It is no secret, Australians are very social and we love to get out and about, have a drink with our friends at a barbecue, meet with them at the local bar of pub and have a few nice cold beers with our mates to finish off a hard working week. Now I know from many, many experiences that those few beers at the end of the week can lead to many dangerous side effects, including all night and all weekend benders that lead you to feeling like you’ve just been hit by a truck come Monday morning when it is time to get up and go to the gym or work. 
Most people think that this is fine to do as that their body can fully recover during the working week, however, there are many side effects that go unnoticed until you realise that you’ve gained weight, feel very lethargic, have lost muscle tone and definition, and are carrying the dreaded ‘spare tire’ that nobody wants to see on themselves when they look in the mirror or step on the scales after a few months of binge drinking.
Habitual drinking is a common occurrence among Australians. From those who consume alcohol every night, to those who are ‘binge drinkers’, people who consume moderate to high amounts of alcohol and experience intoxication over weekend periods on a weekly basis. Over periods of time, alcohol can cause a variety of health problems, especially when consumed in excessive doses, such as those who become intoxicated on a frequent basis. These health effects can include;
- Increased risk of heart, stroke and vascular diseases,
- Liver cirrhosis
- High risk consumption is strongly associated with oral, throat and oesophageal cancer (AIHW 2005a)
- Weight gain, depression, breakdown of relationships and in the worst of cases, injury and death from negligence or excessive alcohol consumption
One of the biggest negatives to excessive or regular consumption of alcohol is the effect that it can have on a person’s lifestyle and the choices they make. This can lead to poorer lifestyle choices, which impact all factors of a person’s life; their ability to function at a high level every day in a demanding job, their eating patterns, which in turn affects their ability to function at their peak during the day, and can lead to extra stress in home and work life, which in turn can lead a person to feeling trapped in a particular lifestyle, which they feel that alcohol is their only escape. Often times, diet and exercise form a huge part of the wellbeing of a human being in their home and work environment, and regular or excessive drinking habits may lead to a person sacrificing what was an otherwise healthy lifestyle for the sake of a bit of social relief at the end of the week.
For those that are going to drink, moderation and careful choice in alcohol consumption is a great way to stay on top of those excessive calories that can be consumed when drinking. Most alcoholic beverages are very calorie dense, from heavier beers to premixed drinks with very high sugar contents. The average beer will have between 150 -200 calories per standard drink. Wines, both read and white average about 100 calories, while pre-mixed drinks generally have a very high sugar content, and can sometimes contain up to 300 calories per drink. Considering that the average binge drinker consumes over 7 standard drinks in a single night, it is easy to see the calories add up! That could be as much as 3000 extra calories or more just in a few hours of drinking. It is easy to see that the human body would have a great deal of difficulty digesting all that extra energy, and would most likely turn it into fat before you even got the chance to use it! And considering that you may be edging closer and closer to a state of intoxication, your body’s total energy output may be very low, so your body has no choice to store the extra calories as fat.
So combined with the extra calories that your body is consuming, the decreased energy output and energy expenditure of your body and the effect that alcohol is having by making you feel more sluggish, lethargic, less motivated and less willing to do something about it, it can quite easily lead to weight gain, especially amongst those who are consuming calorie dense beverages and working increasingly sedentary office style jobs, where the total physical output is a lot less than someone who would work a laborious kind of job, such as a landscaper or a construction worker, or someone who trained and competed for professional sports, where the calorie output for the individual is a lot higher.
To combat the ill effects of excessive alcohol consumption, there are many things that can be changed or fine tuned in a person’s lifestyle that can lead to the halting and reversal of this process of weight gain, and still allow a person to have a couple of drinks at the end of the week with their friends (without going totally overboard). Diet is incredibly important, as a diet high in processed foods, sugary drinks and starchy carbohydrates is only going to lead to one place, and that is obesity. Changing your dieting habits may be as simple as cutting out soft drinks and changing the foods that you eat during the day. Changing from processed carbohydrates to organic ones like wheat germ and rolled oats will make you feel fuller for longer, burn a lot slower and keep your digestive system happy. A diet much higher in natural fats, such as those from nuts, oils, seeds, milk and cheese will provide your body with a massive amount of energy through natural sources and is a lot less likely to leave you bloated and feeling drained during the day from carbohydrate depletion. Higher protein content in foods will also help repair muscles injured during exercise, increase in energy production and digestive repair, combined with a rich diet of foods and vegetables.
The second and just as important thing to combat weight gain is regular exercise. Whether this is by getting to your local fitness gym, busting out some weights, spending 40 minutes on a treadmill or just by going for a run, nothing can make you feel better mentally and physically than exercising. While a person exercises, the brain releases dopamine’s onto itself, giving you the sensation that what you are doing feels good. And essentially, you are. Stress from work and poor diet can lead up to a build up of toxins in the brain and body that can prevent weight loss and alcohol destabilisation. The best way to deal with these is to engage in some kind of physical activity, even if it is thirty to forty minutes a day, can help to burn the calories not burned in a day’s work and will give you a better sense of whole being about yourself. Which in turn, will show a positive impact in all aspects of your lifestyle, including your workplace, your family life, and most importantly, how you feel about yourself.
We all know the dangers of habitual, excessive and ‘binge’ drinking, but it is up to us as human beings to take responsibility for our actions, and nobody can change that. Be responsible while drinking, be responsible in our lives and we’re making the world a better place for us all to live in!
If you are wanting to learn more about Alcohol and the effects it has on yourself and the world around you then take an RSA Course and learn all about the responsible service of alcohol.