Let me start by saying, if you're looking to be a serious competitive athlete, this is probably not a post for you. If you're looking to win the Crossfit games, or a Spartan Beast, then drinking should just not be a part of your life. Or it should be in such a small quantity, that you could be considered a non-drinker. If you drink a handful of times a year, then it's probably not going to matter how or what you drink.
This is for the weekend warrior and the after work drinker. For the person who works out, but still drinks often. For those who are pretty fit, have cleaned up their food intake, but still enjoy those after dinner drinks or those weekend brews. Or, for the person who just likes to drink a little too much, maybe.
This is not about how alcohol affects your metabolism, food cravings, mindset or inhibitions. This is not an alternative to treating a serious alcoholism problem. It's simply just some ideas on how to help lower alcohol intake without abstaining completely.
Basically, in my experience, there are a couple options:
1. Drink less
2. Drink smarter
3. Do both
My racing partner and I both enjoy drinking. We also understand how it can affect our workouts and race performance, so we are continually coming up with schemes to minimize the impact of drinking on our bodies and our training. So I'll share some of what has, and hasn't, worked for us over the years.
First, some "drink less" options.
Token approach.
We came up with this when we were trying to dry out for a summer full of races, but also had some "drinking engagements" (read: family reunions) coming up. The idea was you had 4 drinking "tokens" to spend each month. The token could be used anytime and was good for that drinking session or day. You could also bank them, if you had a vacation or something coming up.
The problem with this was, we tended to try and squeeze too much out of the tokens. Drinking to excess, the way one might binge eat on a "cheat day", whenever we would spend a token.
No more than 2 approach.
Pretty simple. Drink pretty much whenever you want, but never have more than 2 drinks. This way you can have a drink with dinner and a night cap. Or a couple beers with the guys, etc., without overindulging and feeling like hell the next day.
This is a pretty good one if you are disciplined. It can be easy to rationalize that 3rd, 4th or Nth drink after the buzz of 2 quick ones sets in, though. Or you may find yourself fudging it by drinking bigger drinks (think martinis, margaritas and 40oz. beers) to squeeze the most out of your "2 drinks".
"I only drink on weekends" approach.
Again, pretty simple, but if you really tear it up on Friday and Saturday, you'll probably miss some good weekend training opportunities. Also, if you start deciding the weekend doesn't stop until late Sunday night, you may end up screwing up half your week when you're too hung over to train on Monday as well.
Earn it approach.
This basically stemmed from the post-race beer(s) tradition. We will typically dry out for a couple weeks or a month prior to a big race, then celebrate our awesomeness with drinks afterwards.
In an attempt to expand this idea to everyday life, I began to institute it at home. For me, I work out at lunch everyday, then when I get home I habitually poor myself a drink when I walk in the door. So, to break this habit, I began doing some of those 30 day challenges you see posted around the net. I'd pick 2 or 3 and do them right after work, then eat dinner, and then allow myself to have a drink.
This works pretty well. Often times, after pushing through a particularly hard challenge, I won't even want a drink, or if I do, it's not going to be more than 1. We decided it needed some tweaking though, as the ramping up of the 30 day challenges can get a little ridiculous and then when you start a new one, the reps are too low. So we came up with a "maintenance" schedule. You can find it here. Alternatively, I will run in the evenings, with similar results.
Don't drink until after __ O'Clock.
This one I came up with when I began to get burned out on the evening workouts. If you're pushing really hard during a daily routine, going again at night can be at best hard motivation wise, and at worse, detrimental and injury provoking.
To deal with this I came up with a don't drink until after 8:00pm rule. The time will obviously vary, but the general idea is to get through the habit of having a drink right when you get home, or with dinner. For me, I get home from work around 6:30 and try to be in bed by 10:30. So 8:00 gets me through the hump of dinner and into the last couple hours of wind down time.
This was also to combat weekend day drinking. I was getting into the habit of being bored on Sunday afternoons (my usual rest day) and drinking early... which turns into drinking too much and feeling like hell on Monday. Staving it off until later has made me more productive at home and in the gym.
Now, some "drink smart" ideas.
Cut out the mixers.
I've long been a bourbon and Coke drinker. Probably one of the worst combo drinks out there. Tons of sugar, caffein and of course the alcohol.
Cut out the cola and you save a lot of calories (and whatever other crap they jam into those cans). Replace it with water, club soda or go full manly-man and drink it straight or on the rocks. Which leads me to the next one.
Drink better.
Drinking cheap liquor in copious amounts is easy, especially with mixers. Drinking cheap booze straight can be unpleasant. Class it up a bit and buy a bottle of the good stuff. The extra expense will help keep you to that 2 drink rule, and the quality will help cut out the mixers.
This works for beer and wine too. Savor that nice bottle of wine for a couple days, or spread that expensive 6 pack of craft beer out for a week. Get away from downing that sixer of light beer in an evening.
Combining this with the "earn it" method above, is a pretty good approach that works well for me.
Drink cleaner.
There are a lot of new "skinny" cocktails making waves lately. The NorCal Margarita is a prime example. Or just the regular old vodka and soda is a solid choice. Cutting out the sugary liqueurs and replacing them with drier alternatives is especially helpful in those situations where you'll likely have more than 2 drinks, such as nights out with friends.
Lastly: Don't drink at all.
Really this is generally the best option I have found. To simply not drink for some set amount of time. Cut yourself off on a certain date and stick to your guns for a set period of time. I've done this for as short as a week and as long as a year. Stopping for a solid month can do wonders for your training and mindset, and I highly recommend it at least once a year.
It will test your restraint and discipline if you are a daily drinker for sure, but you'll feel really great in just a few days if you can stick it out.
