How Does ALCOHOL Impact Fat Loss, Muscle & Testosterone? (What The Science Says)

thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video [Music] okay welcome everyone to a new episode of myth busting a this week we're gonna have a look at the idea that drinking alcohol is hindering your fat loss or weight loss and we'll also touch on a few other things like its effect on building muscle and testosterone levels um so I'd like to look at this on two different levels first we're gonna have a look at what happens in your body when you consume alcohol acutely so say on a night out when you're drinking with the purpose of getting intoxicated and secondly we're gonna look at what happens over time so if drinking becomes persistent and consistent first I think it's important to acknowledge that most people should realize that over consuming any nutrient will lead to fat storage I'm since net fat balance is ultimately determined by net energy balance meaning if you're eating in a caloric surplus you'll gain weight and if you're eating in a caloric deficit you'll lose weight and that's regardless of where those calories are coming from whether from apples or say beer in this fact while the source of a lot of disagreement on the internet isn't actually controversial within mainstream scientific discourse however I think the more interesting question is not whether or not alcohol somehow breaks energy balance and thermodynamics laws but rather whether or not alcohol is inherently more fattening than other nutrients because while it is true that calories in versus calories out is the main thing driving changes in body weight changes and body composition can be a bit more complicated so to answer that question I think we need to first understand what exactly happens when alcohol enters your body okay so when you drink alcohol its first absorbed in your bloodstream and then makes a beeline straight to the liver in fact your body handles alcohol metabolically quite similar to how it handles poisons means that metabolism of all the other nutrients you've eaten are going to be put on the back burner until alcohol is eliminated and since there's no store for alcohol in the body unlike carbs and fats as long as alcohol is in your system all carbs and fats are gonna be preferentially shuttled towards storage this is especially the case for dietary fat where we see that fat oxidation or burning is severely blunted following alcohol consumption and I think this is where the whole idea that alcohol is making you fat it's coming from now here I think it's important to clarify that alcohol itself isn't making you fat at least not directly in fact it's actually quite the opposite of that it gets burned right away that's just that the other excess calories are so much more readily stored as fat when alcohol is present and since this is especially the case with dietary fat if you are going to be drinking heavily I'd recommend lowering your fat intake for that day but the main thing that you really want to avoid is a post drinking binge this is a surefire way to accumulate a lot of new fat short period of time when you consider alcohols effect on lowering inhibitions post drinking food binges that really can be pretty difficult to resist for a lot of people I'm so depending on your level of willpower while intoxicated it might simply be better for you to just avoid heavy drinking if fat loss is your priority another strike against alcohol is that experimental studies show that individuals often don't compensate afterward for calories consumed from alcohol so when you drink chances are those extra calories from alcohol will just end up getting tacked on it's your total intake for the day making it much easier to push you into a caloric surplus now but it's actually even worse than that for alcohol one 2010 review on alcohol and appetite described alcohol as the least satiating energy source and we're still some studies have shown alcohol to magnify the ability of food to stimulate appetite so not only is it terrible at making you feel full it might actually make you feel even hungrier once you do start to eat I'm so between all these factors the sort of metabolic hijacking lowered inhibitions empty calories I'm just terrible satiating ability can see that alcohol isn't exactly your friend when it comes to fat loss but I think that with all of that said it ultimately does come down to moderation I'm assuming a net caloric deficit is in place having the occasional alcoholic beverage or even splurge really shouldn't curtail your fat loss progress I'm actually in my own coaching experience I've noticed that the occasional night out can often help with fat loss especially if you're feeling a little more stressed or bound up from the diet many dieters myself included will notice a swoosh in body weight and a few days following a night of drinking but of course if that drinking gets excessive to the point that it pushes you into a caloric surplus then it's of course going to hinder fat loss progress but like we said the good question isn't can I drink alcohol and still lose weight because the answer is obviously yes you can if you're in a caloric deficit and I think the good question is how is that affecting body composition so the answer that question I think we need to consider its impact on muscle mass so let's start with testosterone interestingly a light drinking in the range of two to three standard drinks has