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Bulking and Alcohol. A Contradiction? I think so.

WORKEROUTER

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I realize this topic has been on here before, but I have my own questions and experiences about it.

Right now, I am on a serious bulk. This means 8 meals per day, which comes out to about 4000 calories, and heavy lifting 3-4 times per week.

The problem is partying. Just this weekend, I got trashed not once, but TWICE, consecutively. First, on Friday night, which btw was the day I worked out my back on, I was severly drunk. Then, Saturday rolls around and I end up getting even MORE drunk, probably consuming around 12-14 beers.

This has pretty much negatively affected EVERYTHING. First off, I got to bed around 5 AM last night, didn't sleep well, AND missed a couple of my necessary meals. Not to mention totally feeling like sh*t the next day, AND still being severly sore in my back. Looks like recovery never kicked in.

What I have realized is that this just isn't going to work any longer. I can't keep on consistently getting trashed every weekend and expect to have maximal, consistent gains. It's just not happening. As many of us are young, and do party, and want to drink, I am curious as to other people's experience with this and how you have come to terms with it.

For me, I have decided NOT to party as much and if I do, not to stay out till 4-5 AM and get totally drunk.
 

Hoppy

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You just have to decide what's more important to you.

Alcohol contains empty calories. You can figure you're eating about 110 calories of pure junk every time you drink a light beer.

It also increases recovery times from workouts, by how much i really couldn't tell you. It has no effect on the amount of gain you make though.




Are you sure you really need to eat that much for the amount of exercise you are doing? 4000 calories is probably about 1000 more then you are burning unless you are really buff.

That's one lb. of body fat every 3.6 days!
 

Lifeforce

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Make a calender where you cross the days you are allowed to party on or make coupons? with one equaling one night out.

I try to limit drinking to once or twice a month and it's going pretty well. Once you get out of the cycle you don't become so addicted to going out every weekend. Plus living in the city with the highest % of *****es in the entire country is a great help too :)
 

RaWBLooD

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even if you got in all your meals, and balanced out your total calories, the problem is the effects of alcohol physiologically, not just that it makes you miss meals.
 

WORKEROUTER

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Originally posted by Hoppy

It has no effect on the amount of gain you make though.




Are you sure you really need to eat that much for the amount of exercise you are doing? 4000 calories is probably about 1000 more then you are burning unless you are really buff.

That's one lb. of body fat every 3.6 days!
It SEVERLY affects gains. The chemical effects actually exist for at least a couple days after, and these affect gains.

Yeah, I need to eat that much. Like I said, I am on a bulking diet. That means my workouts are intense and my diet is big.
 

A-Unit

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Re:

I'd say this...if you lift on Friday, and then drink Heavily Friday and Saturday, scratch that workout. The few hours following lifting are critical at recovery. By immersing your body in a bath of alcohol, not providing it with the foundation of nutrients it needs, and not getting good sleep (passing out still drunk or passing out with booze pulsing through your body doesn't count) basically negates anything you do for that workout.


Your early week workouts benefit somewhat from whatever hard work you put in, but the later week workouts are pretty much shot. Set aside the fact alcohol ups your estrogen levels, the empty calories are not good bulking calories. They're pure sugar. Nothing more. I've never seen a buff party guy. If I did, he was a steroid freak, OR, he was the guy who was a supreme athlete, pristine diet 6 days of the week with the OCCASIONAL night out with a few drinks, not a 30 rack.

Sure, centers, linemen, and the sort can drink heavily, and even NFL stars who weigh 250+ can consume alot, because they naturally consume lots of food anyways, so they're tolerance is higher.

You're gains are being zeroed out at BEST by the consumption of booze, if you're not heading in the opposite direction. The fact you're bulking doesn't matter...if muscle isn't built, all the bulk will be fat. So, sure, you'd accomplish your goal of bulk, but nothing near muscular bulk. And muscle doesn't grow in the presence of No sleep, Plenty of estrogen from alcohol, poor nutrition, and so forth. That's like building a home in hurricane with sh!tty cardboard materials and imported illegal immigrants building the house.



