The Impact of Alcohol on Your Fitness Goals: What Every Woman in Menopause Should Know

00:00Real 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. So 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. Alcohol can disrupt the balance of hormones in the body, including testosterone and growth hormone, which are very important hormones for muscle growth and recovery.

00:36Testosterone is a key hormone that plays a crucial role in muscle growth and recovery. However, alcohol consumption can decrease testosterone levels, and this can make it harder for the body to build muscle and to recover from strength training exercises. Also, low testosterone levels can lead to a decrease in your ability to perform with good energy. You will be tired, you will be fatigued, and that can affect your overall well-being.

01:06Yo, yo, yo! What is going on, you guys? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikki Stott, co-founder of Warrior Babe. And on this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikki Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode 166. And in this podcast today, I'm going to share with you guys something that I feel like is very, actually not feel like, I know is very relevant in all of your guys' experience right now.

01:43That being it's summertime, and there's vacations, and there's family get-togethers, and there's traveling, and something that all of those occasions include is alcohol. I've talked about alcohol a couple times in various different episodes on this podcast, but I want to bring it back more, you know, relevant and up-to-date with this podcast. Because it's summer, because it's summer, one of them, and also because I'm hearing it.

02:18We had a coaches meeting today with the Warrior Babe coaches, and a few of them were talking about how, you know, their clients are all experiencing the use of or having a little bit more alcohol than normal. And so basically what I want to do on the side of this podcast is just remind you guys and or share with those of you that don't know how alcohol affects and impacts your ability to build muscle and your ability to lose body fat. So what I think about this topic overall in general is I think it's kind of somewhat misunderstood when it comes to fitness.

02:55And I'm not saying alcohol is bad for you, but it's, I mean, shit, I mean, let me just rephrase that. It is bad for you. It's poison. But I understand that a lot of you guys like to have social outings, and so do I. Like every once in a while I will have a drink and enjoy myself and have a good time. But I think that the use of it on a daily and weekly basis, which I think a lot of people are actually very prone to doing this, is very not only detrimental to your body, but just detrimental to your health.

03:29And most importantly, if you are listening to this podcast, and that's something that you do on a weekly basis, is very detrimental to your results. And so I want you guys to be more aware of these facts. If you're trying to build more muscle, you're trying to lose body fat, because I think a lot of people think that having a few drinks won't do any harm to them. But as you're about to see from what I'm going to talk about inside this podcast, that's not actually the case. If you are having a drink or two on a weekly basis, that is doing harm.

04:02And that is not going to help you get to the results that you want faster. So I know that occasionally enjoying them here and there is totally fine. But just think about it like this. Is it in alignment with your goals? And is it going to serve you the results that you want to see? All right. So let's dive into there's specifically five things that I want to talk about today. The first one being that alcohol is high in calories, and those calories can add up very, very, very quickly.

04:34If you are consuming too many calories that are coming from alcohol, that can lead to weight gain. And that can make your weight loss journey that much more difficult to lose body fat. Alcohol contains seven calories per gram, which is almost the same as pure fat, nine calories per gram. So consuming alcohol can make... If you're... Think about it like this. I love the marketing things that some cans do. And put in, for example, Truly that has 100 calories on the back of their can,

05:09but only two grams of carbs. So break it down. If you... If there's really only two grams of carbs in it, then there would only be 18 calories because four grams... Four calories per one gram of carb. And four times two is eight. And so where are the other 92 calories coming from? And they're not being marketed in the nutritional label. So you have to take into account like... There are seven calories coming from the alcohol consumption that is put inside of that can. But people see two grams of carbs and they're like, yes!

05:41But really what it comes down to is when you're tracking the alcohol the right way, you have to attribute those 100 calories to something. And typically I like to break it down. You have to attribute it either to fats or you have to attribute it to carbs. So if you do 100 divided by four is 25. So you have 25 grams of carbohydrates in that one drink. If you attribute the 100 to the 9, there's what like... I don't know, somewhere around 9 or 11 grams of fats per the gram.

