Alcohol: If You Had To Give It Up, Could You?

Content by: Guy Lawrence

is alcohol healthy

Guy: I’m not a lover of horse racing, but you only have to go to Randwick Races for the day sober to get your money’s worth of entertainment, whether you pick a winner or not.

I’m the first to put my hand up, and say I’ve been guilty of this. Everyone comes in at about lunchtime immaculately dressed to impress, and then by the end of the day, they leave looking like they’ve just rolled down a 20m hill full of brambles.

We all have our reasons, whether we get blind drunk, or a social glass or two…. or three. But what are our driving reasons behind all this? Here’s a question for you. If you had to give alcohol away, permanently, could you do it? And why? What would it take? Do you drink out of habit or for the feeling you get from having it?

This is all well and good, and questions we can only answer ourselves. But lets remove our heads from the equation for a second. What if our body was doing the thinking? Would it actually want it (alcohol)?

If our body were to make the decisions, and not the brain inside our head, it would probably say something like this…(if you want to know the effects of alcohol, read on).

“Hey, I know you like to unwind with a drink, but like it or not, alcohol has many side effects if consistently appreciated. But I’m just going to ease you in gently, and focus on its relationship to weight loss, as this seems to be the most common question regarding why you can’t seem to shake off those love handles. So we’ll leave the rest out, like what it does to the central nervous system, hormonal imbalance, liver & kidney function, overall dehydration etc, let’s keep that for another day. Fair enough?

Anyway, as alcohol is a toxin, I treat it like a foreign invader, and it’s taken straight to the liver to be processed. The liver is the main driving engine that works my metabolism. And now it’s slowing the detoxifying process of the liver down and impacting hormone receptors, where metabolism of nutrients take place. Hence, slower metabolism.

Also, we store our carbohydrate in the liver, but because of the drink you’ve just had, there’s no more room for carbohydrate storage, so the carbs get stored in the muscles, but, because you don’t exercise me as much as you’d like to, my muscles are usually fully stored. And after that, you got it, the carbs get converted to stored body fat.

So over the next few days after a drink, you can guarantee you’ll be burning off the alcohol in the liver before you even think about burning off any fat. Half a bottle of wine is a 30-40 min run!

One nip of spirits contains the same amount of energy as two slices of bread. Six nips and you’ve scoffed a loaf! That would be an interesting sight to see the next time you’re out with your mates.

And what about the mixers you have with that?  The Lemonade and coke etc. They are absolutely loaded with sugar.  You are now doubling your energy intake of the nip. How many loafs of bread do you want to eat?

Also, you’re always feeling peckish after a few drinks and eat those dodgy bar-snacks and party nibbles; do you honestly think I actually need them? Not to mention the takeaway food at the end of the night. Do you have any idea of how many empty calories you’ve just fed me? It’s about as nutritional as eating a house brick. Don’t you know by doing this to me you’re putting us at dis-ease?”

So let’s put our heads back on. Think of alcohol as more of a weight loss preventive, and along with that, the mixers and nibbles as the weight gainers.

But the question is, where’s the line between a social drink and it actually becoming a needed crutch which could effect your overall wellbeing? Unless you remove yourself from society and go and live on a remote hill somewhere, and pop down to pick up your groceries from time to time, you’re going to have a tough time not being around alcohol. It’s simply ingrained habitually in our culture. I can really just imagine me being back in Wales, and catching up with a few mates over a herbal tea. They’d think I was a raving lunatic!

Anywayyyyy, whether it be a herbal tea or a glass of wine or three, we all have our reasons. So I’ll finish where I started.

What are your driving reasons behind all this? If you had to give alcohol away, permanently, could you do it? And why? What would it take? Do you drink out of habit or for the feeling you get from having it?

Where do you draw the line?

Guy Lawrence

This article is brought to you by Guy Lawrence. Guy is a qualified fitness trainer with over 10 years of experience in the health industry. Guy worked at the UTS Fitness Centre in Sydney Australia where he specialised in exercise nutrition and obtained his Certificate in Exercise Nutrition and Certified... Read More
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