5 Surprising Facts About Alcohol and Its Impact on Building Muscle & Losing Fat

00:00Alcohol totally interferes with the body's ability to enter deep sleep. I have this aura ring and after I have like a couple of drinks, again, once in six months or 12 months, my heart rate dramatically increases, my body temperature is elevated, and there's no deep sleep showing up on my stats for the next day. It's wild. What's up, you guys? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkie Stott, co-founder and brand personality of WarriorBabe, where we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

00:38I am your host, Nikkie Stott, and welcome to episode number 12, where I am going to deep dive and share with you five surprising facts about alcohol and its impact on building muscle and losing body fat. So today, I want to talk about something that's just often misunderstood when it comes to fitness, and that is alcohol. I get so many questions all the time. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? What is its impact when I'm trying to do X, Y, and Z and the results that I want to see? So I'm going to clear it all up for you. And I'm not saying that alcohol is bad for you, but it's important to be aware of these facts I'm going to share today if you're trying to build muscle and you're trying to lose body fat.

01:20Because a lot of people think that having like a few drinks won't do any harm. And while having a few drinks every like full moon or blue moon, like I do, I don't even have one every full moon. I would say one every like six to 12 months. But like having a few drinks in that time span is is fine. But like having a few drinks every day to every week, people think that they won't do any harm. But what you're about to like hear today in this podcast, that's actually not the case, especially if your goal is to build muscle to decrease body fat.

01:51So if you guys are curious, I'm excited to dive into this, because I want you guys to know more about how alcohol can actually sabotage your hard work in the gym and towards the body composition results that you want to see. So let's dive into these five surprising facts, starting with number one. Number one being that alcohol is high in calories and can add up very quickly. So consuming too many calories from alcohol can lead to weight gain, and it can make it so unbelievably difficult to lose body fat.

02:25Alcohol is a macronutrient. Alcohol is a macronutrient. It's macronutrient that isn't tracked, though. But it does contain seven calories per gram, which is almost just as much as pure fat, where fat is nine calories per gram. So you can see that, you know, if you eat, if you consume a lot of calories coming from alcohol, it you're going to lead it's going to lead to weight gain. You've probably seen it and you already know this, but I'm just going to just break it down even more for you. And to consuming alcohol can also lead to like overeating and making poor food choices because it lowers your inhibitions and it leads to less control over your calorie intake. And that alone can make it super difficult to create a calorie deficit for yourself, which is necessary for losing body fat. I mean, we've all been there, you know, we find ourselves at the end of the night after having a few drinks in the kitchen eating absolutely shit food, it lowers your inhibitions, it leads you to eating shit food.

03:21It throws you out of food, it throws you out of a caloric deficit, it makes it absolutely difficult for you to lose body fat. And to like any over consumption of alcohol. It's any any consumption of alcohol is just considered empty calories because they provide little to no nutritional value. Alcohol has no nutritional value to it is totally an empty empty calories. And this means that consuming alcohol can lead to imbalances in your calorie intake like I already spoke to with a high portion of calories coming from alcohol, which can make it absolutely difficult to meet your daily nutritional needs while trying to lose body fat.

03:57So if you're just focusing on like, you know, all of your nutritional value or like all of your calories coming from alcohol. I mean, you had like two meals in a day and like you know, you're going out at night. And like you have all of this, these drinks, even like just a few drinks, like you're you're having there's no nutritional value in those. So like you add those two meals, but then again, you didn't eat anything of nutritional value for probably like 12 hours. And that's gonna make it really hard when trying to lose body fat. So that's number one, alcohol is high in calories, and it can add up very quickly.

04:30Number two, this one's so so I mean, all of them are so important, but this one's so important. Alcohol can inhibit muscle protein synthesis, which is the process by which the muscle tissue is repaired and built. So this can make it super hard to build muscle to super hard to recover from any strength training exercises. And when you when you engage in strength training, you guys, and you do your daily exercises, you create small tears in your muscle fibers, and your body then repairs those tears, which leads to muscle growth and strength.

05:02But alcohol consumption can interfere with this entire process by slowing down protein synthesis and making it harder for your body to repair and build that muscle. So if you're going about normally, you're, you know, you're not an alcohol drinker, you're you're at optimal prime with protein synthesis, your body is repairing these tears, and it's leading to muscle growth and strength. But if you're consuming alcohol, it slows down that ability to repair and to build muscle. Dramatically, that's obviously, totally counterproductive to the goals that you want to accomplish.

