3 Surprising Myths About Alcohol (You Shouldn’t Believe)
Do alcohol and exercise mix well? The easy answer is: No! However, to give up the daily habit and social interaction that comes with a wine or beer – or three – becomes too much of an ask for many. Even athletes have parties and drink you may argue. We leave it to you to decide whether to drink or not. Read how to think about planning your life so workouts can stand alone and alcohol get a space for those special occasions instead.
Healthy Living: Myths about Alcohol and Exercise
This post is an add-on to our alcohol and healthier life articles.
- Alcohol and Healthy Living: Drink or Leave it?
- The Healthier Drinking Guide
- Alcohol and Your Job: Are You at Risk?
In this post, The Goodista teamed up with Marcus Borg from mindtomusclefitness.com to explore 3 surprising myths about alcohol and fitness. We wish you a good read and for more detail make sure to drill in the in-depth article resources.
Myths about Alcohol and Exercise
Building a great body is hard. It requires discipline, commitment, and above all else sacrifice. That includes cutting down on sugary foods and alcohol.
It’s funny how ready we are to work out to get fit and stay in shape. When we are asked to tackle a 360 approach to health and fitness we tend to fall down.
We easily give in to social pressures and certain habits are hard to break. Like that evening beer, or wine o’clock… In fact, many believe in myths about alcohol and exercise.
But how can you succeed where others have failed?
3 Myths About Alcohol and Exercise
To get started, here are 3 myths you need to be aware of:
Myth #1: Calories in Alcohol Don’t Count
One of the biggest myths about alcohol consumption is that it doesn’t affect energy balance. This is a false presumption.
Alcohol can’t be stored as energy in the muscles (since it’s not a nutrient), so it’s stored as fat instead. To get factual about it while it’s true that a large portion of alcohol calories are used for energy by the microsomal ethanol oxidizing system (roughly 30%), that isn’t to say you get a free pass!
Weight Loss
In order to lose weight, you have two options:
1- Eat fewer calories than your body burns.
2- Burn more calories than your body needs to maintain its current bodyweight.
Tip: Read Portion Contortion: Size Matters for a Healthy Diet
If you have increased your exercise levels and yet don’t see that your efforts pay off on the scale bear in mind that a healthier lifestyle means addressing not just one area. It comes together if you exercise and maintain a healthy, balanced diet – and yes… limit the drinking too.
Myth #2: Beer Is a Potent Fat Burner
Beer contains hop bitter acids, which have been shown to reduce brown adipose tissue. However, you won’t get enough of it through drinking beer alone.
The effect is rather the opposite as the alcohol content triggers fat storage. If still, you believe the myth that that drinking beer will help read how it instead hinters fat loss altogether in this article on bodybuilding.com 5 Ways Alcohol Hinders Fat Loss.
Myth #3: Drinking Prevents Muscle Gain
How many times have you heard that alcohol and bodybuilding don’t mix well?
Drinking high amounts of alcohol on a daily basis will indeed affect testosterone and protein synthesis (muscle building) rates negatively. It will also impact you negatively as your judgment becomes impaired and you are at risk of becoming dependent.
However, low doses of alcohol have actually been shown to boost testosterone by up to 17% in the short-term and have little effect on muscle gains. Read this men’s health article to find out more: Will alcohol affect my muscle growth?
Fitness: Alcohol in Moderation
So go ahead and enjoy a few drinks in moderation! Just make sure to drink on non-workout days to avoid interfering with the recovery process. And by the way – According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, moderate alcohol consumption is defined as having up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men. This definition refers to the amount consumed on any single day and is not intended as an average over several days.
Tip: To get an in-depth guide read: Alcohol and Bodybuilding: Everything You Need To Know by Mindtomusclefitness.com
Recommended and Related:
- Alcohol Eats Away at Musclemass – ACE
- Work Out and Drink Up – Sanjay Gupta M.D., for Time
- Alcohol and Bodybuilding – mindtomusclefitness.com
- The Effects of Alcohol on Fitness – Livestrong.com
- 10 Signs of Overtraining and Recovery Tips – thegoodista.com