The truth about alcohol, fat loss and muscle growth. I've been getting tons of questions relating to alcohol and fat loss lately. Happens every time summer rolls around. Outdoor parties, clubbing, vacations and the whole shebang. Alcohol is a key ingredient. What people want to know is basically how fattening alcohol is, how it affects protein synthesis, how to make it work with their diet, and what drinks to go for at the club. In the video above, I show you exactly how to mix up this pre-workout concoction. Note: the only 2 things that NEED to be taken pre-workout are caffeine & citrulline.![]() ![]() ![]() I think this is very good topic to cover today, since we're right in the middle of summer and all, because most people involved in the fitness and health game tend to miss out on a lot of fun due to avoiding alcohol. I know a lot of peeps who'd rather stay home and manage their diet than go out and have a few drinks. Sad, really, because it's all for the wrong reasons. I don't blame them though. Read the mags or listen to the . It's mostly bullshit, of course. No big surprise when we're dealing with the alarmist fitness mainstream that can't seem to put things in the right perspective if their life depended on it. This is a definitive primer on the effects of alcohol on all things someone interested in optimizing body composition might be interested in. At the end of this article I'm also going to show you how a hopeless drunk like myself can stay lean while drinking on a regular basis. C'mere and lemme me tell you my secretz..*hick*Alcohol and thermogenesis. There's been an ongoing debate for years whether alcohol calories . ![]() This debate has been spurred on by the fact that drinkers weigh less than non- drinkers and studies showing accelerated weight loss when fat and carbs are exchanged for an equivalent amount of calories from alcohol. The connection between a lower body weight and moderate alcohol consumption is particularly strong among women. In men it's either neutral or weak, but it's there. How can this be explained, considering that alcohol is a close second to dietary fat in terms of energy density per gram? Not to mention the fact that alcohol is consumed via liquids, which doesn't do much for satiety? Alcohol is labeled as 7. TEF) which is 2. 0% of the ingested calories. This makes the TEF of alcohol a close second to protein (2. The heightened thermogenesis resulting from alcohol intake is partly mediated by catecholamines. P90X Workout Review Contents: What is P90X? Classic, Doubles + Lean; Muscle Confusion; What Equipment Do I Need? Diet; Where To Buy P90X Online; My Results. The only unbiased & honest review of the popular Body Beast Workout by Beach Body company. DON'T buy this program before you've read this review! I've been getting tons of questions relating to alcohol and fat loss lately. Happens every time summer rolls around. Outdoor parties, clubbing, vacations and the. Is higher TEF a reasonable explanation for lower body fat percentage in regular drinkers? We need to consider that alcohol does not affect satiety like other nutrients. The disinhibition of impulse control that follows intoxication may also encourage overeating. Ever come home from a party in the middle of the night and downed a box of cereals? That's what I mean. It's unlikely that the effect of alcohol on body weight in the general population can be attributed solely to the high TEF of alcohol. An alternative explanation is that alcohol consumption decreases food intake in the long term. Another explanation is that regular alcohol consumption affects nutrient partitioning favorably via improvements in insulin sensitivity. Alcohol, insulin sensitiviy and health. Moderate alcohol consumption improves insulin sensitivity, lowers triglyceride concentrations and improves glycemic control. Not only in healthy folks, but also in type 2 diabetes. There is no clear consensus on the insulin sensitizing mechanism of alcohol, but one viable explanation may be that alcohol promotes leanness by stimulating AMPK in skeletal muscle. It's not a stretch to assume that this might have favorable effects on nutrient partitioning in the longer term. If the effect of alcohol consumption on insulin sensitivity doesn't impress you, then consider the fact that studies have consistently shown that moderate drinkers live longer than non- drinkers. This can be mainly attributed to a lowered risk of cardiovascular disease. However, alcohol also contributes to a healthier and disease- free life by protecting against Alzheimer's disease, metabolic syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, the common cold, different types of cancers, depression and many other Western diseases. The list goes on and on. It can almost be said beyond doubt that moderate alcohol consumption is healthier than complete abstinence. With this in mind, it's strange that the fitness and health community shun alcohol. This irrational attitude seems to be grounded in the beliefs that alcohol is fattening and will hamper muscle gains. So let's take a look at that. Alcohol, hormones and training. You've probably heard that alcohol intake lowers testosterone. While this is true, the actual impact has been widely exaggerated. A three- week study that had men and women consume 3. That's three beers a day for three weeks and a