Fried off that sh*t that rock stars die from - Part 1: the effects of alcohol and drugs on fat and muscle

That's Danny Brown in the title (track 2, but do yourself a favour and listen to all of it, it's full of tunes and the odes to excess provide the perfect backdrop this article).

I reasoned that being a student myself, fellow students likely represent a large proportion of my readership. Students tend like a beer or 10. Some like to hit the trees harder than George of the Jungle. Others pop the same pills that had Carlton dancing fast. You may or may not know what the various substances you decide to take are doing to your internal organs and (most importantly) brain. If you don't, you probably should. But let's be vain and flippant for a bit, what are all these things going to do to your body's appearance?

I'll talk about the booze first, as almost everyone I know has a tipple a least occasionally; then the more virtuous amongst you can clock out before we delve into the naughty stuff. I'm sure you all have the image in your head of what too much alcohol will do to your body: the stereotypical 20 stone, lager swilling, Buddha bellied ladladlad (England football strip and 3 lions tattoo optional). Luckily for us who would rather not tread that path, if you are smart about your pre-game food intake, drink choice and volume, you can get drunk and stay sexy.

Anything we do, America will do bigger and louder.

Alcohol is pretty complex once inside your body as it is both a drug and a (non-essential) nutrient, so it's a multi headed beast, acting on a variety of systems. Looking at alcohol as just a fuel source, it has 7 calories per gram. Compare this to 4 calories per gram of protein or carbs and 9 for fat, and we see that alcohol is a pretty dense source of calories. Not only is alcohol caloric, but due to being a liquid it's effects on satiety are pretty minimal, so it can be very easy to throw down some serious calories. There is a bit of a silver lining here however: some of the calories are used in thermogenesis (i.e. getting you hot and sweaty) during metabolism (via the ADH pathway, for science geeks), so the actual caloric load is more like 5.7 calories per gram. Furthermore, at high blood alcohol concentrations a second pathway (nerds: the MEOS pathway) for breaking down alcohol becomes active, this metabolises alcohol with essentially no caloric impact on the body; that may sound lovely but it also increases oxidation the body, which isn't so great. Still with all this, there's a fair few calories in your shandy.

This photo is important. For science.

The kicker with alcohol is not its actual caloric load per se, but they way your body metabolises it. It's extremely difficult for your body to convert alcohol to fatty acids for storage (it is in fact converted to acetate and acetaldehyde), this means very little to none of the alcohol you drink gets stored as fat. That's awesome, let's celebrate with beers! Well, not so fast; you see, alcohol gets metabolic priority over any other macronutrient. If there's booze in your blood stream, your liver goes straight to work on that and stops paying much attention to carbs and fats. After just 3 units, your liver decreases fat burning by around 75% and stops metabolising carbs, and this only shifts more in favour of alcohol metabolism with more drinks.  The fact your liver is focussing purely on the alcohol ingested means that any carbs and fat floating around in your blood stream have a pretty good chance of getting stored as the jiggly stuff.

Not the best choice of drink, but she's doing something right

Looking at alcohol in terms of its effects on your hormones; it's a well known fact alcohol turns men into women - they get emotional, talk too much and can't drive. Misogyny and poor jokes aside; there's a bit of truth in that. Moderate alcohol consumption (~2 drinks a day for 3 weeks) has been shown to give a pretty small decrease in testosterone for men, but this isn't really too much to worry about. It's the binging that is going to sap your ball power; men drinking ~12 units (it depended on their size) were shown to have on average a 23% drop in the big T after 16 hours. This was transient, their T levels bounced back, but it still isn't ideal, especially in terms of recovery if you have had a workout that day (as another study showed). It also can increase aromatase, which will turn your testosterone into (the female hormones) oestrogen. Put down the beer pitchers, bitch-tits.

I'm sorry. Sometimes shock therapy is the best route.

Alcohol, as anyone that has waited cross-legged in the queue for the toilet at a club knows, is a diuretic. 'Break the seal' and you are going all night. Well, this means you'll probably be dehydrated the next day. Another factor here is the usage of significant amounts of water soluble B vitamins, folate and vitamin C by your body to support the metabolism of alcohol. Those two things add up to a pounding head and a mouth like Gandhi's flip flop the next morning; bad for recovery if you worked out the day before or performance if you're working out the day after. The good news is that with a lack of water in your body, which includes subcutaneous water retention, you'll probably look pretty ripped when you spend half an hour posing in the mirror as part of your morning routine (only me?)