06:15That you have to... If you're like... This is what I'm just saying, like bringing it to your attention. Like this is what we recommend women to do instead of warrior babe that want to track their alcohol with macronutrients. You have to give it and attribute it to some macronutrient. Because there's not just two grams of carbs in a can. There's 100 calories. And what the nutritional label isn't including, what I'm trying to get my point across here, is the 7 calories per gram that alcohol contains. And so you have to attribute it to carbs or your fat. So really a can of Truly is either 25 grams of carbohydrates

06:45or it's 11 grams of fats. And then think about it. If you have four Truly cans, that's 100 grams of carbohydrates right there. So I just wanted to put that into perspective there. Not only does it contain the calories that it contains, but consuming alcohol will also most likely lead to you overeating or making poor food choices. And that lowers your inhibitions

07:18and it lowers your control over yourself. And then it makes you consume more and it leads to more calories consumed in the day than what you normally would have. And let's just call it for what it is. I know whenever I have a couple of drinks, I'm always looking for the food. I know you guys are too. So think about it like that. It's not just the four Truly cans that you're having that consists of 100 grams of carbs. It's also now anything that you are eating while you're consuming the alcohol that is also attributed to you having less control over your calorie intake pretty much.

07:51And that can make it extremely difficult to be in a calorie deficit or to be where you need to be to lose body fat. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss,

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08:51to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. At the same time, with the calories talk that I'm on right now, the calories that are in alcohol are considered empty calories because they provide absolutely no nutritional value. And so this means that consuming alcohol can lead to imbalances in your calorie intake.

09:22It can lead to a high proportion of your calorie intake coming from alcohol, which can make it extremely difficult to meet your daily nutritional needs while trying to lose body fat. So I just like, just take that one, this first little tidbit of information around alcohol, how it consumes these calories, how it also makes you consume more calories on your day, and then how you're not just getting, you're not getting any nutritional value. So it's like, I've come to this stage of my journey where there's been so many recent opportunities

09:53for myself to enjoy a drink. One being my brother's graduation that was a couple weekends ago, his graduation party. And I look at it, I'm like, why would I consume one drink when I can have my calories go to food that I want and I'm actually gonna enjoy it. And that's actually gonna give me nutritional value. And it's actually gonna give me energy tomorrow during my lift than drinking a couple drinks of alcohol. And I'm gonna feel like absolute poop tomorrow. So just like perspective coming from those types of points.

10:25The second thing that I wanna talk about is how alcohol inhibits the muscle protein synthesis process from happening. And that process is by which the muscle tissue is repaired and built. And this can make it harder for you if you're consuming alcohol to build muscle and to recover from like a strength training exercise that you are doing. When you engage in these strength training exercises, like I've said many, many, many, many, many times on this podcast, you create these small tears in your muscle fibers as you are working out.

10:56Post-exercise, your body then repairs those tears, which leads to muscle growth and strength. But alcohol consumption can interfere entirely with this process. It does it by slowing down protein synthesis and making it harder for your body to repair and to build that muscle. Also, alcohol increases muscle breakdown, which is completely counterproductive to what you wanna be doing along your journey. That means it makes the muscle tissue, it breaks it down even more than it can be repaired.

11:27So basically it's like you're digging yourself deeper into a hole which you cannot return if you're drinking alcohol and expecting to get results. But then you're wondering why you're not getting results and it's because you're breaking down the muscle and it cannot be repaired. It cannot be repaired at a normal level. You know what I mean? Like if you're not drinking alcohol. So this, it leads to muscle loss. So it's counterproductive of what I'm trying to say. If you are consuming alcohol, it leads to muscle breakdown. And that means that the muscle tissue

