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Alcohol, Weight Loss, and Performance

June 13, 2006 Send this Article to a FriendPrint This Article

Author: HyperStrike Expert Trainers

Summary

In short, you can drink in moderation and still enjoy a healthy lifestyle. But continuous over-consumption will hurt your goals of improving your fitness level, body fat and recovery from exercise or an injury.

Alcohol & Fitness

A moderate intake of alcohol can be part of a healthy lifestyle. Wine, in particular, has antioxidants which can benefit the cardiovascular system. It’s easy to think that if a little is good more would be better. But you may have your fitness and weight loss goals sabotaged by binge drinking and eating, especially on the weekends. For those of us that are truly focused on a goal of fat loss, improved health and/or fitness, let’s look at the implications of alcohol.

Empty Calories

While dieting or improving your fitness, it is best to avoid foods that contain “empty” calories. These are foods that lack nutrients and only contain calories such as candy, soda, chips, ice cream, crackers, and, yes, alcoholic beverages. At 7.1 calories/gram, alcohol has almost double the calories of carbohydrates and protein (4 calories/gram).

There is no nutritional value of alcohol as these calories are not metabolized the same way as carbohydrates, proteins and fats. In fact, alcohol can actually interfere with how your body uses other carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. One-half ounce of pure ethanol (the primary type of alcoholic beverages) is equal of one drink, which equals 12 ounces of beer (150 calories), 4 ounces of wine (100 calories) and 1.25 ounces of liquor (100 calories).

The liver can metabolize only a certain amount of alcohol per hour, regardless of the amount that has been consumed. The metabolic rate depends, in part, on the amount of metabolizing enzymes in the liver, which is determined by an individual’s genes and varies accordingly.

In general, after the consumption of one standard drink, the amount of alcohol in the drinker's blood (blood alcohol concentration) peaks within 30 to 45 minutes. One drink may take up to 2 hours to be metabolized while 4 drinks may take up to 7 hours for the liver to metabolize it. In general, women metabolize alcohol slower than men.

Therefore, if you do drink, take your time and let your body get rid of it accordingly. Let’s look at what happens when you drink.

Metabolizing Alcohol

Alcohol is one of the few substances that has some absorbed directly through your stomach, approximately 20%. The rest of alcohol is rapidly absorbed in the upper portion of the small intestine.

From there, the alcohol-laden blood then travels to the liver which affects nearly every liver cell. The liver cells are the only cells that produce enough of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) to break down alcohol at a significant rate. But the liver still metabolizes alcohol much slower than it is absorbed.



The above reaction produces hydrogen ions (not shown). This results in a decrease in a very important molecule called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). NAD binds to the hydrogen ions, which creates NADH. NAD becomes unavailable for many other vital body processes for which it is needed, including carbohydrate and fat metabolism that are needed to produce energy that would be used during a sport or training. Without NAD, the energy pathway is blocked, and alternative routes are taken, with serious physical consequences:

  1. The body becomes more acidic
  2. An accumulation of fat in the liver
As a result, carbohydrates, proteins and fats eaten during the same meal that would be normally metabolized for energy have a greater tendency to be stored as fat in the presence of alcohol. Much of our culture has a bunch of these moments: beer and wings, beer and pizza, wine and meat with potatoes, etc.

As such, alcohol by-products are converted into fatty acids which are stored in your liver and sent to your bloodstream. This will certainly affect you having that lean, attractive athletic physique you may be exercising and dieting to gain!

There have been repeated studies indicating how alcohol consumption is correlated with an increase in waist-to-hip ratio. This may be a result of fat deposits accumulating within the liver itself but not an increase in body fat.

Isn’t Alcohol Healthy?

There has been much positive press of alcohol’s protective effects against heart disease. Certainly, moderate amounts of alcohol do raise the “good” cholesterol, high-density lipoproteins (HDL). However, too much alcohol can actually raise your risk of heart disease.
What’s too much? The answer to this is dependent on your genes. Check your family history in order to possibly get an idea of whether or not your alcohol consumption may be more of a hazard to your health rather than a benefit.

In larger amounts, alcohol can raise your blood pressure and increase the amount of harmful fats called triglycerides, which, when combined with a low amount of HDL cholesterol, results in a blood profile correlated with an increased risk in heart disease. Excessive consumption over time may result in chronic elevated blood pressure, stroke, digestive cancers and liver damage. If a little is good, more is certainly not better.

Alcohol and Post-Exercise Recovery If you play a sport and go out to party right after coming from the gym or game, alcohol intake can interfere with the game and post-exercise recovery. Even if you drank plenty of water to rehydrate, because alcohol is a diuretic, it can cause your body to lose more fluid than you ingest. This requires replacing losses even after drinking moderate amounts of alcohol.

Alcohol delays and interferes with carbohydrate replenishment post-exercise. This may interfere with your next game’s performance. If you have a big game coming up within the next 24 hours, it is better to avoid alcohol entirely.

Many times, we may get injured while exercising or while playing a sport. Some may think that we should drink more alcohol to ease the pain. Unfortunately, this is not true. Athletes with soft tissue injuries or bruises should avoid any alcohol 24 hours post-exercise. Alcohol is a vasodilator, and it may actually increase swelling, bleeding and delay recovery. Usually soft tissue injuries are those that require ice. Thus, by drinking alcohol, you are giving the opposite “treatment” of what it truly needs.

If the temptation of drinking is too strong and unavoidable, get a post-exercise meal and fluids in first before drinking any alcohol and take your time drinking it. The food will cause less alcohol to be absorbed into the bloodstream and pass into the small intestine with the rest of your food.

Summary

In short, you can drink in moderation and still enjoy a healthy lifestyle. However, it is continuous over-consumption that will hurt your goals of improving your fitness level and body fat.

Avoid drinking post-exercise, or wait another 2-3 hours post-exercise before drinking in order for carbohydrate stores to be refilled within your muscles. Also, avoid drinking while injured because this will delay your recovery.

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