Hey everyone, I have a bit of a ridiculous question to ask (odd for here anyway) but I have to ask as I need more knowledge. KNOWLEDGE! Like most people do, I like my drinks... I like drinking beer more than anything else when it comes to socializing but I occassionally drink spirits, wines and basically anything else that is thrown my way. I want to keep my fitness level up meanwhile (slightly) destroying my body with alcohol. I know that alcohol can be a very limiting factor when it comes to overall training and fitness, so here's my question:

How much alcohol can you drink before it becomes more harmful to your fitness?

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Is there a difference of how limiting beer can be between vodka, rum, whisky, etc.? What I mean to say... is there a more unhealthy type of alcohol that would affect your fitness level more than another? The possibility came to my mind when I had a bottle of beer in one hand and a shot of vodka in the other. Because vodka has much higher alcohol content, I thought that maybe only drinking beer would be less limiting towards my fitness level.

To elaborate, I'd like to give you a scenario. A while ago me and my friend went to a birthday party. I was forcefed 1/4 litre of Sambuca (that stuff can be deadly, it's like 40%) 1/4 litre of vodka (which I now dislike) and some other things. I was at the stage of alcohol poisoning so when I woke up, my head hurt and I couldn't physically move for 5 hours. So it's confirmed I was very hungover.

Next scenario - I go to the local pub with my friends and only drink beer from start to finish. I drink a lot but nevertheless in the morning I don't feel that bad at all. So it's confirmed I was slightly hungover despite consuming a hell of a lot of alcohol.

Is there a difference between different types?
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I can't believe I wrote this but anyway, thanks for any help you guys! I appreciate it. By the way I'm not an alcoholic.

damn near any amount of alcohol in the blood starts screwing with muscle repair, hormone production, etc.

Unfortunately a little vs. a lot doesn't much matter if you're trying to get peak performance and recovery. I'd try to limit you boozing to one day a week.

Alcohol takes precedence in the liver and so everything else takes a back seat. This interrupts the normal digestion process of protein, carbs and fats.

i think your just looking for someone to give you a number.
you want to drink beer so you want someone to justify an ammount you can drink.
But if someone said 2pints a night, would you stick to it?

You need to choose. Beer is good, but in moderation its even better.

Agreed 100%. To add on, if you have to drink do it during your cut / weight lost phase. Drinking while on a bulking phase will just make you FAT; and not PHAT

You got more ****ed up from drinking the hard liquor because you get a lot more alcohol in you that way than from drinking beer. From what you said you drank, you'd have to drink inhuman amounts of beer to get to the same level of alcohol.

With beer you get many more calories in you per unit of alcohol, so that's a downside. That being said, I don't think getting a bit drunk every once in a while will have that big of an effect on your training. Unless you're going for a competition and need to win, I say just live a little.

This time of year I drink twice a week. Typially no more than 3 drinks each time. I am still maintaining my 10% but realize I won't progress any more, not that I want to, as long as I keep drinking.

OK Diane- talk more about this. What would the protein and carbs do then? They just store?

And Malkore-- do mean alcohol in the system during working out, or having alcohol after working out?

This type of question has been asked many times on this forum.

And, when you are using the word, "fitness" in what context and meaning are you putting this in?

What are your personal goals:

• Lose appropriate weight?
• Gain appropriate weight?
• What do you have to train with?

The question, to ask yourself is: If I choose to drink, how can I "effectively" work this into my life when having fitness plans?

Will I have to make adjustments? Will I have to remove it all together, etc, etc. How do I effectively deal with this?

This depends on what your personal "fitness plans are" and the level and frequency of the alcohol you consume in how much this alcohol consumption influences your personal results of your "fitness plans"

These are the "types of questions" that needs to be answered, and it gets answered through education within diet and fitness, and knowledge of your personal strengths and weaknesses and knowing how to appropriately deal with them.

And, you have to ask yourself, where your priority importance-o-meter is. If you place more importance on "this", this will be the prominent result, than "peak" results from your fitness plans.

For you this is working in alcohol (or if necessary eliminating alcohol), with others its a on-going battle just to meet calorie requirements among the stresses of life, which means, you are no different than anyone else with a goal.

