Yeah
what's up guys youssef,Latobehealthy.com and i figured for the start of summer
that this was a relevant topic,
So I wanted to talk today about bodybuilding
and alcohol.
what the actual effects are and some
guidelines that you can follow ? so that you are able to have a night out
drinking
with your friends and just
enjoy yourself without having to worry
about it negatively impacting your
muscle building or
your fat burning
progress
regardless of the fact that you'll hear
a lot of fitness experts out there
saying that alcohol
is completely out of
the question if you want to get into
great shape that it will destroy your
muscle growth kill your
performance in
the gym
that's really not the case it's
something that I myself used to believe
it but in looking more the
actual
science of it and just through personal
experience I discovered that it's really
just not true it's not a question of
alcohol itself being either good or bad
and you either can or can't drink if
you're trying to gain muscle or lose fat
it
completely depends on how much you're
drinking how often you're doing it and also on
how much you allow a night out of
drinking to affect her die or your
training in the overall picture
so first off there's two important
points that I want
to cover here the
first is the simple fact that alcohol
contains calories k has about seven
calories per gram and if
you're not
taking those calories into account as
part of your diet just like you would
for any other food or drink then
obviously that's going to affect the
results in some way so alcohol calories
do count and they do contribute to your
total
net energy balance for the day and the second important point here is that
if you consistently allow your alcohol
consumption
to interfere with your
training sessions or your regular diet then again of course that's going to
have a negative impact
so if you go out and drink and then you
skip a workout as a result or you and
your buddies end up at fatburger at four
in the
morning for calorie meal then yeah of course
that's going to affect you in some way
so if alcohol is causing behavioral
changes
in you that throw your program
as a whole off track
there should be no surprise that that's
going to slow down your progress
in some
way but what happens if you take an
otherwise properly structured muscle building or fabricating plan where
you're
staying within your overall
calorie targets for the day and your
workout quality and workout consistency
isn't affected
and then you just simply
add some alcohol into the mix and you
track the calories like i mentioned earlier this isn't a
black
and white issue and it does depend
largely on the dosage and the frequency
and there are going to be individual
differences
as well depending on
genetics and on how different people handle their alcohol
so the first situation we just be if
you're a casual
water and drink or
someone who likes to have maybe a glass
of wine in the evening or go and have a
few beers with your buddies every
once
in a while
in situations like that it's really not
something to worry about it all it's not
going to slow down your muscle growth
or
your fat loss and studies have actually
shown pretty consistently that moderate
drinkers which means no more than two
drinks pretty for a man and one for a
woman
moderate drinkers actually live longer
than non drinkers and small amounts of
app of alcohol actually protect against
a pretty wide range of diseases and i'll
link some research on that in the
description box below if
you're
interested
so if you enjoy casual moderate drinking
a glass of wine here a few beers there then assuming that the calories are
tracked
that's completely and totally fine and
it's probably actually beneficial if
anything
now what about the effects of a night of
heavy drinking
with the purpose of
actually getting drunk again this is not
a black-and-white issue and i can only
give general guidelines because of that
but i would say that as long as you're
doing it in moderation
so let's say maybe twice per month as an
estimate may be slightly more or less
depending on the person and on how their
body processes alcohol and also on how
much they're actually drinking on a
night out
but assuming
that you do it relatively
infrequently and you go about it
properly which
give you some guidelines for a second
here and yeah it is possible to go out
and have those nights of heavier
drinking without any significant
negative effect in terms of bottom line
muscle growth or that loss
I'm not saying it's healthy for you
obviously binge drinking is not healthy
so that's something you have to wait for
yourself
and i'm also not saying that it
will have zero effect but the effect
from a pure muscle building or fat
burning perspective
would probably be
pretty minimal
if anything as long as you're doing it
relatively infrequently and you're just
an average gym goer
and not some
high-level athlete trying to squeeze out
every possible inch of progress
I don't get this idea that all the in
shape bodybuilding
and fitness youtubers
you watch or all the trainers at your
gym live these squeaky clean lifestyle they never dreamed they'd never party
it's really not the case myself included
my life does not revolve around the gym
and I do enjoy going out and drinking
with friends just as much as
the next
guy doesn't just because you're trying
to get in shape
it doesn't mean that alcohol is some
evil substance that you have to
completely abstain
from it's really just
about finding the proper balance for
yourself and going about it in an
intelligent way so you don't fall off
track with your program
