How Alcohol Affects Testosterone, Cortisol and Recovery

Nikkiey: 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. So the single thing I ask you to do is 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 is a diuretic, which leads to dehydration. And when you are dehydrated, that affects muscle function and recovery. When your body doesn't have the water that it needs, it decreases your muscle endurance and strength.

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. Alcohol is a macronutrient. It's a macronutrient that isn't tracked, but it does contain seven calories per gram, which is almost as much as pure fat, where fat is nine calories per gram.

So you can see that if you consume a lot of calories coming from alcohol, it's going to lead to weight gain. You've probably seen it, and you already know this, but I'm going to break it down even more for you. Consuming alcohol can also lead to overeating and making poor food choices, because it lowers your inhibitions and 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.

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. Testosterone is a key hormone that plays a critical role in muscle growth and recovery. However, 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. In addition, low testosterone levels lead to so many other things, like a lowered libido and sex drive.

It can cause more fatigue, and this 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, it can also help with fat loss. But alcohol decreases growth hormone levels, which makes it harder for you to build muscle, harder for you to lose body fat and harder for you to recover from strength training. So you see how alcohol not only throws off all the other things I already 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 your body's cells. And alcohol can interfere with insulin's ability to do that. 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. Not just that alone, too: cortisol is the fat-storing hormone. So if you have high cortisol levels, one of the reasons could obviously be that you're stressed, but drinking alcohol adds more stress. That could be the reason why you're not seeing the results you want to see, because you're storing more unwanted body fat by increasing this hormone level.

My very, very personal opinion is that alcohol is poison. It impairs the ability to reach the deep sleep stages where muscle repair occurs. When you enter the phase of deep sleep, that is where your body hits the ultimate recovery period. And when your sleep is impacted by alcohol, it affects your hunger-regulating hormones, which increases your appetite the next day, wanting to eat whatever you want.

And usually it's always junk food or greasy food, to help make you feel better, but also because this regulating hormone is totally shifted. And that right there will challenge you in managing the body fat that you want to decrease. So all in all, there are probably so many other ways that alcohol affects your body when it comes to building muscle, losing fat and overall longevity. I want you guys to understand this process and what is going on when even a few drinks are consumed.

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. So the single thing I ask you to do is 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.