Alcohol and Exercise!

[-Davo]

It's no secret that -Davo loves his beer, in fact, is quite fond of the Guiness Drop.

A friend of mine told me that when you drink alcohol your body is incapable of burning fat, so basically if you drink alcohol and you have alcohol in your system and exercise you are affectively wasting your time!

I try to exercise on the weekdays, I play footy and ride my bike as much as I can be bothered to (4 days a week roughly), I park about 2km from uni (closer if I'm late) and ride to and from uni (fricken hilly) takes about 20 min roughly.

Then friday nights hit.

Pub time.

>.<

Last friday for my birthday had all the boys at the pub about 15 of us, my drinking buddy, Pezza and I went though I think about 8 differant beers on tap (from left to right including mostly lager, 2 or 3 ale and 1 stout, the Guiness) then went to bottled beer had about 3 and then I had a shot of some Sambucca crap, man, I was so hammerd I cant remember being that pissed in over a year, I was fucked. To add salt to the wound I eat greasy shit the next day out of sheer hangoverism, last saturday I went to macca's and ate: TWO bacon cheese burgers, large fries and large strawberry thickshake, FAT!. I felt so much better after though.

http://www.fitness.com/fitness_exercise/v1020785781.php

http://health.allrefer.com/health/keeping-fit-4.html

Just some links, I can't find any real hard evidence to back his claim up, but he's pretty smart and knows his shit, for the 8 years I have known him I have never proven him wrong, ever.

Alcohol prevents the body from burning fat. Discuss.

[Oz]

WTF? Input VS Output. Alcohol will adversely affect your hydration levels during excercise, but why the hell would it stop you burning fat? Simply because your liver is metabolising alcohol? Doesn't make sense.

But there are a LOT of calories in beer, combined with your "breakfast", you're not doing your diet much of a favour. ?

[-Davo]

haha alright, just needed someone to clear it up <.< >.>

[tenguzero]

Well, if I've got my facts straight, alcohol shrinks blood vessels, which means your muscles aren't able to get as much oxygen from the blood, which means they aren't working to their full capacity -- hence, they aren't burning as much fat as they could be. Now, I don't see how the process could retard fat burning entirely, but it sure isn't going to do you any good, either. As far as the alcohol consumption goes, your body usually burns off roughly the equivalent of one drink per hour (or so they say.) Which means that you've probably got it all out of your system by the time your next exercise event comes around. In that case, the main concern for a person when it comes to consumption of alcoholic drinks, is really WHAT they're drinking, and how many carbs it might have in it (a dark amber or stout) or how much sugar it might contain (the Smirnoffs and Bacardi alcopop drinks of the world.)

Of course, the reason why it's tough to make an argument in support of alcohol consumption to any real degree on the part of someone engaged in any sort of regular strength training or aerobic regimen (beyond the occasional social drink or whatnot that helps keep the liver healthy anyways) is that a regularly active body shifts into a cycle whereby it's almost always involved in an important activity that alcohol would obviously not be beneficial to. Case and point: drunkeness is detrimental to your physical performance on days you might be working out at the gym or whatever, but in addition it's no better on your days away from the gym, as these "rest" days are when the body is working almost equally as hard trying to feed and rebuild the countless tears and whatnot done to the muscles you'd worked the day before. So therefore, hinderance of this process in effect curtails the potential for gains you had worked so hard towards on your previous workout.

[zx2guy]

you also have to be carefull. one of my friends is a drill sergeant (i think i spelled that right) and he tells the best stories of how some of them men in his unit would party. then there was this one time in particualar where he talks about this poor sap that took one and a half laps running. cut across back to him and said he's done. my buddy asked why, the guy said he shit himself. and i can tell you ive had a few drinks before. mostly family celebratory stuff. and i can say running, or ant physical exusion isnt good. but i have heard if you want to get rid of alcohol from your system fast, then work out, because you sweat it out and you lose it in your breath ( thus the breathilizer test)