The Booze Question

The Booze Question NUTRITION

Recent headlines about alcohol might have you convinced that drinking and an active lifestyle don’t mix. So, is there such a thing as a happy hour for women who work out? The answer might surprise you.

Because you’re conscious of your health and determined not to backtrack your fitness, chances are you agonise over the choice to sip or sit out at barbecues and Sunday sessions – and recent headlines aren’t taking the pressure off.

Modern studies have linked heavy drinking to arterial stiffness and heart disease, have suggested that a daily glass of white wine may raise melanoma risk by 13 per cent, have found that just the smell of alcohol can impact self-control, and have even reported that previous findings showing the potential benefits of occasional drinking, such as longevity, were flawed in their design. But the most significant buzz around booze came from a study published in October 2016 in the journal BMJ Open, which found women are catching up to men’s drinking habits at an unprecedented rate, drinking nearly as much as the guys do, and experiencing similar levels of alcohol-related problems.

That’s a lot to think about once the cocktails make their appearance at your friend’s backyard gathering. But, while the health consequences of alcohol should always be considered and discussed with your health professional, it doesn’t mean that you need to pass up every opportunity to raise a glass while the weather is still warm – especially if you’re otherwise healthy. Moderation is key Experts on training and alcohol agree that, with low to moderate consumption, drinking and fitness can co-exist. “Obviously, drinking every day is bad for business,” says PhD candidate Jakob Vingren, who is an Associate Professor at the University of North Texas and who studies alcohol’s impact on exercise. “But having a drink or two on occasion, I don’t think is a problem.”

The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines binge drinking as more than five drinks in a night for women,

A 2016 study found women are catching up to men’s drinking habits at an unprecedented rate.

plan to head to the gym after a night of heavy drinking are likely to lack the motivation to train at peak levels – or to exercise at all, says Senior, since alcohol is a depressant. But dragging yourself out of bed isn’t even the rough part. “Even if you do end up working out, it might not be for as long or as hard, and part of that might be because of the fatigue,” she says. “Alcohol impacts your energy levels, your ability to perform and concentrate, and your reaction times. It can also impede the ability to learn and store new information,” she adds, so trying a new workout the day after drinking can be difficult and unsafe.

There’s also the issue of dehydration putting a damper on your gym plans. As a diuretic, alcohol can disrupt the water balance in your cells, especially if you didn’t replenish your fluids from a night of drinking, says Senior. “Dehydration decreases the ability to regulate our body temperature and disrupts the fluid and electrolyte balance, which can be dangerous, especially if you’re going to be exercising in a hot environment,” she says. In addition, alcohol can hinder the body’s ability to

Going out for drinks? Follow these tips to reduce the impact that alcohol may have on your healthy lifestyle and fitness goals. 411 Happy Hour

while the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) alcohol guidelines says its closer to four. Stefanie Senior, a Registered Dietitian in the US, suggests her active female clients aim for no more than three to five drinks per week, and no more than two per day, if they wish to perform well in the gym. “What I usually recommend is that you limit drinking and create an alcohol budget for the week,” she says. “And each day that you are drinking, to stay conscious of how much you’re having.” Hungover workout So how exactly does a little gin ‘n’ juice impact the other ‘g’ in your life? Women who 1. Pile on the protein. Vingren suggests ordering a high-protein meal off the pub menu to minimise the impact alcohol will have on muscle recovery. A study published in PLOS ONE found that, following exercise, alcohol suppressed the anabolic response in muscle and impaired recovery, but pairing alcohol with protein lessened the damage.

2. Sip slowly. “One drink is unlikely to have any detrimental effects on the body or brain,” says Dr Matthew Barnes, Senior Lecturer at the School of Sports and Exercise at Massey University in New Zealand. “However, when you start to drink more at a faster rate – say three to four drinks in an hour – you can’t clear alcohol fast enough.” As a result, Barnes says it accumulates in your blood stream and starts to impair many of the body’s systems: the central nervous system, skeletal muscle, cardiovascular system and immune system, to name a few. 3. Avoid mixers. “Having cocktails that are high in sugar and alcohol could set you up for fat gain if consumed regularly,” says Barnes. 4. Choose clear. “Darker spirits that have been aged in wooden barrels, such as aged rum and whiskey, appear to cause more of a hangover than those that have not because they have a higher methanol content,” says Vingren. Choose clear spirits, such as vodka, which will give you less of a hangover, alcohol for alcohol, than a bourbon will. 5. Steer clear of the energy drinks. Researchers from the University of Victoria in Canada reviewed 13 studies on alcohol and energy drinks and found that mixing high-caffeine energy beverages with alcohol increased the risk of injury compared to drinking straight alcohol. The researchers say that mixing causes an awake-drunk state that makes it more likely that you will get hurt from a fall, a car accident or a fight.

6. CONSIDER YOUR GLASS. In a study from 2012, participants who drank beer out of a curved flute versus a straight-edged glass drank almost twice as fast – possibly because it’s harder to tell how much you have left in a curvy container.