A-Unit
 

WORKEROUTER

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"That's like building a home in hurricane with sh!tty cardboard materials and imported illegal immigrants building the house."

A-Unit, that was an awesome kick in the ass.
 

Jimbo2k

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One option is to replace alcohol for pot some of the time...thats what I do
 

RaWBLooD

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Originally posted by Jimbo2k
One option is to replace alcohol for pot some of the time...thats what I do
or not.
 

Warboss Alex

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Lads (and lasses), this is where you have to sit down and have a talk with yourselves.

1% of guys and girls out there are so genetically gifted that it doesn't matter what they eat/how they train, they'll always look like a million dollars and us mere mortals will never get that close.. those lucky few will also make a career out of their physiques and be made for life. So good for them!

Now, for the rest of us, we have to work bloody hard for our bodies to even budge. The human body is a cowardly, lazy piece of sh!t which would like to be 150lbs with a nice 20% bodyfat, a lifestyle with little or no heavy lifting and a lot of comforting food.

It does NOT want to be 250lbs at 8% bodyfat (just an example), getting 400-500g of protein in daily and grinding out 350lb widowmaker squat sets every week. What we're trying to do, with varying degrees of ease and success (thanks to our individual genetics) is go against our bodies wishes and it's a battle, it's a real fvcking battle.

The eating is a battle, the training is a battle, getting enough sleep and rest is a battle, and it's not easy. But if we want to enjoy a damn good physique in our young and adult lives then we've got to fight for it, because unless we're gifted that way, we're doing the exact opposite of what we physiologically want to do. If in our 30s and 40s we want to look great, devoid of beer bellies, low test levels and whatever else comes with that age, we've got to work now. Here and now, first in our late teens, then into our 20s and finally into our 30s when we're just icing the cake, putting that final swell and polish on our biceps/abs/quads/whatever. In my opinion it takes 3-5 years of hard work, trial and error, setback and injury (hopefully not), blood sweat and tears, to actually put our bodies into a shape that we'd be satisfied with, some people stop there, but others (like myself) want to constantly improve and keep on growing/slimming/whatever and won't stop until really, our bodies can't (not won't, CAN'T) cope with the intensity anymore.

Now, it's not an easy decision to make, to become a serious bodybuilder (I'm not talking a 250lb pro here, I'm talking about someone who takes nutrition and training seriously and makes it part of their lifestyle rather than the 160lb bicep boy/beach muscle d!ckhead who does 50 sets of bicep curls (in the freakin' squat rack to look even more hardcore), doubtlessly with his delts and lower back doing most of the work, and then whips his shirt off to admire the pump on his colossal 14 inch guns).

But once you've taken this decision, you've got to make sacrifices. Not getting trashed is one of them. Once in a while will do no harm (but you can effectively scratch the next coupla days' sleep and nutrition plan and don't even think about working out at peak efficiency) but do this on a regular basis and you'll gain absolutely nothing. (I'm talking about getting so drunk you're hungover as hell and looking like something out of Resident Evil the next day, NOT by having a couple of drinks at the weekend with your friends)

It takes discipline, yeah, and I know what society's like today, everything seems to rotate around the next time you wake up in a faceful of your own vomit in some gutter, or naked next to someone you don't know the name of.. well, you've got to give up most of that. I'm not saying don't drink (I'm a real ale man myself for you UK bods but in strict moderation) or don't have a lovelife (perish the thought!!) but getting drunk and then going out the next day and attempting a widowmaker is recipe for disaster. You just won't get it done.

When I was in college I got drunk one night, threw up, felt terrible, and that was it. No more. Did I not enjoy life afterwards? Of course I did! I enjoyed life to what I considered the full, and still made great gains with my physique, and now have a body I can think proudly of and say "I did this, I wasn't born this way, I got here by myself and it took sacrifices but I made it".

Every time you get trashed so that you can't eat, rest or workout properly you're pushing yourself even further away from that goal, to reach that day when you can actually put down the dumbbells, tear up the logbook (or bury it somewhere for posterity, hell I even give mine funerals) and say "I did it, I got here."

