The Low-Down on Alcohol and How it Can Impact Your Fitness Journey
The consumption of alcohol is deeply rooted in cultures worldwide. Drinking is most often associated with socialization, as alcohol is often shared during family meals or during gatherings of peers. It is understandable that many people want to enjoy the “normalcy” of having a beer with their buddy or a glass of wine with their girlfriends. So, when clients come to us concerned that they must forever give up drinking in order to achieve a healthy lifestyle, this can be an extensive conversation.
Finding a Healthy Balance
We want everyone to do whatever is best for them. For some people, that might mean giving up alcohol entirely, or limiting their splurge to Saturday nights for others. Just like food, we can’t start labeling substances as “good” or “bad” otherwise we will often find ourselves in a destructive cycle of restrictive eating / drinking and binging. In order to maintain a healthy balance in life, we must be insightful and honest with ourselves about what it is we love, how we like to celebrate, how we need to grieve, what our strengths are, and where we find ourselves weakest. Once a person can answer these questions about themselves, then they will be able to incorporate a “healthy” amount of alcohol into their diet.
Here is what we mean by “healthy”:
Health is not determined solely on a scale of physical wellness. A more holistic, or dare we say realistic, determinant of health explores multiple aspects of health. In order to declare our client as healthy, we would like to see a nice balance within the chart, similar to what we see in the chart above.
Let’s throw a client who consumes alcohol into this chart and see how it can make us more or less healthy.
Let’s say that John loves to drink. He drinks 3 or 4 beverages 5 days per week and goes all-out on Saturday nights. Because he drinks often, he doesn’t eat well and finds himself eating fatty foods when he does. John does, however, have a very engaging social life, and finds joy in spending time with his peers. He loves and performs well at his job and is the goofy employee who is always making everyone laugh. John believes in God and used to attend church every Sunday but is often too hung-over now and rarely makes it. John is functional but still feels guilty for drinking so much, feels like he can no longer control his binges but doesn’t want to give it up entirely.
John’s Health Pillars might balance something like this:
Now let’s say John is forced to give up his drinking entirely. He will have more time to prepare meals and eat healthier, but he will also have to cut out all alcohol-related socializing due to his lack of control. He’s no longer the vibrant, engaging employee but is performing slightly better, and is now attending church regularly out of boredom and seeking forgiveness. He is not as happy.
Here is how he might fall into our chart now :
Still not balanced, right?
SO. As I mentioned, at Preach Fitness we want to focus on BALANCE. What we would do for John is incorporate drinking and nights out with his buddies into his plan to keep that Social & Emotional Health going strong. We would then include “focus” days to really zone in on his Physical and Spiritual Health. Being that John’s Mental Health stays strong regardless is positive, and for this reason we don’t need to do anything drastic here.
Alcohol and Your Goals
The cold hard truth is that alcohol will hinder your progress, both fitness and nutrition wise. While we preach about balance and are always wanting to work with our client and not against them, we do still have to acknowledge the facts.
1. Alcohol is “empty calories”
There is no nutritional value to alcohol and it does ultimately still count as calories consumed. This may not hurt you quite as much if you are trying to gain weight, but if you are trying to lose weight, well then this can be a game changer.
2. Alcohol is used first by your body for energy
When consumed, alcohol is the first thing that your body will use to create energy. This means that even if you ate perfectly on plan that day, those healthy calories will still be stored as fat since your body will decide to use the calories from the alcohol instead of that nutritious sweet potato that you ate for dinner.
3. Alcohol decreases the secretion of digestive enzymes from the pancreas
With fewer digestive enzymes, the food that you have consumed perfectly on plan will not be broken down appropriately. All of those nutrients will go to waste.
4. Alcohol harms stomach and intestinal cells
With these cells impaired, nutrient absorption becomes far more difficult as does transportation of nutrients into the blood.
5. Alcohol harms your liver
As your liver filters alcohol, it is taking away from its job metabolizing fats, carbs, and proteins. Excessive alcohol consumption can cause a fatty liver which will affect the way your body stores carbs and fats, and ultimately make it more difficult to lose weight.
So, with all of this in mind, make sure you are insightful, mindful, and aware of how much you drink and how important it is to you. Make sure you are honest and forthcoming with your coach, knowing that we recognize drinking as a normal part of our social culture.
We Preach Perseverance, Resiliency, Empowerment, Accountability, Consistency and Humility, never Perfection.