Rethinking Drinking

When we’re looking at certain health risks, there are often five key lifestyle factors that have a big impact; they are:

• Have a good diet
• Get good exercise
• Get good sleep
• Reduce (or eliminate) alcohol
• Don’t smoke

Today, we’re focussing the alcohol bit. Maybe you’d like to quit, maybe just cut down, maybe the topic just interests you… So, here’s a quick rundown of some things that will help make that a lot easier:

With a big enough “why”, you can overcome any “how”

Research and understand the harm done by drinking, including:

• Skin aging
• Weight gain
• Liver disease
• Anxiety
• Depression

And especially as we get older, memory problems:

Alcohol-related dementia: an update of the evidence

And as for fear of missing out, or perhaps even of no longer being relaxed/fun… Did you ever, while sober, have a very drunk person try to converse with you, and you thought “I wish that were me”?

Probably not

Know your triggers

Why do you drink? If your knee-jerk response is “because I like it”, dig deeper. What events prompt you to have a drink?

• Some will be pure habit born of convention—perhaps with a meal, for example
• Others may be stress-management—after work, perhaps
• Others may be pseudo-medicinal—a nightcap for better* sleep, for instance

*this will not work. Alcohol may make us sleepy but it will then proceed to disrupt that very sleep and make it less restorative

Become mindful

Now that you know why you’d like to drink less (or quit entirely), and you know what triggers you to drink, you can circumvent that a little, by making deals with yourself, for example

• “I can drink alcohol, if and only if I have consumed a large glass of water first” (cuts out being thirsty as a trigger to drink)
• “I can drink alcohol, if and only if I meditate for at least 5 minutes first” (reduces likelihood of stress-drinking)
• “I can drink alcohol, if and only if it is with the largest meal of the day” (minimizes total alcohol consumption)

Note that these things also work around any FOMO, “Fear Of Missing Out”. It’s easier to say “no” when you know you can have it later if you still want it.

Get a good replacement drink

There are a lot of alcohol-free alcohol-like drinks around these days, and many of them are very good. Experiment and see. But!

It doesn’t even have to be that. Sometimes what we need is not even an alcohol-like drink, but rather, drinkable culinary entertainment.

If you like “punch-in-the-face” flavors (as this writer does), maybe strong black coffee is the answer. If you like “crisp and clear refreshment” (again, same), maybe your favorite herbal tea will do it for you. Or maybe for you it’ll be lemon-water. Or homemade ginger ale.

Whatever it is… make it fun, and make it yours!

Bonus item: find replacement coping strategies

This one goes if you’ve been using alcohol to cope with something. Stress, depression, anxiety, whatever it may be for you.

The thing is, it feels like it helps briefly in the moment, but it makes each of those things progressively worse in the long-run, so it’s not sustainable.

Consider instead things like therapy, exercise, and/or a new hobby to get immersed in; whatever works for you!

What Do You Have To Gain?

We have previously promised a three-part series about changing one’s weight:

1. Losing weight (specifically, losing fat)
2. Gaining weight (specifically, gaining muscle)
3. Gaining weight (specifically, gaining fat)

And yes, that last one is also something that some people want/need to do (healthily!), and want/need help with that.

There will be, however, no need for a “losing muscle” article, because (even though sometimes a person might have some reason to want to do this), it’s really just a case of “those things we said for gaining muscle? Don’t do those and the muscle will atrophy naturally”.

Here’s the first part: How To Lose Weight (Healthily!)

While some people will want to lose fat, please do be aware that the association between weight loss and good health is not nearly so strong as the weight loss industry would have you believe:

Shedding Some Obesity Myths

And, while BMI is not a useful measure of health in general, it’s worth noting that over the age of 65, a BMI of 27 (which is in the high end of “overweight”, without being obese) is associated with the lowest all-cause mortality:

BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis

Body weight, muscle mass, and protein:

That BMI of 27, or whatever weight you might wish to be, ignores body composition. You’re probably aware that volume-for-volume, muscle weighs more than fat.

You’re also probably aware that if we’re not careful, we tend to lose muscle as we get older. This is known as age-related sarcopenia:

Protein, & Fighting Sarcopenia

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, our featured expert in the above article, recommends getting at least 1.6g of protein per kg of body weight per day (Americans, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to get your weight in kg).

So for example, if you weigh 165lb, that’s 75kg, that’s 1.6×75=120g of protein per day.

There is an upper limit to how much protein per day is healthy, and that limit is probably around 2g of protein per kg of body weight per day:

Protein: How Much Do We Need, Really?

You may be wondering: should we go for animal or plant protein? In which case, the short version is:

• If you only care about muscle growth, any complete sources of protein are fine
• If you care about your general health too, then avoiding red meat is best, but other common protein sources are all fine
• Unprocessed is (unsurprisingly) better than processed in either case

Longer version: Plant vs Animal Protein: Head to Head

What exercises are best for muscle-building?

Of course, different muscles require different exercises, but for all of them, resistance training is what builds muscle the most, and it’s pretty much impossible to build a lot of muscle otherwise.

Check out: Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)

Prepare to fail!

No, really, prepare to fail. Because while resistance training in general is good for maintaining strong muscles and bones, you will only gain muscle if your current muscle is not enough to do the exercise:

• If you do a heavy resistance exercise without undue difficulty, your muscles will say to each other “Good job, team! That was hard, but luckily we were strong enough; no changes necessary”.
• If you do a heavy resistance exercise to the point where you can no longer do it (called: training to failure), then your muscles will say to each other “Oof, what a task! What we’ve got here is clearly not enough, so we’ll have to add more muscle for next time”.

Safety note: training to failure comes with safety risks. If using free weights or weight machines, please do so under well-trained supervision. If doing it with bodyweight (e.g. press-ups until you can press no more) or resistance bands, please check with your doctor first to ensure this is safe for you.

You can also increase the effectiveness of your resistance training by doing it in a way that “confuses” your muscles, making it harder for them to adapt in the moment, and thus forcing them to adapt more in the long term (e.g. get bigger and stronger):

HIIT, But Make It HIRT: High Intensity Resistance Training

Make time for recovery

While many kinds of exercise can be done daily, exercise to build muscle(s) means at the very least resting that muscle (or muscle group) the next day.

For this reason, a lot of bodybuilders have for example a week’s schedule that might look like:

• Monday: Upper body training
• Wednesday: Lower body training
• Friday: Core strength training

…and rest on other days. This gives most muscles a full week of recovery, and every muscle at least 48 hours of recovery.

Note: bodybuilders, like children (who are also doing a lot of body-building, in their own way) need more sleep in order to allow for this recovery and growth to occur. Serious bodybuilders often aim for 12 hours sleep per day. This might be impractical, undesirable, or even impossible for some people, but it’s a factor to be borne in mind and not forgotten.

See also:

Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise (According To Actual Science)

Anything else that can (safely and healthily) be done to promote muscle growth?

There are a lot of supplements on the market; some are healthy and helpful, other not so much. Here are some we’ve written about:

• What To Eat, Take, And Do Before A Workout
• Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People
• Ginseng: Exercising With Less Soreness!
• Taurine’s Benefits For Heart Health And More
• Topping Up Testosterone? What To Consider

Take care!