The Infonian

On Friday afternoon after you leave work, you probably think about going out and having a few drinks with friends to relax and wind down. Even though you may think you deserve to go out and have a few drinks, there are some things that you should certainly keep in mind.

Like any other day, tomorrow is going to be a day for exercise, and since you are exercising on a regular basis, a few drinks of alcohol won’t really hurt anything, right? Before you decide to rush out to the local bar, there are a few things below that you should think about before you make your choice about going out to drink some alcohol.

Research has proven that even small amounts of alcohol with increase muscular endurance and the output of strength, although these types of benefits are very short lived. After 20 minutes or so, the problems will begin to surface. All of the negative side effects associated with alcohol will easily outweigh any possible benefits that it can have. No matter how you look at it, alcohol is a poison that can really harm your body if you aren’t careful.

The negative side of alcohol can reduce your strength, endurance, aerobic capability, recovery time, ability to metabolize fat, and even your muscle growth as well. Alcohol will also have an effect on your nervous system and brain. If you use it long term, you can cause severe deterioration of your central nervous system. Even with short term use, nerve muscle interaction can be reduced which will result in a loss of strength.

Once alcohol reaches the blood cells, it can and probably will damage them. With alcohol users, inflammation of the muscle cells is a very common thing. Over periods of time, some of these cells that have been damaged can die which will result in less functional muscle contractions. Drinking alcohol will also leave you with more soreness of your muscles after you exercise, which means that it will take you a lot longer to recuperate.

Alcohol will also have many different effects on your heart and circulatory system as well. When you drink any type of alcohol, you may begin to see a reduction in your endurance capabilities. Anytime you drink, your heat loss will increase, due to the alcohol simulating your blood vessels to dilate. The loss in heat can cause your muscles to become quite cold, therefore become slower and weaker during your muscle contractions.

Drinking alcohol can also lead to digestive and nutrition problems as well. Alcohol cause a release of insulin that will increase the metabolism of glycogen, which spares fat and makes the loss of fat very hard. Due to alcohol interfering with the absorption of several key nutrients, you can also become anemic and deficient with B type vitamins.

Because your liver is the organ that detoxifies alcohol, the more you drink, the harder your liver has to work. The extra stress alcohol places on your liver can cause serious damage and even destroy some of your liver cells.

Since alcohol is diuretic, drinking large amounts can put a lot of stress on your kidneys as well. During diuretic action, the hormones are secreted. This can lead to heightened water retention and no one who exercises will want this to happen.

Author: Robert Bell

You read and hear about it everywhere. Everybody is ditching the carbohydrate for the proverbial protein. To illustrate that many people will follow a fad diet, I always ask the dieter WHY they are eating protein only. I love it! I’ve even had people tell me that they are eating bacon and sausage because it has protein and no carbohydrates.:laughing: What many people fail to understand is why carbohydrates are called “bad.”

Carbohydrates are not bad. They are the best fuel source for energy. If you don’t have a good source of carbohydrates, your body will take from the protein and fat you eat to supply glucose. This is the reason people go for the protein diets and starve their body of carbs. The problem is when you’ve depleted your stores of glycogen (stored glucose in muscle and lean tissue), your body turns to burning muscles or organs to supply energy needs. Have you ever gone on a protein only diet and felt really sluggish? You can’t think straight can you? Well, there you go.

This is also why protein only diets don’t provide for good muscle tone. Your body is burning the protein you eat and burning the glycogen in your muscles for energy. Not good. When this happens, your metabolism actually slows down because you have less lean muscle tissue burning calories (muscle burns calories) and your body thinks its starving and cuts back on energy requirements. So really, because your body thinks that there is a famine in the land, it will hold on to as much fat as it can to keep you alive. Do you see the problem?

I recently spoke with someone who I consulted with about a month ago. Right when I walked through the door, she said,

“Critical Mass! ( I let her call me Critical Mass:D ) I cut my calories down to 1200 calories a day and I’m eating almost no carbohydrates and I put on a pound!”

She was surprised when I told her to slightly increase her complex carbohydrate count. Then I explained how her body was probably storing up everything it could because it thinks she’s starving to death.

Do you understand what I’m saying to you?

The carbohydrates you eat should come from carbohydrate-rich foods that are close to the form that occurs in nature. These are called “complex carbohydrates.” The closer the carbohydrate food is to what nature provides, the greater the density of vital nutrients in that carbohydrate. Your body will burn these carbs slower than the “bad” carbs, and will indirectly cause your body to store less fat. (just keep reading on and I’ll explain.)

You can also get carbohydrates from processed foods such as soft drinks, cookies, chips, white bread, and alcohol. These generally are called “simple carbohydrates,” and are considered to be a poor food choice that should be eaten rarely. These simple carbohydrates have been highly refined and processed. If your diet consists mainly of the above listed foods, you should be warned that eating a diet like this has been associated with heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and uhhhh….. oh yeah, being FAT!

These “bad” carbohydrates are those that cause an immediate high rise in blood sugar levels. “Good” carbohydrates do not do this. Remember, good carbohydrates are those that are found in nature and usually do not cause a high rise in blood sugar levels. Remember? They burn slower, and keep insulin levels more steady and level. Bad carbohydrates are usually created by refining grains or other plants into “pure” starches or sugars (i.e., flour, white rice, cornmeal, and table sugar.)

You may ask, “what’s so bad about high blood sugar levels?” Well, high blood sugar and insulin levels go hand-in-hand with your body storing up fat. If a carbohydrate burns quickly like simple ones do, it basically tells your body to store up fat. If the carbohydrate burns slowly like complex carbs do, the insulin and blood sugar levels stay lower and more steady, thus not triggering your body to store up as much fat. The mechanics of these two opposing reactions can be more technical, but this is the explanation in layman’s terms.

If you are trying to lose weight, it is perfectly healthy to eat a variety of the good carbohydrates: fruits, vegetables, brown rice, whole grains, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, beans, seeds and nuts. The carbohydrates to avoid are foods made with flour, milled corn or white rice, fruit juices, sugared soft drinks or other beverages with sugar, and processed foods that contain added sugars. You may want to eat a low-to-moderate amount of complex carbs to limit your total calories, but you can eat some nonetheless.

Not all carbohydrates are bad.