Quick Q & A With The Muscle Cook – Alcohol Intake And Your Healthy Meal Plans
A common question by people looking to eat healthy and stay in shape is “What about the booze? Can I have me some??”
Wanna enjoy a night out with your friends but not sure how badly it’s going to impact your progress? If so, you aren’t alone.
Many people do wonder how important it is to be avoiding alcohol while using their diet to achieve body composition goals, so let’s dig further into this issue so that you can get your facts straight.
Question 1: I plan on having a few drinks over several different occasions in the New Year. How will this affect my gains?
The Muscle Cook: It’s going to depend on just how frequently ‘several’ is. Remember, since alcohol is a toxin, any time you put it into your body, all the other processes are going to stop until the body is able to oxidize the alcohol and remove it from the blood.
This includes muscle building and protein synthesis. Also keep in mind that alcohol does provide calories, so it could put you at risk for fat gain if you keep everything constant in your healthy meal plans.
If you start cutting back on wholesome foods though, you’ll run the risk of nutritional deficiencies, so it’s really a lose-lose situation.
For best results, keep your drinking to once per month max and you shouldn’t notice too many issues.
Question 2: If I do choose to drink while on my muscle building healthy meal plans, what are the best choices to minimize the damage?
The Muscle Cook: Generally speaking, hard liquors will be your best bet as they are lowest in calories and carbs. Vodka, Rum, and Whiskey for example will all contain around 70 calories per ounce, so won’t contribute too many calories to your diet.
If you mix these with water (rather than soda which has too many sugars in it), then you’ll be doing your best to stay lean and reduce the impact it has on your muscle building. The additional water will also help to keep you hydrated, reducing your chances of a hang-over and that impacting the next day’s workout session.
Question 3: What can I do to combat the side effects of alcohol after a night of a few beers?
The Muscle Cook: If you’ve had a few too many beers the night before, the best thing to do is rest, eat well, and make sure that you are drinking as much water as you possibly can.
A light cardio workout can help to remove any left-over alcohol from the blood faster and burn off a few extra calories that you might have consumed from that alcohol.
If you aren’t feeling all that terrible, a weights workout could be performed, but if you are feeling the effects the next day, save the weights session for the following day. You always want to give 100% in the gym and right now you just aren’t able to.
Make sure that you do try and eat even if your stomach tells you not to as this will help get the vital nutrients you need to sustain your lean muscle mass.
So there you have the facts about alcohol on your muscle building healthy meal plans. The occasional drink isn’t going to do too much harm but have it more often than that and you will be hindering your progress.
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