11:58that's getting broken down is more, it's being broken down more than it can be repaired. So you're losing muscle. And that makes it harder to build muscle. It's kind of productive. So just, protein synthesis is a huge component, a huge process that has to go down in order for you to build that muscle. And in order for you to build that muscle, that's what's going to make you look more toned. Hey, hey, just wanna drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you guys are enjoying it

12:28and 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. So just again, taking these little tidbits of information on the sharing with you and thinking how they align with your journey. Do they align with your journey? Does it align with your journey? And trust that I shared with you. I know that a lot of this can be a social interaction. It's more comfortable. That's how you go about hanging out with family and friends

12:59and enjoying your time. But there's so many other ways that you can go about hanging with your friends and enjoying your time. And I can speak more confidently of this because on a couple more last, like a couple podcasts ago, I shared with you guys the transformation that my dad and my stepmom made. And the journey that they were on with alcohol and how they turned it around and how at my brother's graduation party, they didn't have a lick of alcohol. This is coming from my dad, who is the most, he is an amazing human being

13:30when you know him one-on-one, but he is the most socially awkward individual talking to other people. And he can only, he only likes to conversate with his like close-knit group of friends, but then other people like family and extended family and friends that he doesn't really know or like that my stepmom is friends with. It's just, it's a show. It's hilarious. I love you, dad, if you're listening to this. But anyway, so I can say that like, you know, and he wants to be healthier. He's working out on a daily basis.

14:02He knows he's changing his, what is aligning with him and what isn't aligning with him. Like he knows if he has a couple of drinks the next day, he's not gonna stick to his 20 minute workout that he does every single day. He doesn't go down to the little gym, you know, and so it's just, think about that. Like I get, it's like, one of our coaches said this so freaking well, is you are creating a new identity for yourself and it can be scary and some people like to keep their one foot in their old life and their one foot in their new life. You just gotta fully dive into

14:32what is a new life and the person that you want to become that I've talked about many times on this podcast, what does that life look like for you? What does that health look like for you? And maybe this is something that kind of needs to turn it down a notch because you have other goals that aren't in alignment with this side of things, with alcohol consumption because of what I'm talking about in this podcast. It makes, alcohol makes it really fucking hard. And excuse my language, I just curse because I'm really passionate about what I'm talking about. But it makes it really hard to get to where you want to be

15:02and the goals you want to accomplish when it comes to fat loss, building muscle, weight loss, anything in general when it comes to fitness. Especially to this third point, alcohol can disrupt the balance of hormones in the body, including testosterone and growth hormone, which are very important hormones for muscle growth and recovery. Testosterone is a key hormone that plays a crucial role in muscle growth and recovery. However, alcohol consumption can decrease testosterone levels and this can make it harder

15:34for the body to build muscle and to recover from strength training exercises. Also, low testosterone levels can lead to a decrease in your ability to perform with good energy. You will be tired, you will be fatigued, and that can affect your overall well-being. You won't be able, not only your overall well-being, you won't be able to perform your strength training exercises as strongly as you can if you are having low testosterone levels. And already, naturally, women, we have low testosterone levels.

16:06So if you are consuming alcohol on a weekly basis and it's a part of your, like, it's a part of your life, but yet you have this goal that you want to accomplish, we already have low testosterone levels. So you doing that is just lowering your testosterone levels even more and that's going to decrease your energy and your fatigue and that's going to cause the overall ability to not recover properly and not be able to repair muscle tissue.

16:37Secondly, as I said, with growth hormone is another key hormone that plays a crucial role in your muscle recovery and in your muscle growth, but it also helps with fat loss. But alcohol can decrease growth hormone levels and additionally, just like to side note this, there's a lot of women in Warrior Babe that go through hormone testing when they join our program. We're a partner with Equal Life and we dive into having our clients do saliva testing

17:07and then get those results and we can see how their thyroid is, we can see how their DHEA is, we can see how their sex hormones are, testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, A1c, blood glucose, I'm missing a few other things, but we can get that data and we can be able to assess that data and apply it to our clients' nutrition and fitness lifestyle and improve areas that they have deficiencies in through those specific methods of nutrition and exercise.

