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Alcohol and exercise

Posted by on 28 March 2010 | 5 Comments

Many people decide to have a drink after exercise, thinking to themselves “Well I just did a workout so I will reward myself by having a drink.” What are the implications? Your body needs to re-hydrate after exercise. By drinking water, a sports beverage or eating water-laden food, you can replace some or all of the water lost during exercise. It usually takes a couple of hours for the water and electrolytes you consume to work their way into your tissues. Drinking alcoholic beverages is known to have a dehydrating effect on your body. Alcohol acts as a diuretic, causing you to lose water, so this is where the issue lies - should you or should you not drink alcohol after exercise? A study by Shirreffs and Maughan has examined this concern over the process of re-hydration of your body tissues and if alcohol has an effect on it. It was found that low amounts of alcohol had no effect on the body's ability to re-hydrate. Higher amounts of alcohol, however, did result in slightly slower than normal re-hydration. Measurement of urine output showed that subjects consuming no alcohol and those consuming small amounts of alcohol produced the same amounts of urine over a period of 6 hours of re-hydration. Those consuming higher levels of alcohol produced slightly more urine during this time. Measurement of fluid balance showed that all subjects achieved re-hydration after 6 hours although those who had consumed the higher level of alcohol reached this level a little more slowly. Likewise if you drink 48 hours prior to exercise and you have not hydrated sufficiently during this time, it will affect your tissues and muscles during exercise. It can affect your body's natural temperature regulation making it difficult to cool down, • lower your blood sugar levels so you have less energy and impair your reaction times, coordination and balance, and therefore increasing your risk of injury. Add to that the calorie intake of alcohol. One average sized beer or glass of wine will take 30 mins of walking to burn off. Spirits are slightly less. So if you are drinking a few glasses of beer or wine a night, you should be exercising for a few hours every day to counteract the calories that you will absorb through those relaxing beverages. Finally, in the long term, a high alcohol intake can impair your body's absorption of nutrients from food and bring about vitamin deficiencies, particularly the B group of vitamins. So your overall health and wellbeing is affected. The answer? Drink in moderation and try to avoid it after exercise.