If we have athletic performance and body composition goals, we may want to rethink drinking alcohol, especially if we do it regularly or have the need to have it with most of our meals. Although the benefit of moderate or occasional alcohol use can deliver some health benefits by reducing cardiovascular disease risk, alcohol can potentially stall and reverse any progress we work so hard to make even if we drink moderately or, on occasion.
Let’s consider how that occasional beer can affects our hormones responsible for burning unwanted fat efficiently. The first harmful effect alcohol has on our body revolves around how alcohol puts our body’s efforts to burn fat on hold. Because alcohol calories get burned first, any carbohydrate calories consumed with alcohol are converted into fat and stored instead of burned.
Moreover, because alcohol tends to affect our brain’s area that controls hunger, the calories from that food we eat also get stored as fat. Drinking alcohol contributes empty calories we burn before tapping into our stored fat that interferes with other ingested calories converting it into fat and increasing our appetite. Secondly, alcohol affects our body composition by altering hormones in our bodies. In males, alcohol tends to remain toxic to the testes, contributing to lowering testosterone levels in males and contribute to an assortment of reproductive problems for women, including abnormal menstrual cycles, delayed ovulation, and infertility. Lastly, the alcohol compromises peak athletic performance and recovery by messing with our deep sleep cycles and critical hormone processes that repair and rejuvenate our bodies for the next day. Anything beyond the occasional casual drinking of alcohol will have adverse impact because of its toxic effect.
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