Alcohol and Performance: What You Need To Know
Alcohol is not compatible with serious health and performance goals. Here is exactly what it does to your body — and how to navigate it.
Dejan Koceski
Health & Performance Coach · Melbourne
Alcohol and Performance: What You Need To Know
Alcohol is part of Australian social culture. For most people, removing it entirely is not realistic or desirable.
But if you have performance, body composition, or health goals — you need to understand what alcohol is actually doing to your body.
What Alcohol Does
Disrupts sleep architecture. Alcohol helps you fall asleep but significantly disrupts sleep quality — particularly REM sleep. You may sleep 8 hours after drinking and wake feeling unrested. The restorative functions of sleep — muscle repair, hormonal reset, memory consolidation — are impaired.
Suppresses fat oxidation. When alcohol is in your system, your body prioritises metabolising it over everything else — including fat. Fat burning essentially stops until alcohol is cleared.
Impairs protein synthesis. Alcohol directly suppresses muscle protein synthesis — the process by which training stimulus is converted to muscle growth. The effect is measurable and significant.
Elevates cortisol. Alcohol consumption raises cortisol levels for 24 hours post-drinking. As covered earlier, chronically elevated cortisol impairs fat loss and muscle retention.
Caloric density without satiety. Alcohol provides 7 calories per gram — more than carbohydrates (4 cal/g) but less than fat (9 cal/g). Crucially, alcohol calories provide no satiety signal. The food you eat with alcohol is additional to the alcohol calories.
Testosterone suppression. Significant alcohol consumption measurably reduces testosterone production for 24–48 hours.
A Practical Approach
Total abstinence is a personal choice. Informed moderation is another.
- 1–2 drinks on social occasions: manageable impact
- Regular nightly drinking: consistently undermining sleep, body composition, and hormonal health
- Binge drinking: significantly impacts performance for 48–72 hours
Know the cost. Make the decision with full information.
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