actually been shown to boost testosterone in the range of 17 percent in men and this might help explain the increase in libido that's often seen with light alcohol consumption but given the very transient nature of this spike I don't think it's likely to be doing much of anything anabolic however as you start to increase the dose of alcohol at testosterone levels start to steeply decline and one study that drew blood samples from drunken emergency room visitors found 45% lower testosterone in drunk men compared to controls but I think most interestingly about fivefold higher testosterone in drunk women and authors suggests that this is likely due to alcohols inhibitory effect on testicular testosterone specifically this is an idea supported by multiple lines of evidence collectively suggesting that if you don't have testicles you don't really need to worry about alcohols negative effect on testosterone of course testosterone is a very powerful anabolic hormone so from a muscle building perspective you want it to be as high as possible but what does the science have to say about alcohol and muscle growth directly well the general trend of research seems to indicate that rates of muscle protein synthesis are suppressed by alcohol consumption this is especially true in the post-workout period well a lot of this research has been done on rodents now they're all showing the same general trend and 1 2014 human study from pairing colleagues found that heavy alcohol consumption in the range of eight to nine drinks post-workout reduced muscle protein synthesis by 37% that's a pretty big drop and they also found that even when protein was consumed in amounts shown to be optimally effective the intake of alcohol still reduced muscle protein synthesis by 24% indicating that even protein some of the most anabolic stuff we have can't fully rescue the anti anabolic effects of alcohol but this study only tested male subjects and similar to testosterone the impact of alcohol seems to be sexist according to a new 2017 study investigating alcohols effect on ten men and nine women although resistance training elicited similar mTOR signaling in men and women alcohol ingestion seemed to only attenuate mTOR signaling pathway in men um so all this to me seems to suggest that if you are a woman you probably have much less to worry about from a muscle building perspective if drinking after training but as interesting as all this acute data is I would say the biggest potential downfall of drinking is its effect on performance the following day I'm just how much it affects your training will be individual and it'll depend on how much you drank but through the combination of dehydration hangover and interrupted sleep a night of drinking really is working against you the day after in the gym now of course once in a while this isn't gonna derail your gains completely especially if you say schedule planned rest day the day after a night of drinking and just really focus on rehydrating but if it becomes a regular thing the potential for performance detriments combined with suppressed testosterone and reduced muscle protein synthesis especially if you're a man really could be holding you back at times as for whether or not the myth is busted I'd say with this one it just really does depend even more than usual alcohol in moderation isn't likely to cause any significant fat gain or impaired muscle growth especially if caloric intake is controlled for but I think in excess it really is so much more likely to sort of slow your progress down on all fronts and so I'm just gonna leave it at that for this one I'll put a quick summary slide up here on the screen with the main practical takeaways if you'd like to pause and go ahead and read that and before we go I want to give a huge shout out to Squarespace for sponsoring this video if you guys don't know Squarespace is an all-in-one website platform where you can custom create your own website or your own online store I just finished totally revamping my own website on Squarespace and I'm really excited to show that to you guys soon I think it looks awesome they have really aesthetic designer templates 24-hour customer service which I've personally found to be really helpful throughout this process so if you guys would like to get started with making your own website or your own online store you can go to Squarespace comm forward slash Nippert and that'll save you 10% off your first purchase I'm so thanks again to Squarespace for sponsoring the video thank you so much for watching if you did like the video don't forget to give me a thumbs up I don't forget to subscribe if you happen to be new and I've got a new vlog on the way next Monday so I'm gonna be alternating Mythbusters every other Monday now so June 11th will be my next myth bus so I'll see you guys all then

Channel: Jeff Nippard

Views: 1,153,166

Keywords: vlog, vlogger, iifym, science, bodybuilding, legs, arms, chest, back, fit couple, build muscle, jeff nippard, christian guzman, summer shredding, lean, ripped, abs, diet, lose weight, fat, fitness, flex, biceps, shredded, gymshark, alphalete, physique, motivation, natural bodybuilding, canadian, thomas delauer, is alcohol bad for gains, alcohol and bodybuilding, is alcohol bad, alcohol fat loss, is alcohol bad for you, burn fat, fat loss, how to lose weight, is alcohol bad for fitness

Id: Vwn8E4juTts

Length: 9min 20sec (560 seconds)

Published: Mon May 28 2018