in the bigger
picture
now I want to get into a big technical
discussion about all the research
I'll put some links in the description
box
if that does interest you but the
main issues that people will usually
bring up our that alcohol lowers
testosterone levels and it lowers
protein synthesis
so on the testosterone
issue there's mixed research here
some studies have shown no significant
effect even after six to seven drinks
and even when a really large amount of
alcohol is consumed the effect is still
only temporary anywhere from about
fifteen to twenty percent decrease
lasting no more than 24 hours afterwards
now we've talked about this before but
temporary up and down spikes and
testosterone are not something
i'd worry
about too much because it's mostly just
about what happens in the overall
picture
I mean having test levels drop by say
twenty percent for 16 hours two times
per month
it's really not something I would
concern myself with and even if there
was a negative effect from that it
probably would be pretty small
and in my
opinion it wouldn't make sense to
sacrifice a part of your life that you
enjoy just the ego a few more hours of
muscle growth anyway
and when it comes to protein
synthesis
now that's only been studied in chronic
alcoholics and even then it's mixed with
results on both sides so anyone
who
definitively says that alcohol lowers
protein synthesis would be basing it on
rat studies and humans and rats due
process macronutrients and talks
differently
it's reasonable to assume that there
probably would be some effect but again
it would probably only be small and
temporary and not be a big issue
of
concern again as long as it's only
happening in frequently now if you are
going to go out drinking
there are a few guidelines that
recommend
following in order to minimize
the negative effect
so first off you're going to want to
stick to lower calorie drinks if
possible at least for the majority
of
the night
so dry wines and spirits are going to be
your best bet and then go ahead and mix
them with low calorie or zero calorie
liquids otherwise the total
calories on
a full night out
they're going to add up pretty quickly
now for example if you're drinking a
bunch of beer or sugary drinks like a
rum and coke or vodka
sprite
you're going to be dumping a lot of
extra calories into your diet which
definitely could make a difference
it's not that you can't have those
higher calorie drinks
but just be aware
of the difference
my drinks of choice are usually just
vodka water with lime or rum and coke
because they're clean and easy and they
minimize
the amount of total calories
that I take in without having to think
too much about it
the second guideline is to try to
maximize the amount of time between
alcohol consumption
weight training so in an ideal world you
would avoid training on the same day or
on the day after a heavy night of
drinking because
that way your recovery
isn't affected if you do if you train
earlier in the day and your performance
won't be affected if you're training the
day after
but if it's not possible to do both then
at least just do the best you can and
space them out as much as possible
number three minimize the amount of fat
you eat on
the days where you're planning to drink
this is because acetate which is the
actual toxic component of alcohol
it prevents your body from burning fat
when you consume it and
so the fact that
in your bloodstream it gets stored more
easily when you drink and so you can minimize that effect by lowering your
fat intake down on the days when you're
drinking
there's no set guideline here but maybe
cutting it to around say half of your
normal fat and take that would probably
work well the fourth guideline those
people
probably don't need me to tell
them this but just make sure to drink
plenty of water throughout the night if
you can as well as at the end of the
night before going
to bed and that's
because alcohol itself is very
dehydrating and it will go a long way in
minimizing any potential hangovers
the next day and help you recover faster
if
you make sure to stay properly
hydrated and the last point if you're
someone who's prone to eat heavily after
a night of drinking then make sure to
lower your calorie intake earlier
on a day so that you can save up some
calories for later on because your
judgment and your willpower
it's probably going to be reasonably
impaired by the end of the night
and
even if you didn't save up any calories
if you're hungry at that point you're
probably just gonna eat whatever you
feel like it not really care
so you can mitigate that by lowering
your calories earlier on in the day
so a lot of line guys just because
you're trying to build muscle and lose fat
it doesn't mean that you can't go
out and have fun and drink once in a
while if that's something that you enjoy
doing and it is possible to strike a
balance
between that and
fitness plan again if alcohol
consumption affect your overall
adherence to your program in the big
picture then that's something you have
to find out for yourself because
everybody's different and if that is the
case then abstaining completely hour at
least having a temporary period of
abstinence
is probably going to be a
smarter option for you
but assuming that your training and your
diet is otherwise unaffected then going
out and drinking on
the heavier side
once in a while is pretty unlikely to have any real noticeable effect on your
long-term results
health wise it's never going to be ideal
but
in terms of actual bottom line
muscle growth or fat loss if you do it
properly then you'll probably be fine
so .