Now if you want to get smashed on a regular basis (while in your teens, at college, whatever) I'd recommend giving up training altogether. Save the money you'd spend on a gym membership, protein and other supplements, food, equipment etc and live however you want, but DON'T even try to get any gains because there's no point, you won't have any.

Okay, there's guys who can get drunk every night and still look absolutely fantastic. I had a friend like that at college, he was bigger and stronger than me, got smashed off his face every night, ate once a day (100g of protein max, one solid meal and one shake preworkout), did 30 mins of hard cardio and an hour of weights every single day (no rest days and no set workout plan, just whatever he fancied doing) and yes, he still looked better than I did. But if you're that sort of person you probably know by now.

And yeah, maybe you do gain a little muscle even while getting hammered all the time. But stop the weights and it'll go, and the only thing growing on you will be that beer belly.

Seriously, if you want to get raving drunk and eat junk all the time go ahead, but don't waste your time trying to workout productively at the same time.

And as for alcohol as a source of calories, don't even get me started..
 

manuva

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Originally posted by Warboss Alex
The human body is a cowardly, lazy piece of sh!t which would like to be 150lbs with a nice 20% bodyfat...
LMAO :crackup: So true!

Fantastic post Warboss. I abused alcohol for about 3 years in my late teens, while training as a boxer. The combination of hardcore drinking and hardcore training put far too much stress on my body, and I ended up with chronic fatigue. It's not a good place to be.

Drink OR train. You can't do them both together effectively. I found this out the hard way, hopefully no-one else here will have to.
 

Brak86

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Maybe im just lucky, but drinking doesnt effect my gains much at all . Im 5'7 150 pounds and around 6-8% bodyfat. I have a 6-pack and i love my appearance. Now, last year all i did was lift and i rarely drank. I do think you drinking and working out can coexist. I've been drinking more this year caus ei just held back so much last year. Im still doing fine. I just look at it this way: I have no dessert or cheat meals during the week; therefore, alcohol is my once every 2-3 week cheat meal. Usually my dessert is either honey bunches of oates cereal or a protein bar (i like the taste).

But i think drinking is fine. For the past few weeks ive been drinking once a week. Then again, my tolerance is ****. I used to worry about the nutritional content of drinking but i think its better and healthier if you dont worry too much about it. Just do it in moderation and you will be fine.
 

WORKEROUTER

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Originally posted by Brak86
Maybe im just lucky, but drinking doesnt effect my gains much at all . Im 5'7 150 pounds and around 6-8% bodyfat. I have a 6-pack and i love my appearance. .

Uhh, I guess if you are content with a physique that would be considered fairly mediocre by most hard lifters, then yeah, it won't affect your gains.
 

WORKEROUTER

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Warboss, I have made the decision NOT to be trashed like that.

Last Saturday, I must have downed about 14 beers in 3-4 hours, ended up getting in a petty fight, kept acting like a moron, and got to bed at 5AM, only to feel sick for the following two days. Not good, at all.

I've been making sacrifices, but trying to reach my full potential and taking myself to the next level certainly feels better than being drunk for a couple hours.
 

manuva

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No idea champ. It's done a runner on us. Prolly one of those pitiful mods interfering again, and again with no explanation.
 

manuva

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We shall not be moved! lol
 

silverwex

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I must admit I do get fairly drunk every Saturday night (I just love hitting the bars with my friends!).

I'm currently trying to keep on the lighter stuff (vodka and DIET 7-UP or bottles of Coors Light instead of pints).

I dont workout on sundays so it doesnt interfere in that regard. The only prob is Id miss my 8am meal as I dont get up til after that.
 

Warboss Alex

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Okay Silver, so you miss one meal a week. Now assuming six meals a day, that's one sixth of your daily nutrients, or one forty-two'th over a week. That's 1.24 meals a year you're missing. This means you're growing at less than peak efficiency. Given that it takes several years to finally mould one's phsyique into something impressive, you're just setting yourself back a little here.

Yes, I'm nitpicking. :p
 
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