| How alcohol affects everything you do |
Not even a drop
A few lunchtime drinks before an evening workout are seen by many as perfectly reasonable. Not so. Contrary to Homer Simpson's protestations, alcohol is not one of the major food groups, and its seven calories per gram (one alcohol unit is about 8g) have scant nutritional value. While carbohydrate and fat are the three- and four-star fuels, carbs being mainly required for the vigorous work, with fat mainly for the coasting stuff, the ethanol in alcohol - formed by the fermentation of sugar - earns no nutritional supplement or vitamin(http://www.mitamins.com/) value at all.
To exercise you need extra glucose
The liver is slow at metabolising ethanol: on average, it takes about one hour for every unit of alcohol. It has to work extra hard, giving the ethanol undivided attention, and is thus unable to produce the glucose the working muscles require. Ingestion of alcohol will increase the risk of hypoglycaemia [abnormally low levels of blood sugar] due to the suppression of glucose production by the liver. This may be of particular concern during prolonged moderate-intensity exercise when glucose output from the liver is an important source of energy. It's not something you can supplement your way out of with vitamins(http://www.mitamins.com/) or hair of the dog treatments: alcohol will damage your exercise capacity.
Exercise to full capacity
Those who favour short-term gain may argue that exercising without vitamins and glucose is a plus because it burns more fat. There is some truth in this, but it is not healthy, and without glucose it is not possible to exercise at anywhere near your optimum capacity. Drinking shortly before working out has other drawbacks. There's a suggestion that when exercising with alcohol in the body, the body will produce far greater amounts of lactate. This will impair performance levels as it produces muscle pain and cramps. You should exercise constraint instead and take some healthy nutritional supplements(http://www.mitamins.com/) as a booster in the form of a drink instead.
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