One study suggests protein can help reduce the impact of alcohol on muscle recovery.

absorb nutrients, such as B vitamins, which are crucial for converting carbohydrates into energy during training, and an important component of post-workout recovery. If you’re planning to hit the barbell after a night at the bar, research shows that your actual performance may be less impacted during weightlifting than if you opted for the spin bike. “A lot of studies show there’s no effect on strength and power the day after drinking,” says Vingren. There is some data suggesting that it might negatively affect aerobic performance and endurance, he adds, but the impact has only been studied in men so far. So, why the difference between weights and cardio? “It’s purely speculative, but I think it has to do with glucose utilisation,” says Vingren. He explains that it only takes two seconds to perform a lift, which doesn’t require glucose for fuel, but that endurance cardio relies on this process, which is impaired after a night of drinking. Impact on muscle When it comes to alcohol’s effect on muscle building, active women need to know two things. One, although alcohol appears to impact signals involved in muscle growth in men, researchers say more studies are needed in order to make a direct link. “We do not know if [drinking] has long-term detrimental effects on building muscle,” says Dr Matthew Barnes, Senior Lecturer at the School of Sports and Exercise at Massey University in New Zealand, and a leading researcher on the connection between sports, exercise and alcohol consumption. Secondly, while research lacks studies that include female participants, there’s good reason to believe that the effects are “not as bad for women as they are for men”, Dr Barnes says. Apparently a link between muscle-growth signals and drinking hasn’t been proven like it has in our male counterparts.

“Similarly, we have found that although alcohol magnifies the effects of exercise-induced muscle damage in males, it does not have the same effect in females.” Women, it seems, recover differently when alcohol mixes with training, although they still face similar consequences of boozing as men. These include a reduced production of growth hormone necessary for muscle protein synthesis (the

process by which muscles build and repair) after a workout, as well as disrupted REM sleep, which is needed for adequate muscle recovery.

Here’s where things get interesting: one of Vingren’s studies found that when drinking alcohol after a heavyduty workout that causes muscle damage – for example, following an intense strength training session with an evening outing to the pub – strength recovery is reduced, but only in guys. “According to our study, it does not occur in women,” he says. More research is needed to pinpoint the exact cause, but Vingren suspects that it has to do with the fact that men have about 10 times the amount of testosterone as women, which seems to be affected by alcohol, and is a bigger player in muscle recovery and growth for men than it is in women. Still, because the data in females is lacking at best, active women can take pointers from Vingren’s suggestions for men, which is some of the only science that we have on the topic.

“If you can not drink after a workout, that would be my advice,” says Vingren. “But if you know you’re going to go out drinking, especially drinking heavily, skip the workout.”

Still craving the gym? If you really don’t want to skip that Saturday spin class, Vingren recommends putting as much time as possible between your workout and cocktail hour; so get your sweat on first thing in the morning if you’re heading out for wines that night. There’s no set rule on how much time is required to negate the possible impacts of booze on muscle recovery, but “the longer you can put between the two, the better”, says Vingren. How about my fat loss goals? Those watching their body fat percentage tend to avoid alcohol like the plague (or at least they try to), but the likelihood of alcohol to be stored as fat is actually surprisingly low. “The reason is that acetate – the chemical into which alcohol gets broken down in your liver – is a toxic substance, and so your body doesn’t want to store it,” says Trainer and Founder of Result Based Training (RBT) Gyms, Travis Jones. “That’s why acetate gets burned or released through other pathways once it enters your bloodstream. As a result, less than five per cent of alcohol gets stored as fat.” That said, alcohol still contains seven calories per gram, is easy to consume in excess and is often downed with high-fat and carb meals (2am Maccas run, anyone?). Which makes nights out on the town inherently high-calorie. Alcohol also decreases fat burning and increases fat storage. The reason? Your body prioritises burning the toxic acetate before anything else. “So, when you drink, the fatty acids in your bloodstream are likely stored, while the ability of your body to burn body fat for fuel is impaired,” says Jones. Mitigating the damage comes down to proper planning, says Jones, who suggests ensuring you are in a calorie deficit on the day you drink and eat the majority of your calories from protein to ward off muscle loss. “It’s important to factor the calories from alcohol into your daily energy intake. Since a standard drink in Australia holds 10 grams of ‘pure’ alcohol, there are generally 70 calories from alcohol in one drink – plus calories from other sources in the beverage such as sugar,” says Jones.

“Alcohol does promote fat storage, but your body cannot store what’s not available.

So, if you’re planning on drinking alcohol, track the calories you are consuming that day from food and from the drinks. If you stay in a calorie deficit, you can significantly reduce the fat gaining risks of alcohol.” S

BONUS TIP: If you exercise before going out for drinks, choose cardio over weights. Vingren says this can help minimise the damage to your muscles, giving you less to recover from than an intense strength training session.