05:37And to alcohol increases muscle breakdown, which means that the muscle tissue is broken down more than it can be repaired. So this can lead to muscle loss. And again, can just make it super hard to build muscle. So that's number two, alcohol can inhibit muscle protein synthesis. Number three, alcohol can disrupt the balance of hormones in your body. Speaking mainly to testosterone and growth hormone, which are important for muscle growth and recovery. So testosterone is a key hormone that plays a critical role in muscle growth and recovery.

06:11However, like I just said, the consumption of alcohol can decrease testosterone levels. And this can make it super hard for you to build muscle and to recover from any of your strength training workouts. And two, in addition, low testosterone levels leads to so many other things like libido, like your lowered sex drive, it can cause more fatigue. And this just overall affects your entire well-being. And then speaking to growth hormone, which is another hormone that plays a critical role in muscle growth and recovery.

06:42It can also help with fat loss, but alcohol decreases growth hormone levels, which makes it harder for you to build muscle, which makes it harder for you to lose body fat, which makes it harder for you to recover from strength training. So you're already just speaking. You see how like alcohol just not only does it throw off all the other things I already just spoke to, but it throws off your hormones and not just growth hormone and testosterone. It also affects insulin and cortisol, which can have a negative impact on muscle growth and recovery. Insulin is responsible for delivering glucose energy to the cells, to your body cells.

07:18And alcohol can interfere with insulin's ability to do that. And then this can lead to low energy levels and make it harder to engage in strength training exercises. So that right there, it affects your insulin, which affects muscle growth and recovery. But two, it affects cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that is released in response to stress. And alcohol can increase cortisol levels. Alcohol adds stress to your body. High cortisol levels can lead to muscle breakdown and make it harder to build muscle.

07:49Not just that alone, too. Cortisol is the fat storing hormone. So if you have high cortisol levels and you're one of the reasons why that could be is because obviously you're stressed, but drinking alcohol adds more stress. That could be the reason why you're not seeing any results that you want to see because you're storing more unwanted body fat by increasing this hormone level. So that's number three. Number four, alcohol can completely dehydrate the body. So alcohol is a diuretic, which means it can dehydrate the body.

08:22Dehydration can affect muscle function and recovery, making it harder to build muscle and lose body fat. When you're dehydrated, your body's ability to perform at its optimal level completely decreases. And which then that can lead to fatigue and it leads to muscle weakness. I mean, think about it. Just even alone, outside of alcohol, when you've been completely dehydrated, you probably experience all of these things, making it super hard to perform at the optimal level that you've been able to perform at when you are hydrated. And you feel tired and you feel like your muscles are weak and you just don't feel like you're being able to put out the same output that you can do when you are hydrated.

08:59Alcohol just completely makes you dehydrated. And this can make it just like I said, extremely hard, harder to engage in strength training and recover from any of your workouts. And two, dehydration can also lead to a decrease in your muscular endurance and your power. So like everything at optimal that you once have felt is not going to be there if you're drinking alcohol and if you're dehydrated. And it makes it harder, all attached together, to build muscle and to lose body fat. But also speaking more to dehydration, dehydration also affects muscle recovery by altering the balance of electrolytes in your body.

09:33So electrolytes such as like sodium, potassium, chloride, these are all important for muscle function and recovery. And when the body is dehydrated, the levels of these electrolytes become imbalanced, which can lead to muscle cramps, leads to spasms. And these things combined to just make it harder to engage in strength training and recover from workouts. Like just like I said, like when you're dehydrated and or all of your electrolytes are off, you just feel out of whack. And things are just imbalanced and like you're just not going to feel prime.

10:04And this is all, you know, this this all happens not just from being dehydrated. It all happens from also drinking alcohol. Hey, hey, just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you guys are enjoying it and there's so much more to come with it. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons. And also it would help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages, too. Thanks so much, guys. Let's get back to the show. Speaking to more dehydration, but like alcohol affects the body's ability to regulate temperature, which can lead to overheating.

10:37I mean, how many of you guys have gone to bed at night and like, you know, you wake up in the middle of the night after having a couple of drinks. You're just like profusely sweating. So it alcohol affects the body's ability to regulate temperature. And this can cause muscle cramps and cause fatigue and making it again harder to just engage in strength training and recover from workouts. So like the more you drink, the more it's just harder to do all the things that are productive to the goals that you want to accomplish. So that was number four. Last one, number five. Alcohol can interfere with the quality of your sleep.