17:38But anyway, I see a lot of growth hormone decrease, I see a lot of testosterone already low and plummeting and alcohol is only going to make that worse. With alcohol decreasing hormone levels, it will make it that much harder for you to build muscle, for you to recover from strength training and for you to lose body fat. Alcohol also affects other hormones like insulin and cortisol, which I also see insulin and cortisol having an impact on women with the test results that we see coming back and that can have a negative impact on muscle growth and recovery.

18:10Insulin is responsible for delivering the glucose, the energy to the cells and alcohol can interfere with insulin's ability to do that and that can lead to you having low energy levels and make it harder for you to engage in any type of strength training exercises that you want to do in the next couple, in the next days after consuming alcohol. And then cortisol is a hormone that is released in response to stress and alcohol can increase cortisol levels. So I see all the time high cortisol levels in women that are going through our program.

18:40They have like either their high cortisol or their cortisol is absolutely freaking flatlined, meaning they have no curve whatsoever. And you should have a curve in the morning. It should be up and elevated naturally and then your curve should come down midday and decrease by the end of the night. That doesn't exist in a lot of women. And so if that's elevated and then you're drinking alcohol on top of that, alcohol increases cortisol levels and it makes high and then high cortisol levels lead to muscle breakdown and make it harder to build muscle.

19:10So again, counterproductive to the things that you want to accomplish when you're trying to build muscle and lose body fat. Alcohol, if I didn't already say it, which I know I did, it just is a, it's a, it's poison, but it's disruptive. It's so disruptive in the process of you trying to achieve your goals. Fourth thing, and I'm just going to touch lightly on it, it dehydrates the body. And when you're dehydrated, your body's ability to perform at optimal levels decreases, which can lead to you being fatigued and it can lead

19:40to muscle weakness, it can lead to muscle cramps, and overall, it just is alterated, altering the balance of electrolytes in your body. And when you have an alteration to the electrolytes in your body, like sodium, potassium, chloride, those are all important for muscle function and for muscle recovery. And when the body is dehydrated, these level of electrolytes become entirely imbalanced and that can lead to spasms and to poor recovery and like I said, cramps.

20:11So all in all, like fourth one, dehydrating, third one was disrupting of the balance of hormones, the second one was protein synthesis and its disruption in that, and then the first one was the way that it consumes tons of calories and the way that calories break down when you're consuming alcohol. The last thing is its ability, it's actually, it's freaking scary how this is. It interferes with the quality of your sleep. People think that when consuming alcohol,

20:42they actually sleep better. That is so far from the truth. I have an aura ring. I have had this thing before it was even freaking cool. And if I am ever to have just one drink of alcohol, even actually a couple weeks ago I had a one-on-one with one of my clients that I still coach and she showed me the data that she had after having a glass of wine. And what happens when this data, which is so freaking cool, is not only is your heart rate already elevated,

21:12if your heart rate is already elevated through the night, then there's other factors that we need to work on. But it elevates, like for me normally, in the low 40s when I sleep and if I'm to have alcohol, I'm in like the 60s or the 70s. My client was in the 60s and she was 77 on the day she had a glass of alcohol throughout the night. Like maybe some of you will start out at a higher heart rate, but throughout the night it should be decreasing, not elevating. Not only that, it also completely plummets

21:45your HRV. And your HRV is your heart rate variability. It's the way that your body handles stress. So it goes back to my point on how it raises your cortisol. If your HRV is low, then you are stressed to the nines. Whenever I have either one drink or a few, my HRV is normally 120, 130. If I have alcohol, it's like 20.