Lets take a tissue loss example. A lot of persons, specify that in order to lose one pound of fat tissue, one has to: Deficit 3500 calories (cause there is approximately 3500 calories in a approximate pound of fat); what some fail to realize is......this assumes all loss is from fat, when in fact it can come from muscle and fat at the same time, dependent on the person we are speaking of. For example, assuming one has been dieting for a while (ground equal here), deficits 1,000 calories per day for a week. This is 7,000 calorie deficit. This person may assume a 2 lb tissue loss, and for lack of argument sees this on the scale. It is quite possible, that not all of it is fat loss, but some muscle loss; therefore some of the 7,000 deficit is muscle loss, thus making the 3500 caloric statement not necessarily true--in this context.

Now, if you are wanting tissue loss, calorie consumption is a the critical component to solicit this for you. And since you drink alcohol and this carries calories, this is an element in your diet that you need to consider.....whether you like it or not, it does not matter, this truth will be the same.

Continuing: For example, if you have a BMR of 1700 calories, and you have a calorie need of 2700 calories which includes activity variables, and adjust a deficit of -600 from the 2700, and determine a daily intake of 2100 calories, hypothetically this is what one would consume to attempt to bring tissue loss.

Say its a Saturday (and you dieted most of the week), and when the evening comes, you are already at 2,000 calories from eating various meals. You go out and party with friends with the intention to get "bombed", not really paying attention to your "beer" consumption.

Let's say each average beer carries about 150 calories. You consumed about 13 beers in the evening. You may or may not have snacked, or had small other drinks, which we will leave out, to make this simple.

13X150= 1,950 calories. You had already consumed 2,000 worth of calories during the day prior to your party. This makes the total: 3,950 calories. You are 1,850 calories above your allowed deficit line, and 1,250 calories above your MT-line.

Keeping metabolic-adaptions....equal here, hypothetically, you just erased a few days of dieting in one night, and over-consumed carbohydrates.

A disaster for the tissue loss dieter. And, this is just the beginning of your sorrows toward your personal goal.

The "type" of calories in this hypothetical environment DO MATTER. Why? Because the over-consumption of alcohol causes many organs in your body--to "shift focus" to a: "intoxicating invader", and it has no choice but to deal with it. Your liver is doing dead lifts in detoxifying your blood, and your kidney's are performing back-squats in filtering, and so on and so forth with physiological stresses. You become dehydrated (maybe....even sick, with nausea, and vomiting). You may drink boat-loads of water in the process. To put this simply, your body isn't necessarily in the "mood" for fat loss at this time.

And (on the flip side), in this position, I don't think it has muscle growth on its agenda of primary importance at this time.

In addition, alcohol is a "great" dehydrator when consumed in excess, which is another negativity in muscle growth. A lot of variable factors can come into play (such as how frequent the excessive drinking happens, moderation, food consumption, etc).

What are your specific fitness plans? Maybe I can give a more detailed response once you do this.


Best regards,


Chillen

The difference between those nights, is the one which ended up very hangover was the night where you consumed more alcohol per unit of time, as well as mixing drinks.

I would put it simple, drinking regularly is detrimental to your fitness, whereas drinking occasionally would have little effect.

Kind of depends on what you mean by fitness as well?

Sup! Matt.......good to see ya!

And, I agree with you.....


Best regards,

Chillen

alcohol in your system DURING a workout is just plain retarded. and let me tell you...you NEVER go full retard!

remember, DURING a workout is not when you gain muscle. after you workout is when the body begins to repair and replenish things like glycogen and creatine.

And that's where drinking alcohol screws up the normal processing of nutrients as well as tissue repair.

well shoot! guess I will have to change some of my gym rituals!

Good to see you to Chillen,

I hope to see you here until death does us part lol

Meh if it's worth anything Vodka and other hard liquors are better for you than a beer, even light beers... a typical shot of vodka contains about 65 calories and no carbs. A typical beer, depending on if it's light or not, contains 110 or so with lots of carbs. The problem is, if you are shooting vodka, what's your chaser? Unless your billy badass and never chase, that chaser could make or break if vodka really is better than that beer you were going to drink. But for example if you chase with cranberry juice (or make a mix drink, yup you'll be THAT guy hah) it helps the vodka filter through your body quicker and is actually a beneficial chaser. So as long as your smart about your chaser... vodka isn't THAT terrible for you when compared to it's counter part. For example if you were to shoot 10 shots (which is plenty for most) 10x 65 = 650 calories + your chaser, which really isn't THAT bad. But dealing with the hang over is a different story .