge drinking and getting drunk regularly will have a negative effect and will likely stop you achieving your goals. Having one or two drinks won’t.