22:17Like 100 different. Like maybe 30 pushing it. It's wild. And when, when you, when this happens, what, what, it obviously is when you get a, sleep is so important for muscle recovery and for growth. And not only does a lack of sleep affect all of these things that I just said, but also affects the hormones that regulate your hunger and your metabolism, which makes it harder

22:47to lose weight. and I'm going to talk about that for a second. But first, the, during sleep, the body repair, it's supposed to repair and regenerate. And it's supposed to repair and regenerate your muscle tissue. And the process, this process is so freaking important for obviously the growth, the recovery, the results that you want to see. However, when you enter the stage of deep sleep, that's a stage of sleep that this process is happening.

23:18But that doesn't happen. You don't enter deep sleep. Or if you do enter deep sleep, it doesn't matter. All these other things are being affected that make your deep sleep not even account. Whenever I go into it, there's no deep sleep happening on my end. I'm like in the, like normal, like a, like a, I forget what it's called. There's, there's like four different things that says it's, it's not deep, it's not REM, but there's just like a level which majority, a lot of people are at. I get that. Let me open it up for a second.

23:51It light, light sleep. So you go, I'm in light sleep majority of the time. Ain't nothing happening in light sleep. But anyway, like I was saying, when it comes to the metabolism, so ghrelin, leptin, those two hormones regulate your hunger. And when you have a lack of sleep, those hormones get affected. Those hormones get way off balance. And when you, when you don't get the sleep, the levels of ghrelin, which is your hunger hormone, increases and leptin, your fullness hormone,

24:21decreases, which can lead, this is why you feel like you're hungry the next day. And why you want to like consume all the junk food the next day is because all of these hormones are now completely out of whack. And this makes it harder to lose body fat. It makes it harder to get to where you want to be. It sounds, right, consuming a drink of alcohol, consuming a drink sounds like, what's the word I'm looking for? It sounds, it doesn't sound like it's harmful. It doesn't,

24:52it sounds like it's a nice way to relax for a lot of people. But shit, after hearing this podcast, I hope you guys think a little bit differently, especially if you're trying to accomplish some type of goal with decreasing your body fat, building more muscle, which I believe everybody listening to this podcast is because that's all I talk about on it, right? It may be, it may sound like it's something nice to do to relax and it's sure every once in a while it is. Like I consume maybe every once in a blue moon. Like it's literally maybe like three times a year if that.

25:22Maybe next time you could just consider like, you know, instead of having four, maybe you have one. And then you slowly, like it took my parents eight months to go from heavily drinking to not drinking at all and social occasions. So I'm not saying that like, you know, make this change immediately, but just think about the impact that it's having on you and reconsider each time you're going to have a drink, maybe not having as much as you did the last time. And the next time you have it, maybe not as much as you did the last time and vice versa.

25:52And like slowly just removing this thing from your life because it doesn't really serve that much of a purpose, to be honest. But anyway, you guys, all in all to say, in conclusion, you know, alcohol can have a negative impact on building muscle, on losing body fat, and it leads to increased calorie intake, it inhibits muscle growth and protein synthesis, it disrupts your hormone balance, it causes dehydration, and it interferes with your sleep quality. So all these factors

26:23make it very, very difficult for individuals to achieve their goals, for you guys to achieve your goals when it comes to building muscle, recovering from strength training, getting good quality sleep, and losing body fat. So guys, just again, reconsider next time, have, maybe have a drink and drink tons of water, but then slowly just kind of phase it out because it's just not worth it, in my opinion. All right? We want you guys to have, maximize your workout performance, get the results that you want, and there's just some things that,

26:53especially with summer and being here, man, it's like, just think about it a little bit differently so you can get to your goals faster. That's all I want for you. That's all we want for you. All right? Anyway, hope you enjoy this podcast, and I'll see you in the next one. Peace out. Hey guys, real quick, if you're interested in taking your body to the next level, lose body fat, build more muscle, feel more confident, do it alongside one of our 30 plus professional coaches. Work one-on-one with her to eliminate all of the guesswork that you may have,

27:24and all you need to do is just do the work that she tells you to do to get to those goals of yours. Now to learn more, click the link below this podcast and apply to our VIP program right now.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.