Alcohol and Exercise: Why they don't mix

First let me start off by saying happy holidays. I figured since many of you enjoy the holidays by consuming alcohol in various amounts...usually excessive amounts...that there's no better time than now to discuss the relationship between alcohol and exercise, and why the two don't mix.

I know for many people, especially us Canadians, it seems to be the norm to drink as a hobby, and most of us don't casually drink either. Commonly it turns into nights where items are lost, memories are blurry, mistakes are made, and various alcoholic beverages are consumed. Then the next day you ask your friends what happened, and they proceed to tell you all the stupid shit you did. Instead of using your brains and thinking " wow that was dumb, I need to rethink my life" , you and your friends laugh about it then repeat the cycle the next day. We seem to be a nation that takes pride in binge drinking and acting like morons. I'm sorry but when the most exciting part of your week is drinking so much that you puke your guts out, and end up sleeping with some random nasty ass person, your life is very sad. The icing on the cake is the horrible hangover the next day. Wow, that sounds like so much fun!!!! Oh and for god sakes don't try and think that you are any better than drug users because alcohol IS a drug. If you need drugs to have fun all the time, then you are really missing out on life. If you are ACTUALLY a casual drinker such as drinking at a birthday or wedding or anything similar, then I'm not hating on you. I'm hating on you people that do the same damn thing every weekend, and try to put me down because I choose to do more constructive things other than getting wasted.


Now that my rant about the stupidity of drinking is over...for now.... I shall get to the informative section.
Alcohol is commonly called the anti-nutrient nutrient, and this is due to the fact that alcohol actually prevents proper absorption, storage, and use of many nutrients in the body. Alcohol has 2 classifications; food or drug. As a food, alcohol contains 7 calories per gram. That's 2 calories more than protein or carbs (4g) and only 2 calories less than fat (9g). A typical beer will commonly contain 100-150 calories! So lets say you have just 6 beer, that's 600-900 calories ! Now I know most of you have more like 12 beer, shots, and mixed drinks. A 1.5 ounce shot of vodka contains +65 calories! So it's easy to see how those calories can add up real fast in a night.

This is why I don't want to bother trying to train people for weight loss half the time. " I want to lose (insert weight here) by (insert time frame here) ". Then when I proceed to tell them that if they are serious they need to cut out the booze, they seem to think I'm joking or altogether just don't listen to me. You want to lose weight then you need to CUT CALORIES !!! Look at the god damn calorie content of alcohol you morons! You're gonna stay sad and overweight if you keep binge drinking every weekend. Oh , and don't bullshit me with "my metabolism is fast" crap, because it ain't gonna fly with me.

Alcohol in the classification of a drug, can have many detrimental effects. Sure it makes you feel good and gain a false sense of courage , but really this is just due to alcohol's depressant effects. When you consume a small amount of alcohol it appears to have positive effects such as: improvement in mood and possible euphorria, increased self confidence, and increased sociability. As the drinks continue things can progress to these effects: impaired judgement, impaired fine muscle co-ordination, impaired memory, blurred vision, ataxia, emotional lability, nausea, vomiting, decreased heart rate, and eventually death. That sure sounds like a fun night to me ......

Since alcohol is a type of sugar, it also has the wonderful effect of screwing with your insulin levels by impairing them. In case you didn't know, insulin is used to pull glucose out of the blood, so if your tissues don't respond effectively to insulin, then you have a condition known as insulin resistance. When this happens, your blood glucose levels can become chronically elevated, and can eventually lead to Type 2 Diabetes. It has been shown that moderate amounts of alcohol can actually decrease insulin resistance which is a good thing, but anything more than that and it increases resistance.
Alcohol also inhibits the metabolization of proteins and fats in the liver, as well as impairing the pancreatic enzymes needed for fat metabolism. This leads to the inability to mobilize body fat and an increase in blood lipids.



So I hope it's easy to see why drinking large amounts of alcohol all the time can be very bad for anyone interested in being in elite shape, and how it is just bad in general. I know there are benefits from drinking small amounts of alcohol, but they are very much outweighed by the negative effects. I think many people use these "positive" studies for an excuse to be alcoholics. Now as I always must clarify, these are part facts and part personal opinion. You're not gonna hear me preaching to people in the gym about how bad booze is and how you shouldn't do it. This is just information that you can use to either increase your knowledge, or get pissed off at me. You are all adults and free to enjoy whatever lifestyle choices you want. My choice is to not drink for many various reasons, but mainly because I don't need drugs to enjoy life. Give me a room full of weights, heavy metal blasting, and I'm having the time of my life.