Blog Post

7 ways drinking alcohol can affect your fitness goals

Carolina Kohan • Jun 21, 2022

Stop Sabotaging YOUR GOALS!

We all know that drinking lowers our inhibitions and leads to poor food choices like late-night pizza and greasy breakfast. BUT how big of an impact can it really have on your fitness and performance goals?! Lets take a closer look on the impact alcohol has on your body.


1.Metabolism

Our body uses the three macronutrients — carbohydrates, fat, and protein — for energy, but we can also use ethanol (the type of found in alcoholic beverages) as an energy source. When we drink alcohol, we end up utilizing the ethanol for energy and inhibit our glycogen and fat energy usage resulting in fat storage.


In addition, Each gram of alcohol contains seven calories, so a standard drink contains approximately 14 grams, or 100 calories of alcohol, PLUS additional calories from the carbohydrates it contains. You end up consuming a bunch of unnecessary empty calories that have no positive impact on the results you are trying to obtain.


2. Performance

When it comes to performance, a hangover can reduce your aerobic performance by 11.4%, but even just one drink may have close to the same effect!! PLUS, alcoholic drinks make you feel sluggish and fatigued resulting in diminished performance output impacting your goals over time.


3.Dehydration

One reason performance suffers is that alcohol is a diuretic... If you drink and don't replenish those fluids, you're likely to end up dehydrated. This is important because hydration helps your body circulate blood and oxygen to your muscles and keeps your blood pressure regulated throughout a workout. The result leaves you feeling lethargic, weak and out of breathe during a workout. It can take up to 48 hours to recover from alcohol induced dehydration. Again, slowing down your fitness/performance progress.


4.Sleep

A glass of wine might make you drowsy but actually causes your body to spend less time in deep sleep, and more in light sleep. Which in turn will impact your rate of recovery time. Persistent lack of sleep can increase chronic inflammation, which impacts overall health.


5.Muscle growth

Healing and muscle repair time for growth to occur after a workout can take up to 48 hours. Drinking alcohol during this period can sabotage the muscle's ability to recover and properly repair. This can cause you to take a longer time in obtaining your fitness goals.


6.Injury and recovery

Some research indicates that athletes who drink even just a moderate amount are more likely to get injured or experience consistent lingering injuries. Alcohol increases the recovery time for soft tissue injuries — meaning injuries to your muscles, tendons or ligaments such as sprains or strains are more common AND they take longer to heal when consuming alcohol.


7.Heart health

One of the most unsettling facts about alcohol has to do with your heart's ability to maintain a regular beat. Even drinking just one or two drinks on a regular basis increases your risk of developing arrhythmia or irregular heartbeat.


The final verdict

Ultimately, alcohol could certainly slow your progress with both fitness and performance goals. You can say drinking isn’t the cause of your lack of progress…But we have been coaching long enough to know and tell you that it almost always is! 
 
If you have a fitness, health, or performance goal try removing alcohol for 30-90 days or until you hit your goal. You might be surprised how much it was actually holding you back. Be selective about your festive moments and when you want to include alcohol so you can be better prepared for the outcomes.

Happy 4th of July!!!






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