The ways in which drinking alcohol impacts your fitness routine

Alcohol can directly affect your fitness routine and lead to reduced metabolism, greater dehydration, poor quality of sleep and general tiredness and exhaustion.

We’re all aware of how excessive drinking and alcohol on a late night session leads to poor food choices for dinner and breakfast. Despite our best assurances that we’d be able to sweat off the hangover by putting in extra time at the gym, it definitely doesn’t end up working and shows up on the weight scale or in the way how our body feels over the next couple of days.

There is no doubt that alcohol has a direct effect on fitness levels but what is harder to determine is the level of alcohol as it affects every body differently. How the body responds to booze also depends on factors like age, weight, metabolism, genetics, body size and composition and so much more.

Several experts say that the threshold of alcohol consumption affecting body fitness is the moment when we realise we’ve had a bit too much and start to stumble and sway. But what are the different ways in which alcohol affects our body and slows down our fitness goals? Let’s find out:

Reduces metabolism

Alcohol consumption puts a lot of stress on the body’s digestive system because of which the stomach and intestines start becoming lazy. Normally, the body produces energy by burning three classical macronutrients - carbohydrates, fat, and protein - for energy. However, the ethanol in alcohol also becomes an energy source and the liver prioritizes breaking down ethanol instead of fat and carbohydrates which gets stored in our cells instead.

Experts recommend having food rich in nutrients (such as nuts and green vegetables) before alcohol consumption in order to reduce the stress on the digestive system and help it function normally.

Decreases performance

While light to moderate drinking may not have a great impact on your performance, anything beyond that (say above three to four drinks) can drastically reduce your performance in the gym or on the field and make you tired and exhausted. Studies show that a hangover can reduce aerobic performance by 11.4% but even one drink may have an effect.

Moreover, as the liver prioritizes in breaking down the alcohol, it becomes less effective at producing glucose which is the primary fuel for workouts and intense training sessions. This is even more dangerous for diabetics and it can lead to low blood sugar.

Leads to dehydration

Another way in which alcohol harms the body and leads to performance degradation is through dehydration. It is a diuretic, which means it makes you go to the washroom more and affects how the kidneys reabsorb fluids. Not replenishing those fluids after drinking and going straight to bed instead will make you extremely tired and dehydrated in the morning. This is important because hydration helps your body circulate blood and oxygen to your muscles and keep your blood pressure regulated so your heart doesn't have to work as hard. 90% of hangover symptoms felt the next day are due to dehydration.

Poor sleep quality

While a glass of alcohol or beer may make us feel drowsy, too much alcohol forces the body to spend less time in deep sleep and more in REM or light sleep instead. When we go to bed feeling a little spinny in the head, it’s a sign that we’ve overconsumed alcohol and we may wake up the next day feeling extremely tired and lethargic.

People who are tired make poor food choices and that a persistent lack of sleep can increase chronic inflammation, which impacts weight gain.

Affects the health of the heart

One of the worst ways in which alcohol can harm the system isn’t related to fitness at all but by how it affects the heart’s ability to maintain a regular beat. While conventional wisdom suggests that a glass or two of wine every now and then is good for the heart and the brain, studies have found that drinking moderately even on a regular basis increases chances of arryhythmia or irregular heartbeat.

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