measly 6. What kind of an effect would you think a few beers on an evening once or twice a week would have? Hardly any. For alcohol to significantly lower testosterone, you need to do some serious drinking. If you drink so goddamn much that you are admitted to the hospital, you get a similar effect with a reduction of about - 2. A few studies have looked at alcohol consumption in the post- workout period. One study examined the hormonal response to post- workout alcohol consumption using 7. Anyway, despite this hefty post- workout drinking binge, no effect on testosterone was found and only a very modest effect on cortisol was noted. The latter is as expected, considering the effect of alcohol on catecholamines. Citing directly from this paper, this quote sums up the scientific findings regarding the effects of alcohol on testosterone. Well, no big surprise there. We've been through this many times before with meal frequency and countless other diet myths. When it comes to recovery after strength training, moderate alcohol consumption (6. However, the research is a bit mixed on this topic. One study, which used a very brutal regimen of eccentric training only, followed by alcohol intakes in the 8. I should note that eccentric training is hard to recover from and the volume used here was pretty crazy. Another study looked at exhaustive endurance training followed by post- workout alcohol intakes in the 1. The common denominator among these two studies is either extremely tough training or unusually high alcohol intakes in the post- workout period. Unless you're in the habit of going bar- hopping after 5. Yet it's studies like these that gets the attention among the alcohol- alarmist fitness crowd. What about protein synthesis? Strangely enough, the acute effects of alcohol on muscle protein synthesis in normal human subjects are non- existent in the scientific litterature. It has only been studied in chronic alcoholics, which have reduced rates of muscle protein synthesis. Chronic alcoholic myopathy, which causes muscle loss, is one unfortunate side- effect of alcohol abuse. However, this study showed that alcoholics without myopathy had lower body fat percentage and the same amount of lean mass as non- drinkers. So much for the argument that alcohol makes all your muscles fall off. If you put any stock in rat studies, it's clear that alcohol affects protein synthesis negatively. Then again, results from rat studies are almost never directly applicable to human physiology. There are profound differences in how humans and rodents cope with macronutrients and toxins. Absolut Turnover is is my favorite drink right now. You need a shot of Absolut Vanilia and one lime wedge dipped in cinnamon and brown sugar. Drink, bite and enjoy. Alcohol and fat storage. Let's quickly review how nutrients are stored and burned after a mixed meal. Carbs and protein suppress fat oxidation via an elevation in insulin. However, these macronutrients do not contribute to fat synthesis in any meaningful way by themselves. Since fat oxidation is suppressed, dietary fat is stored in fat cells. As the hours go by and insulin drops, fat is released from fat cells. Fat storage is an ongoing process and fatty acids are constantly entering and exiting fat cells throughout the day. Net gain or loss is more or less dictated by calorie input and output. If we throw alcohol into the mix, it gets immediate priority in the in the substrate hierarchy: alcohol puts the breaks on fat oxidation, but also suppresses carb and protein oxidation. This makes sense considering that the metabolic by- product of alcohol, acetate, is toxic. Metabolizing it takes precedence over everything else. This quote sums up the metabolic fate of alcohol nicely. There's simply no metabolic pathway that can make fat out of alcohol with any meaningful efficiency. Studies on fat synthesis after substantial alcohol intakes are non- existent in humans, but Hellerstein(from quotation) estimated de novo lipogenesis after alcohol consumption to ~3%. Out of the 2. 4 g alcohol consumed in this study, a measly 0. The effect of alcohol on fat storage is very similar to that of carbs: by suppressing fat oxidation, it enables dietary fats to be stored with ease. However, while conversion of carbs to fat may occur once glycogen stores are saturated, DNL via alcohol consumption seems less likely. Summary* Moderate alcohol consumption is assocoiated with an abundance of health benefits. The long- term effect on insulin sensitivity and body weight (via insulin or decreased appetite) may be of particular interest to us.* The thermic effect of alcohol is high and the real caloric value is not 7. However, it's still easy to overconsume calories by drinking. Calorie for calorie, the short- term effect of alcohol on satiety is low. Adding to this, intoxication may also encourage overeating by disinhibition of dietary restraint.* The negative effects of alcohol on testosterone and recovery has been grossly exaggerated by the fitness mainstream. Excluding very high acute alcohol consumption, or prolonged and daily consumption, the effect is non- significant and unlikely to affect muscle gains or training adaptations negatively.* The effect of alcohol on muscle protein synthesis is unknown in normal human subjects.
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