Alcohol: What It Really Does To Your Health
Alcohol: What It Really Does To Your Health
One common sabotage for health and fitness goals is alcohol intake. While you don’t have to cut it out completely, it’s important to be mindful of the effects it has on your body.
Once you understand what alcohol does, you can take steps to protect your health when you do decide to have a drink or two.
What happens to the body when you drink alcohol?
When you have a drink, the alcohol content is quickly absorbed through the lining of the small intestine. It goes directly into the bloodstream, and circulates through the entire body until it reaches the liver. Once reaching the liver, it is detoxified and metabolised.
The interesting thing about alcohol is that once it enters your system, it becomes the highest priority. Your body will put everything else on hold – including digesting food, absorbing nutrients and detoxifying compounds such as hormones – until it is taken care of.
During this time, your blood sugar levels will decrease, as the liver is working hard to clear the alcohol out of your system. This drop leads to increased hunger – aka the ‘drunk munchies’. The increased hunger is one of the first side effects of alcohol (although it’s far from the only one!)
Other short-term side effects include:
Reduced inhibition
Changes to digestive function – diarrhoea, gas, bloating and nausea are all common
Impaired judgement
Higher risk of injury
Mood changes – anger, frustration, fear and sadness are just a few examples
But we also know that alcohol’s effects can last past the consumption timeline.
One big issue for those working on health and fitness goals is its impact on growth hormone and protein synthesis.
If you’re drinking after your workouts, this has an even greater impact. It spikes your cortisol and prevents your body from synthesising muscle protein – aka it stops you from building metabolism-boosting muscle! In fact, even if you consume alcohol along with protein, it can reduce protein synthesis by up to 37%.
Then there is also the increased risk of long-term damage for women. If you keep your consumption to below 10 standard drinks per day and max of 4 standard drinks in a single day, your risk of dying from alcohol-related injury or disease is less than 1%.
But unfortunately, women are more susceptible to alcohol-related organ damage than men. So it’s best to keep your alcohol consumption on the low side to prevent long-term damage – particularly as the damage could be irreversible.
How to find your balance with alcohol
Firstly, I want to make it clear – you don’t have to cut out alcohol completely to have a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. But you do want to look at finding the right balance with alcohol consumption, particularly when coming up to the holiday season.
Ask yourself: what does balance actually look like?
There are a lot of social norms around alcohol that may not reflect true balance for you. For example, a common mindset is that a glass of wine is therapeutic after a stressful day. This can be a slippery slope, as stressful days are more frequent than not for many people!
So instead, you could shift this to a mindset of ‘a glass of wine is something I want to mindfully enjoy on occasion’.
Eat before you drink
Having something to eat before you drink can reduce the rate that alcohol is absorbed into the body. This means your body has more time to deal with the alcohol and detoxify it.
Your best options? Foods that are high in either fat and/or protein.
Find some alternatives
As alcohol is so engrained in society and social occasions, you may feel awkward when you choose not to drink alcohol at an event. This is why I recommend finding some non-alcoholic alternatives that you can enjoy.
Depending on your preference and health goals, this could include:
Non-alcoholic wine, beer or cider
Mocktails
Sparkling water with lemon or lime
Set your own limit
Decide on a number of drinks per week or month that is your limit. You may also like to decide on a number of days per week or per month. For example, you could decide to stick to a limit of 10 standard drinks per month, spread over a max of 2 days of each week.
Be realistic about this. If you’re currently drinking wine every night, it might not be achievable to drop to a single glass once a week straight away. Set yourself a goal that you can achieve, and revise it regularly if you want to reduce your intake further.
Up your water intake
Alcohol is a diuretic, meaning that it makes your body excrete more water through the urine. So in most cases, you’ll be losing water quicker than you take it in.
A simple rule of thumb is to drink a glass of water between each alcoholic beverage. Ideally, you’ll also have a glass of water to drink alongside your alcoholic beverage. This will help to counteract the losses alcohol causes and rehydrate your body.
As a bonus, water also aids the kidneys and liver to process and flush out toxins and by-products of alcohol detoxification – which are compounds we do not want hanging around in the body!
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Hey there, I’m Rachel!
NUTRITIONIST, PERSONAL TRAINER, WELLNESS COACH
Here I share healthy recipe ideas, training plans, and nutrition & wellness advice you need to know.
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While we make every effort to make sure the information in this website is accurate and informative, the information does not take the place of medical advice.