Shock therapy part 2.

In your brain, alcohol increases the usage of inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA (this is why alcohol is a depressant), this leads to you feeling relaxed and sleepy. The problem is, GABA regulates your sleep; when you are awake and drinking, your brain is going through more of this stuff than usual, so when you finally get to have some sleep, it will be less deep than otherwise and therefore less restorative. The other action of alcohol in your brain is to act as a sedative on the higher processing areas of your brain (the cerebral cortex) and lesser so on the lower areas. This means you can eat, sleep, breathe and shit without too much trouble, but your logic is going to be all kinds of fucked and your inhibitions loosened, leading to you saying and doing things you wouldn't when sober. This may end with you making awful decisions, like sleeping with ugly people or eating some greasy crap 'drunk food' at the end of the night. The former is probably actually good from a body composition point of view, you're getting some exercise in at least. The latter isn't so great. Remember what I said about fat and carb metabolism being blunted while your body burns off the alcohol? Well take one guess where that calorie bomb from chippy lane is going. Now repeat after me: "cheese and chips goes straight to the hips."

Everything about this is evil. It's not even food, it's a big box of 'you gonna get fat'.

It's not all doom and gloom when it comes to having a little drink though; moderate amounts of booze have been shown to improve insulin sensitivity and lower trigyceride concentrations. Better insulin sensitivity means that ingested carbs and protein will have a stronger insulin response and as such a greater muscle building response. Very poor insulin sensitivity is what leads to type II diabetes, so an increase in insulin sensitivity is good. Lower blood trigyceride concentrations are strongly correlated with decreased risk of heart disease and strokes, so chalk this one up as a win for drinkers as well. It's also been shown in large scale studies that moderate drinks live longer than those that are abstinent.

I don't really know what's going on here, but I want to be part of it.

You might be feeling like you need a stiff drink to handle all those facts that I've thrown, so let's do a quick, simple recap. Moderate (1-2 drinks a day) alcohol consumption brings positive effects to blood hormone markers and longevity, although males may experience very minor drops in serum testosterone, this is little to worry about. In general, a little bit of booze is actually a good thing; you've heard this all before though: "A glass of red a day keeps the doctor away". Heavy boozing, on the other hand, can wreak a bit of havoc on your body if you're not careful. T-levels dropping by almost a quarter, dehydration, vitamin loss and disturbed sleep patterns are all likely lead to insufficient recovery and potentially impair next-day performance. Furthermore, while the alcohol itself won't get stored as fat, most of the carbs and any fat you consume around the time you are drinking heavily will be.

Poor girl has a terrible drinking problem.

Now the fun part, let's talk damage control. How do we party like Chris Farley without looking like him (or dying, preferably)?

• If you're planning on a big night eat low fat all day.
• Keep carbs pretty low as well, in general avoiding starches for around 4 hours pre-drinking is a good idea.
• Eat lots of lean protein, this will keep you full and provide calories due to the low fat/carbs (don't get drunkorexic on me). It will also slow the absorption of alcohol a bit, which should avoid you hitting the deck as those tequilas hit your bloodstream.
• When you are out, imbibe majority low carb drinks (and definitely low fat, any cocktail with cream can fuck right off). So do forget the brew (track 7, for those listening along), also forget any full sugar mixers (that includes juices), alcopops, sweet wines and sugary liqueurs (this includes Jaeger and 'buca). This leaves you dry wines, and full proof spirits (vodka, rum, whisk(e)y, tequila, gin, brandy) with diet or low sugar mixers. I'm not saying don't have fun, have a Cosmo or a Long Slow Comfortable Screw Against The Wall before you start on the vodka and sodas, just bear in mind for optimum results you should stick to the list.
• Once you start drinking (like drinking, drinking; not just a glass of wine for the night) don't eat until you wake up in the morning. True some protein won't hurt, but seriously, who ever comes in and has a chicken breast after a heavy night on the tiles? It's much easier to say not to eat and probably easier for adherence. A late night chippy is a nightmare for your abs, you're smothering them. Let them be free, don't eat after drinking.
• When you get home, pop a multivitamin and down at least a pint of water, preferably two for bigger guys.
• If you're trying to lose fat or are serious about your physique, limit big nights (~1 drink per 20 kg bodyweight or more) to once a week or less. 1 or 2 drinks a day whenever you feel like it is fine.

Terrible drinking problem part 2.

That should do it. Now you know my secrets.

Part 2 coming soon, things are going to get dark. Also more Danny Brown references.