Despite being one of the leading causes of preventable disease and illness, alcohol still holds a significant place in Australian culture. In 2017-18 78.8% of Australians aged 18 years or over had consumed alcohol in the past year with 16.1% of them exceeding the life time risk guideline (more then two standard drinks per day). Alcohol is also the only drug where approval of regular use by an adult was higher then disapproval (46% approved compared with 22% who disapproved), this reflects that alcohol consumption is widely accepted within the community. In fact, it is so accepted that most people don’t stop to consider the impact alcohol has on their health before downing their favourite beverage after a long day. This article highlights alcohols detrimental impact on our health and how it affects your ability to achieve your health and fitness goals.
Alcohol Consumption Standards
The Australian government has outlined some guidelines that provide advice about the health risks that can arise as a result of consuming alcohol. This allows us to make informed decisions about our drinking behaviours. For healthy adults it is recommended we consume no more than ten standard drinks in a week and no more then four standard drinks on any one day. Obviously the less you drink the less you risk alcohol related harm. To ensure you don’t exceed these guidelines you must be educated and aware of exactly what you’re consuming. One standard drink is defined as consuming 10 grams of alcohol. The number of standard drinks per serving of alcohol varies according to the type, size, brand and if it is packaged or poured. For example a 375ml stubbie of full strength beer is equivalent to 1.4 standard drinks, an average restaurant serve of white wine (150ml) is also 1.4 standard drinks and a 375ml stubbie of premixed spirits is 1.5 standard drinks. It is also important to remember that tolerance varies depending on your size, fitness, mood, food intake, gender and drinking experience. Understanding what you’re consuming as well as your own tolerance allows you to make a safe decision on how much alcohol you consume.
How Alcohol Affects Your Health and Results
The health effects of drinking alcohol range from short term effects such as impaired judgment and movement, reduced inhibitions, slurred speech, impaired balance and coordination, compromised visions and reflexes, erratic emotions and potential nausea and vomiting. To long term effects such as mental health issues, increased risk of diabetes, weight gain, impotence, cancer, brain damage, heart problems and liver failure. It’s no doubt alcohol has a negative impact on your overall health and well-being but it can also impact your ability to achieve success on any fitness plan, here’s how.
Weight Loss: Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram of alcohol; this is more than carbohydrates and protein which provide 4 calories per gram. If you do the numbers this means you consume at least 70 calories for each standard alcoholic drink you consume, this alone could be the downfall to your weight loss efforts. Your body also sees alcohol as a toxin; because of this our liver must prioritise the metabolism of alcohol over all other forms of calories. As a result calories from all other sources will not be used for energy, rather they will be stored as fat. To make things worse excess calories from alcohol get stored in the liver, if you drink too much or too often your body will be unable to process these calories into storage fast enough and therefor fat develops in your liver and around your abdomen. Our liver is also responsible for stabilising our blood sugar but if our liver is busy processing alcohol our blood sugar drops and remains low until all alcohol is metabolised, this increases hunger and food cravings. Increased food cravings combined with reduced inhibitions can lead us to make poor food choices, further derailing our weight loss efforts.
Muscle Gain: All calories consumed through alcohol are considered empty calories. Put simply they do not offer our body any nutritional value. Consuming these types of calories will leave your body without the nutrients it needs to repair, grow and develop. Alcohol also disrupts myofibrillar protein synthesis which affects the way our body responds and adapts to exercise. This further interferes with our recovery and the regeneration of our muscles. For these reasons drinking too much or too close to your workouts can really impact on the development of lean muscle mass.
Performance: When alcohol is present in your system glucose breakdowns at a much slower rate. This means that our body can’t access glucose to fuel our movements and as a result our ability to reach peak performance will be significantly hindered. Alcohol also affects our hand eye coordination, concentration, balance and slows our reaction time, consequently making movements we typically find easy much more difficult. Dehydration is a side effect of alcohol consumption which can result in cramping and lead to a deficiency of multiple vitamins and minerals that are crucial to the optimal function of our body.
Some people can still consume a moderate level of alcohol and see the results they are looking for. There is however no denying that the less alcohol you consume the greater your results will be regardless of your goal. If you struggle to abstain from alcohol then you may need to reassess your behaviour. Like food, people often turn to alcohol as a means of comfort and as I discussed in my previous post this may indicate an underlying problem that needs to be addressed first.
xx Tara
Do you think alcohol consumption has affected your results? Let me know in the comments section below.
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