Alcohol: Friend or Foe?

If you are new to boot camp and enjoy a drink or cocktail, are you stepping up to our challenge to cut out alcohol for 30 days?   If research supports moderate alcohol use for heart health, why abstain?  

When I started boot camp last August, I vowed "no alcohol" for the first month. I would not consider myself a heavy drinker by any means, but I was so tired from simply resetting my internal alarm clock each morning that even one drink at dinner would have put me to sleep at the table.   I decided if I survived the first month, I would reconsider.

I made it though and celebrated month one over cocktails with friends.  September arrived and I got back on the wagon for the first two weeks to prepare for what was to come.  On September 18th, I flew to Italy and spent the second have of the month imbibing on local wine, limoncello, plates of fresh pasta and scoops of gelato.  Describing the trip as indulgent would be an understatement, but I vowed to embrace la dolce vita.   I came back to boot camp in early October and felt like I had lost all the ground I had gained in my first six weeks.  I vividly remember yelling during bear crawls, "I'm never going to Italy again!"  The trip was worth every moment, but returning home was a tough transition back to reality.

At this point seven months later, I'm finding a much healthier balance and normally only have alcohol on Saturday nights, if at all.  On the rare occasion I do have a drink or two during the week, I can feel the difference the next day at camp. I'm not as strong, my legs fatigue more quickly on sprints and overall, I just don't feel 100%.  So for me, feeling bad the next day simply isn't worth it most nights.

What's right for you? Here are some facts to consider:

1.  Alcohol has a diuretic affect.  Alcohol blocks the release of a hormone called ADH that is needed for water reabsorption. Without this hormone, the kidneys don't reabsorb water and instead excrete it as urine.  One drink will likely not have much affect, but a few drinks can easily lead to dehydration. 

2.  Alcohol provides empty calories.  If one of your goals is weight loss, calories from alcohol can slow down your progress.  If you don't want to cut out alcohol completely, consider cutting your weekly quantity by half.  One drink (roughly 100 calories) is defined as:

• 12-ounces of regular beer or wine cooler.
• 8-ounces of malt liquor.
• 5-ounces of wine.
• 1.5-ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits or liquor (e.g., gin, rum, vodka, whiskey).

Note:  A glasses of wine at your favorite restaurant may be more than 5 ounces and a pint of draft beer is 16 or 20 ounces.

3.  Alcohol interferes with sleep.   Drinking is often associated with late nights, but alcohol also effects the quality of sleep that you do get.

4.  Alcohol increases your risk of injury.  Drinking may not cause an injury at boot camp, but your risk of injury increases while you are drinking.  A twisted ankle or broken wrist from a fall under the influence might be bad enough to take you out of boot camp for some time!

For discussion:   How does alcohol affect your performance?

Fueling Up PreExercise: Go with your Gut!

When I first joined SIU last fall, I struggled to find the right food to eat pre-boot camp.  I've never been one to eat right before exercise, and I also didn't see myself waking up at 4:30am so I could eat an hour before camp either!

During the first month, I tried various combinations of juices, bananas, toast, peanut butter, yogurt, protein bars, and sports drinks 30 minutes before camp.  There were days when my stomach cramped, days when I felt so full that I had a tough time focusing on the workout, and days when I felt bloated and uncomfortable.  I even tried chewing Tums on my way out the door hoping it would help everything digest.  And yes, there were a few times I threw up.  

After four months of camp, I picked up Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guide to see what a dietitian specializing in sports nutrition had to say.  My take home messages were:

• You will be able to workout harder and you will burn more calories if you have a preexercise snack.
• There is no one magical pre-workout meal.  Go with your gut.  Literally.
• If you are new to exercise, you will be more likely to have side effects (stomach cramping, nausea, heartburn, bloating, diarrhea) from eating.  Over time, your body will adapt and the side effects from eating should get better.  As you train your body, you need to train your gut too.
• 30-50% of the vets not new to exercise will have side effects from eating despite training.

So what's right for you?  If you are new to boot camp and/or exercise, you will need to simply go through the process of trial and error.   To start with, choose high carb, low-fat, low-protein, and low-fiber foods.  Some suggestions:

• 4-6 saltine crackers or small pretzels and a few sips of a sports drink
• 1 small bowl of low sugar, low fiber cereal (Cheerios, Rice Krispies) with skim milk
• 1/2 cup oatmeal
• 1 small banana
• 1 slice toast or 1/2 English muffin (no high fiber) with thin spread of peanut butter and/or jelly

What finally worked for me?   Four to six saltines by 5:15am and G2 powder mixed in 20 oz of water during camp.  The dietitian in me says "you could do better," but my gut no longer feels sick and I have enough energy to get through our workouts!

Join this discussion!  For those of you who eat in the morning preexercise, what works best for you?

Welcome!

Hey there everyone! If you’ve read my bio, you already know a bit about me, and if you are a boot camp vet, you may even know me personally from camp. I started boot camp last August when my friend Josh mentioned how he needed to get back in shape. I jokingly said "we should do that boot camp at the Baptist church" and before I knew it there we were at 5:30am in early August ready to go!

I’m still amazed by how much my fitness level improved in the first four weeks. Day one I couldn’t even do one real pushup. By the end of four weeks, I could do 15 in a minute. By the end of November, I was up to 33. I finished my one mile run (let’s be honest and say fast walk) in 12:30 on my first day. By the end of the first month, I ran one mile in 10:01 and by November, my time had dropped to 9:20. I have counseled hundreds if not thousands of patients on how to reach their weight goals, including talking with them about exercise, but never really saw first hand the difference it makes.  Now I do.

So my purpose here? For all of you out there struggling to reach your weight goals, nutrition may be the missing piece. Paul’s blog sheds some light on what I do with each individual. My approach lies in asking lots of questions to truly understand each person’s unique lifestyle, schedule, food preferences, habits, challenges, and barriers and piecing that all together to come up with a plan that is realistic to help you reach your goals long term.

I don’t believe in a "one size fits all" approach or quick fix diets. Successful weight change takes time, and sometimes becomes more about changing behavior than food (although changing food is a big part of it too!).

Send me your questions, thoughts, misconceptions and beliefs about weight loss and nutrition and I’m going to do my best to answer them thoughtfully and honestly.

In the meantime, eat well.