11:08I mean, everybody knows this. But like, why? Like, how? So sleep is extremely critical for muscle growth and for recovery and for you to achieve the results you want to with your body composition. And having a lack of sleep, it also affects the hormones in your body that regulate hunger and your metabolism. So making it harder to lose body fat. And I'll speak on that in a second. But first, during sleep, the body repairs and regenerates muscle tissue. And this process is essential for muscle growth and recovery.

11:41However, alcohol totally interferes with the body's ability to enter deep sleep. Something I love, you guys, is I have this aura ring, right? And after I have like a couple of drinks, again, once in six months or 12 months, my heart rate dramatically increases, my body temperature is elevated, and there's no deep sleep showing up on my stats for the next day. It's wild. And it's so cool that the aura ring can do that. I'm sure you guys have heard the aura ring. I highly recommend it.

12:11If you guys want a link to get six free months off, I'll put the link in the description below this podcast for you. So alcohol interferes with the body's ability to enter deep sleep, which is a stage of sleep when muscle repair and recovery occurs. And this can make it super hard, again, to build muscle and to recover from any of your strength training workouts. Also, it affects a duration of sleep. And it can lead to like wakefulness during the night, which can reduce the total amount of sleep a person gets. And this can lead to fatigue and making it harder to engage

12:42in all your strength training workouts to come. So like, I'm sure you guys have known that too, as well. Like you drink alcohol and you're waking up in the middle of the night multiple times, you're just decreasing the amount of sleep that your body's getting. Not like it's getting quality sleep, but this happens. And I want you guys to just be aware of this, taking into account the next time that you want to have a couple of drinks. And like, what are your goals? These, it may not support your goals, but again, having them every few months or like, you know, every six to 12 months, then that's totally chill. But like having on a consistent basis, I just, I just wouldn't recommend it.

13:13So like I had just spoke to, alluded to, lack of sleep can affect the balance of hormones in the body, including ghrelin and leptin, which regulate hunger and your metabolism. So when you don't get enough sleep, the levels of, of ghrelin, your hunger hormone, they increase. And then leptin, your fullness hormone, that decreases, which can lead to an increase in appetite and make it harder to lose body fat. Right? So the next day, have you ever noticed how you're hungry and like, you just want shit food? Um, that's because your, the alcohol is, is increasing your hunger hormone and it's decreasing

13:48your fullness hormone. So that's why you go out the next day and you're like, oh my God, I want this big ass breakfast and I want to eat all of the things. And so that's going to make it super hard for you to lose body fat. Right? And like, again, I'm talking like on, on a, this is like a consistent basis. I mean, you're doing this majority of the time. It's not good. It's going to just totally elongate the destination of you getting to your goal. So that was number five. So in conclusion of all of this, you guys, I hope this podcast just helped you and just helped you be a little bit more eyeopening to how alcohol actually really does affect,

14:19um, how you do build muscle, how you do lose body fat. But you know, alcohol consumption can have a negative impact. Like I said, on building muscle and losing body fat, it can lead to an increase in the calorie intake. Like I spoke to inhibit muscle protein synthesis, disrupt hormone balance, cause dehydration, and interview with quality sleep. All of these factors make it extremely difficult for individuals to achieve their goals when it comes to building muscle, recovering from strength training and losing body fat. Like all of those things I just mentioned, calorie intake, it increases it. Inhibition of muscle protein synthesis, which is like, it's, that's, that's absolutely huge

14:55when it comes to building muscle. It disrupts hormone balance. That's huge when it comes to losing body fat and building muscle. It causes dehydration and just interferes with your quality of sleep, which is like the biggest thing that one of the biggest things that will help you to build muscle. So like all these factors, it just makes it super hard to, and it's super counterproductive to the goals you want to accomplish. So just make sure you look out for your intake of alcohol, you know, keep it low. If you want to maximize your workout performance, keep in consideration, is it supporting my goals? Is it not supporting my goals?

15:26Can you just do something else? Um, that is more in alignment with the goals that you want to accomplish. All right, guys. So I hope you enjoyed that podcast. I hope it was a little eyeopening to you all. And that wraps up the podcast for today. All right, guys, I'll see you next time. Bye. Real quick. The only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast.

15:56So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review, it will take you 10 seconds and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.

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