This is a serious article in the NYT — "Can You Mix Booze and Exercise? You really shouldn’t drink alcohol before, after or during an intense workout. But if you do, here’s what to know."
It's written by Danielle Friedman, who wrote "Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World." That book title along with the photo at the article — a cocktail in a stemmed glass against a pink background — tells you we're examining this health question in the wonderful, fanciful world the media try to concoct for us women. It's a silly delusion, but not so diverting that we don't still amuse ourselves with mind-altering, body-damaging substances.
The top-rated comment over there: "My favorite strategy is to alternate shots of whiskey and creamy tomato bisque before jumping on a trampoline."
The cleverest comment observes that people drink and dance all the time. Dancing is exercise, and yet it doesn't seem absurd at all to say you can drink before dancing... and maybe you should. But that's about inhibition. With other sports, there's no inhibition barrier to participating... is there?
Posts
22 comments:
I won't read the article, but if they got through the whole thing without mentioning Mickey Mantle, it wasn't worth reading anyway.
I remember doing Ranger Challenge in 2002 and having a beer immediately afterwards to celebrate. I was at peak physical condition then. There was nothing like it. I still remember the sensation of having that beer and how good it tasted. It wasn't even anything special, I think it was just a Michelob Ultra. The sensation of liquid calories and carbonation hitting my tastebuds was intense. I wasn't the only one either, everyone that had a beer said the same thing. That was the best beer I ever had, still, to this day.
This is ALL So Simple!
Put the keg at 2nd Base, then NO BEER; unless you make it to second (or, your team is in the field)
these people call it sloshball, we always called beer ball
https://partyjoys.com/rules-for-playing-sloshball-drinking-game
I've run some 10-milers. I'll never forget the taste of the IPAs and weiss biers I had following the runs. So refreshing and rejuvenating.
"You fight ‘em on high and you fight ‘em down in
You fight ‘em with whisky, morphine and gin"
In the 80's, the bar district in Cleveland had a race called "The Flats' Run for the Beer." The course was about 5K and there were 20 beer stations where you had to stop and take a drink during the run. It was quite popular.
This might sound disgusting, but for decades my drill was PB&J sandwich before the workout (70 klick ride) and a can of sardines after.
The second time I rode back to back centuries I drank two pints afterward and woke up SO sore, despite having no muscle soreness all through spring training.
Apparently the liver takes up alcohol preferentially when it should be repairing muscle etc.
I can't imagine drinking during or between rides but there are those hardy souls who do.
"Experts" again. . . . .
I hit the gym in the morning for 1.5 hours and then do something else -- bike, run, swim -- outside in mid-afternoon and usually swill a beer (or two or three, depending on the day) afterwards (after some water if it's really hot). As someone else mentioned, beer after a hard workout is simply wonderful.
Sure, dancing is exercise, but so is heavy cleaning, for instance. You don't do either one with the express intent of exercising (or, most people don't, I'd venture). For me, the question is not "can you?" or even "is it all right to?" but "just how far have you given up?"
Lots of us upped our alcohol intake during COVID. In my household, my husband lost his job a couple of months before the shutdown, had had that situation quietly telegraphed to him months in advance of that situation and therefore had already been looking for a job without success for some months, and - when the lockdown hit - believed he wouldn't find employment again until, well, maybe ever, given his age and the level of employment he was looking for. It turned out that he was offered a pretty great job three months into lockdown, so his fears were unfounded. But during that six-month period, we had no income but were not in any financial difficulty, and we have a very pleasant backyard in a climate where we can be outside almost all the time.
It was a struggle sometimes not to start drinking at 4, at 3, at noon... sitting there looking out over the pool at the woods and knowing we had literally no demands to meet. But in our case, waiting until 5 (all right, 4:30 once our next door neighbor also got let go and started hanging out with us back there) was a signal to ourselves that we hadn't utterly lost the battle with self-discipline.
I agree with every commenter who says that a cold beer after a strenuous ride or hike (or day skiing) is sublime. And beer is food and, to an extent, hydration. But after sweating it out on the exercise bike upstairs? That feels too much like surrender to me.
YMMV, of course!
The New York Times has to publish every day, even if there isn't any news that's fit to print. I guess they're not the only ones, right?
I spent most of a summer doing construction work; my friends and I would work and sweat hard all day and down vast quantities of beer at night, which in turn would be sweated out the next day. (Whatever hadn't been pissed or puked out of course.)
Youth.
Alcohol and exercise? These are lies that 20-somethings and 30-somethings tell themselves. By age 40 either the alcohol has fully taken over or they've realized that alcohol reflects body damage and nothing but damage.
"Lord make me pure but not yet." - Saint Augustine
I will add one thing (okay, two, can you tell I'm invested in this topic??!!):
Thing 1: Back in 2020 when it was god-awful hot and dry here in AZ all Summer, I tried water, milk, juice, gatoraid, and whatever else after a run or hike or ride (even lap swimming, the outdoor pool water was like 93 degrees) and I still felt kind of awful an hour later. One beer absolutely did the trick (plus a bunch of water).
Thing 2: Back in WI in the '80s my brother and I used to do 10k fun runs whenever we needed a new t-shirt, and they'd almost always have a beer tent at the end. We did the CrazyLegs run once (do they still do that?) that ended up at Camp Randall and we got to run down the field to the finish. Awe. Some. Then they had an Old Style beer tent and we gathered everybody else's free beer tokens and got all nice and 'rehydrated' at 10 in the morning.
We ARE still going to agree that mood modifiers like MDMA or Cocaine are GOOD while exercising..
Right? I mean, RIGHT?
If folks want to drink and exercise that's fine by me, but I would add this caveat. Stay off of the trampoline.
I don't think I have ever once drank before a workout of any kind. I have drank cocktails within an hour or two after a workout, but only when dining out in that time frame- never at home. I mostly avoid alcohol in such situations, though- it does give me headache in such instances.
I remember having a couple glasses of wine at a lunch meeting once and then four or five hours later attempting to go for my usual 3-mile run. No go. Could not get into any sort of pace or groove and decided afterwards it would have been better to skip. But a beer or two after a grueling mountain bike ride is just this side of paradise. And a fitting reward if you've crashed and scraped yourself up good.
Does AA have a gymn now? Better yet join the Baptist Church. Alcoholism is a very serious disease.
Does AA have a gymn now? Better yet join the Baptist Church. Alcoholism is a very serious disease.
“The cleverest comment observes that people drink and dance all the time. Dancing is exercise, and yet it doesn't seem absurd at all to say you can drink before dancing... and maybe you should. But that's about inhibition. With other sports, there's no inhibition barrier to participating... is there?”
People used to drink and fuck all the time, which is better exercise than dancing. Now the inhibition is called “me too”.
Post a Comment