Alcohol and bodybuilding, do they go together?

One of the topics that comes up quite a bit is alcohol consumption while training and dieting. So the question is: is it possible to drink and still achieve a lean physique?

The following is not intended to dissuade people from drinking recreationaly but to point out the short comings of alcohol for an athlete in training.

First of all, alcohol delivers quite a few  empty calories ( calories without nutrition) , almost twice as many as carbohydrates  ( glass of red wine 123 cal, beer 135 cal, cocktails up to 700 cal). The emotional inhibition  which comes with alcohol often leads to mindless eating while drinking, the famous late night pizza f. i., and all these calories  easily add up to weight gain. Furthermore, alcohol directly affects motivation thereby making it harder to stay on a diet. 

Alcohol also lowers testosterone thereby inhibits fat-burning, since a lower testosterone levels means a lower metabolic rate.

Performance is also affected for up to 48 h after the consumption of alcohol, so if you have a workout planned the next day it just wont be 100 %.

So if you are serious about losing weight it is best not to drink at all, since the one-glass-at-dinner approach very seldom works.

Train hard!

Maik