I feel like I’m the least qualified person to write this post as I rarely drink and really don’t believe in it at all. That being said I’ve been asked a couple times now on what the science between drinking and results in the gym are and what can you get away with versus whats too much. So today we’re going to dig into it a bit.
My house had an interesting relationship with Alcohol growing up, there was absolutely no alcohol in my home ever, nor was it permitted. In fact my Dad has never drinkin in his entire life. Now before you go judging him as a loser who never knew how to have fun, let me tell you why. My Grandfather was an alcoholic, my Dad was abused severely growing up both mentally and physically. He took the brunt of my grandfathers drinking and mental health issues. My Dad was beaten with a horse whip and thats just where that story begins… now you can imagine the damage that causes a child mentally and physically over the years and when they see that those actions came from alcohol abuse, he swore he would never have anything to do with it.
The cool part of this story is my Grandfather actually got sober because of my Dad and finding God in the process and the grandfather I know was a gentle and loving man, who my Dad also loved very much. There’s power in forgiveness and love.
We’re going to talk about the health implications of alcohol only today as I can tell you Alcohol in any consumptions is NOT good for performance in anyway except maybe drinking away the hurt of a nasty Metcon LOL. If you’re thinking about your performance in the gym, losing fat or gaining muscle Alcohol is your enemy cause it will NOT help you but make all of those things way harder and worse on you PERIOD!
Ok lets start with the Good, There’s a threshold of what you can consume and still remain healthy and not have an impact on your long term health. The bad part for all of you wine lovers is it’s not very much. Now don’t kill the messenger, I’m just going through the studies. These global studies spanning multiple countries and decades of data collection and indicate that the threshold where alcohol becomes detrimental to health is at less than 17.5g/day
17.5g of ethonal is equivalent to 1.75 drinks. Most beers for example contain 5% alcohol, meaning that 100ml of beer contain 5g of alcohol.
In other words, one can of beer (12oz./355ml) contains 17.75g of alcohol and puts you just above the daily threshold for increasing health risks.
After that its gets bad on your health and you increase your all cause mortality(death) with every drink you take over the limit.
When you start consuming multiple drinks every night, over weeks and months and years. This is when things get ugly, not only does your health deteriorate but some people, especially those with addictive personalities start to “NEED” the drink every night for stress relief or to cope. Thats not good and its definitely not healthy and it can get just ugly.
My honest opinion is limiting the drink as much as you can for your lifestyle and whats important to you. To me I don’t need it for anything so if I choose, I make the decision knowing im the one doing this to me. If you “need” it I would recommend talking to someone about those issues you’re dealing with, you might just find a whole new you on the other side.
Coach Dan