Alcohol and training: the hidden calorie cost

Summer is here, and beach and barbecue season is in full swing. The height of summer, with its beach days and holidays, certainly also means drinking alcohol more often than usual.

Bodybuilding is ultimately all about looking good physically. But lifting weights alone will not give you a muscular, athletic, well-trained physique. Your overall nutrition, calorie intake, food choices, meal timing and so on are hugely important. Still, those much-discussed topics are not what I wanted to talk about today. I do want to talk about calories, but not directly in the context of nutrition.

Even athletes want to feel human from time to time, and naturally, summer parties and drinking are part of life even for the most dedicated among us.

Let’s get to the point. I often worry about the 1–2 chocolate bars I have eaten and the calories they contain. Yet I have never really stopped to consider how many calories a heavy drinking session might deliver, both in its own right and compared with other foods—why not those very same “dreaded” chocolate bars?

Look into it and do a few simple calculations, and the results can be quite staggering. My point is that while we count calories when we eat, we fail to recognize just how much heavy, frequent drinking can contribute to the extra kilos we carry under our skin.

Alcohol and training: what the numbers tell us

So, on to the numbers. I have done the calculations and will share them with you, along with a few comparisons. 100 grams of 40% vodka contains an average of 230 kcal. Half a liter, or 0.5 liters (500 g), of 40% vodka provides a total of 1150 kcal. What would that amount to in food?

0.5 liters of vodka (1150 kcal) = a large 500-gram loaf of “Perenaise” white bread (1300 kcal) = two 100-gram chocolate bars (1100 kcal)…

Pretty sobering, isn’t it?

And I am talking about just 0.5 liters, or only half a liter, of vodka. Big men weighing 90 kg and above barely feel anything from that amount. 1 liter of straight vodka already comes to 2300 kcal (400 g of chocolate), and big men have no trouble drinking that much. Nor should we forget that vodka is rarely consumed on its own. People usually chase it with juice or mix the vodka with juice, and of course they eat plenty alongside it, throughout the evening. All told, one heavy drinking session can easily mean an energy intake of 3000-5000 kcal, which alone is a full day’s calorie intake for a large, 100-kilogram man. Parties typically take place in the evening, when a long day is drawing to a close, but you have probably already eaten plenty that day before the party begins. You may even have consumed as much beforehand (2500-3000 kcal) as you are about to take in during the evening’s festivities. Ultimately, this means that if you are a truly hardcore partygoer, 1-2 days of partying (the part of the day before the party, the party itself and the following day) can add 1 extra kilogram of fat to your body if you also get very little physical activity. 2500-3000 kcal (your normal food intake during the day before the party) + 3000-5000 kcal (energy consumed during the party) = 5500-8000 kcal. 1 kg of fat = 9000 kcal. This is no fantasy, either. I have done the calculations based on my own partying, and the total energy intake over the 1-2 days surrounding a party night can be enormous.

What’s more, I also calculated how many 0.33-liter bottles of Kiss, Fizz and similar drinks would match the calorie content of 0.5 liters of straight vodka. In calorie terms, 0.5 liters (500 g) of vodka is equivalent to 7 bottles of low-alcohol cider (0.33 l each). 1 bottle = 162 kcal. 7*162 = 1134 kcal. But would those 7 bottles get you as drunk as drinking half a liter of vodka? Hardly. So the conclusion is clear: in terms of calories, you are better off drinking straight vodka. Move around a lot while you do so (at least that burns some energy), and choose very low-calorie snacks to go with it (raw vegetable salads, tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, tomato juice).

In practice, though, people usually drink 3-5 bottles of low-alcohol cider (486-810 kcal) as a “warm-up” before moving on to vodka. And for big men, an average of 0.7 l (1610 kcal) per person is nothing unusual. That already adds up to 2420 kcal from the alcohol alone. But, as I said, add the calories from fatty barbecue foods eaten throughout the evening/night, along with the calories consumed earlier in the day before the party, and the final total can be quite staggering.

Think about these numbers and keep this information in mind when you party, especially if you care about your body weight and appearance!

Author: Janar Rückenberg

Read also: kcal.

Source: WHO – physical activity.

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