How to Drink Alcohol While Building Muscle and Losing Fat

You most likely know by now that drinking beyond 1-2 drinks of alcohol (in any form) each day is NOT good for you. Here's why:

* Body treats it like estrogen, which is your enemy

* Slows down fat loss.

* Full of empty calories.

* Mess up the quality of sleep.

* It dehydrates your body

* Real bad for your liver.

My professional recommendation: Don't drink at all if you want to achieve ultimate muscle gains and lose as much fat as possible.

But let's face it. This is the real world, and you probably like to drink as much as the next guy (the younger you are the more you probably like to drink). So here's some tips to keep your muscle building and fat loss on progress when you choose to "indulge":

Load up on Water

A lot of the bad stuff that comes from drinking can be curbed with water consumption. Alcohol dehydrates you, so drink lots of water before, during (if possible) and definitely before going to bed. Alcohol also helps your body eliminate the massive amount of toxins you just doused it with in the form of alcohol.

Keep Away from Sugary mixers

Refrain from sugary mixers in your hard alcohol. Consuming sugar while drinking alcohol is the worse thing you can do for fat gain.

Get rid of carbs

If you're drinking alcohol don't eat carbs beforehand, during or after. To sum up: The carbs get turned to fat much easier because your body is trying to process the alcohol. And Protein will stay with you longer so you won't eat as much and the higher thermic rate makes it less likely to promote fat gain.

Observe the 1-2 drinks a day during weekdays

There's already enough evidence to suggest that 1-3 drinks a day is good for you. If you love drinking a beer or two a day or glasses of wine or whatsoever, don't worry about it. Try not to splurge EVERY night. If you're going to binge

Drink hard only a couple days a week.

Like Friday and Saturday, or something like that. Here's what to do: Don't eat much during the day if you're going to party it up that night. Then make sure you get some good protein into your system to help coat your stomach. Also, some foods high in fiber like beans is also good. It will stay with you and help you feel fuller, maybe absorb some toxins-definitely help flush them out the next day when you "eliminate".

Workout 2-3 hours before you get down

Since your muscles get used up of glycogen after you exercise doing this might make it easier for your body to turn even more of the empty calories you take in later on that night into muscle, in place of fat.

Don't stuff yourself as soon as you get drunk

Most people drink till they're really drunk, then get hungry and decide to eat a bunch of crap food. This is NOT going to help. Follow the protein tip above, and drink more water to help you feel full.

Amuse yourself with beer pong or other games

As a matter of fact, you could actually burn 20-30 calories in a "Vigorous" game of beer pong. You'll almost certainly drink more though as a result. My advice: Drink a lesser amount to make your aim better - therefore you drink less during the game (because you're winning) which overall leads to less drinking! Play "strip" versions of these games for even more fun.

Decide on beers and wines with minimal calories

Light beers are lowest. Dark stouts (like Guinness!) are next. Followed by the rest. Red wines are lower in calories (and contain more resveratrol), followed by the rest.

Hangover relief:

In the morning, you might be hungover here's some tips:

* Avoid NSAID's like aspirin, ibuprofen, etc because combined with the alcohol it is super bad for your liver and stomach, etc..

* Get some water and Gatorade to top up electrolytes, etc...

* Get a dose of multivitamins/multi-mineral supplements so as to further refuel...

* Proteins are great to comfort you such as eggs, bacon, and all that...

* Workout well enough to drip some toxins out plus make sure to it that you drink water all the time...

* Catch some z's...

You know you shouldn't but then if you do

Come to a decision to "over indulge" you should at least go by the guidelines I've set out here. The real issue you should tackle is:

"Why do I feel the need to drink a lot?"

You'll probably find out that it's an issue with your self confidence not being able to say "no" to your peer group or trying to "Fit in" or some other such nonsense. Or you don't like reality and you're just trying to escape from it by getting trashed. None of these things are healthy and you need to get these issues handled before you do some damage.