CHAPTER 9
Eating and Exercise
THE NUTRITIONAL COMPONENT OF SANITY AND VANITY
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A personal note As a competitive runner, I used to think it was important to keep my weight down, so I cut back on food, assuming I ate enough to fuel my system to train hard. Tired and depressed, I didn’t run well. I found that when I ate more I could keep my energy up and really train hard. Then weight just fell off me. Best of all, I felt wonderful, and my running really improved. It took me years to figure this out. I wish I had known this earlier. |
For women, there is almost no subject as bound up in myth and conflicted feelings as eating. Who would want to forgo the pleasure of eating a wonderful, tasty meal, savoring every bite and walking away from the table full and satisfied? Of course, no one would. But for women it’s not that easy.
For most of us, food exists as much as a symbol of how we feel about ourselves as it does for what it really is: the fuel that powers our bodies. Too often we board the merry-go-round of weight gain, dieting, self-recrimination, and more dieting. Food becomes the enemy, and poor eating habits result. Our concern centers on how much we weigh and what size clothing we wear rather than how energetic, healthy, and content we feel.
However, there are also legitimate worries about the effect of fat, cholesterol, and food additives on heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, obesity and other illnesses. It’s no wonder the subject of food and nutrition causes such frustration and confusion.
It doesn’t have to be this way. By choosing to run or walk, you’ve opened a door to a new way of living where healthful eating and weight control are part of an overall approach to physical and mental well-being. Exercise and proper eating are intertwined. A balanced diet gives you the energy you need to run or walk, while exercise burns calories and fat to help you control your weight with more success than you may have ever had before.
Exercise alone is not a miracle diet plan. But combine it with proper nutrition, and you’re on your way to a healthier lifestyle.
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A personal note Too many women see themselves as somehow deficient because they don’t look as good or aren’t as thin as the media images we’re bombarded with. Even among otherwise very successful women, self-esteem is often very low, due to negative body image. Preoccupied with weight and aging, they feel victims of their own bodies. The first line of defense here is to get positive. Actively do something! Walking and running are perfect—they are accessible, fun, and effective. The next is seriously to address your own body image. Why are you conforming to someone else’s standards of attractiveness? You deserve to be happy now, and part of that is acceptance of what you are now, what you are doing now, not what you will be ‘someday… when I’m thin.’ Strive for health and movement, and all else will follow. |
The Keys to a Healthful Diet
Throughout our lives we’ve been getting instruction on what we should eat to stay healthy. Our mothers and grandmothers, who told us eat a good breakfast, finish our vegetables and keep away from sweets, had the right idea all along. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has published dietary guidelines that Mom probably had a hand in writing, since they closely resemble her admonitions. Ditto for the National Heart Foundations in both New Zealand and Australia who do a fantastic job promoting healthy lifestyles and have a huge range of resources just waiting to be used.
Both guidelines recommend: Eat a variety of food; choose a diet low in fat and high in vegetables, fruits and grains; restrict the use of sugar and salt; and drink alcoholic beverages in moderation. Both agencies also have produced food pyramids and other diagrams to help you choose wisely. I like the New Zealand pyramid below best as it emphasizes the 1+2+5+6 servings in the food groups. Use these guidelines—you really will benefit from them.
| THE SIX BASIC NUTRIENTS | |
| Carbohydrates | Fruits, vegetables, breads, and grains are the primary source of the energy you need to exercise. They provide calories from sugars and starches. |
| Fat | Source of energy for long-term activity. Choose small amounts of vegetable fats that are mainly unsaturated and less harmful, such as olive oil, peanut oil, and canola oil. |
| Protein | Protein is essential when you exercise. It builds and repairs muscles and reduces the risk of iron deficiency and anemia. Choose among fish, poultry, lean meat, beans, soy, and legumes. You need sufficient protein, and you can find low-fat choices. |
| Vitamins | Vitamins control chemical reactions in your body. Essential vitamins include A, B complex, C, D, E, and K. Your body does not produce vitamins; you must get them from the food you eat. |
| Minerals | Calcium, iron, potassium, and sodium are some of the key minerals your body requires. Like vitamins, your body does not produce minerals; you must get them from food. |
| Water | Water makes up approximately 60 to 75 percent of your weight. It carries nutrients to cells, helps regulate body temperature, and eliminates waste from cells. |
Putting Together a Healthful Diet
Nancy Clark, a leading sports nutritionist, describes three keys to healthful eating:
- Variety: There isn’t one magic food. Each food offers you different and necessary nutrients, so make sure you don’t become too attached to one personal favorite or you might be short-circuiting your overall diet.
- Moderation: Even soda and chips, in moderation, can fit into a well-balanced diet. The secret is to balance out refined sugars and fats with nutrient-wise choices at your next meal. Although no one food is a junk food, too many nutrient empty choices can evolve into a junk food diet.
- Wholesomeness: Choose natural or lightly processed foods as often as possible. For instance, whole wheat rather than white bread, apples instead of apple juice, or a baked potato instead of French fries. Natural foods usually have more nutritional value and fewer questionable additives.
The next step is putting this information together with specific foods to develop your own healthful and satisfying diet. You have a lot of choices, so you can balance good nutrition with interesting and tasty food. This is not a diet in the traditional sense, a list of things you can’t eat that feels like punishment. Instead, it’s a wide variety of foods you can eat and enjoy.
Bread, Cereal, Rice, and Pasta
All of these are important sources of carbohydrates, fiber, and B vitamins. Grains and starches energize muscles, protect against muscle fatigue, and increase bowel regularity, and they are naturally low in fat and calories. The best choices are lightly processed breads and grains, such as whole wheat bread, brown rice, and wholegrain crackers. The list is not narrow: bagels; whole wheat, rye, or pumpernickel breads; bran and oat bran cereals; low-fat muffins are there for starters.
Fruits and Vegetables
Fruits and vegetables provide vitamins C and A, potassium, carbohydrates, and fiber. These nutrients can improve healing, reduce the risk of cancer and high blood pressure, and relieve constipation. They also aid in recovery after exercise.
There is great interest in the health properties of the antioxidant nutrients found in fruits and vegetables. These nutrients include vitamin C, carotenoids, vitamin E, and some minerals. Scientists believe they are potentially beneficial in reducing the risk of cancer and certain chronic diseases.
Among the best fruit choices you can make are citrus fruits, such as oranges, grapefruits, and tangerines. Although whole fruits have slightly more nutritional value, fruit juices are a good on-the-go alternative. Look for true fruit juices, not ‘juice drinks’ that have small amounts of juice and a lot of sugar and artificial flavoring.
It seems that nature invented the banana with athletes in mind. Bananas are low in fat and high in fiber and potassium (one of the minerals you greatly need with exercise, to prevent muscle cramping), and they come neatly packaged to go anywhere your walking and running take you, and are mild enough on the stomach to eat on the move. They are a natural energy booster and can be combined with other foods such as cereals, yoghurt, crackers and peanut butter for a nutritious meal. They also make a delicious and extremely nutricious bread in their own right.
Among other nutritionally potent fruits are melon, kiwifruit, strawberries and dried fruits.
Vegetables are chock full of vitamins you need. Vitamin C and beta- and other carotenes, potassium and magnesium just scratch the surface of the nutritional benefits you’ll get from eating sufficient quantities of vegetables. Plus when cooked for dinner, they are surprisingly filling, reducing your need for meat and fat.
In general, darker, more colorful vegetables contain more nutrients than paler ones. Put broccoli, spinach, green peppers, tomatoes, and carrots ahead of mushrooms, cucumbers, and pale lettuces.
Don’t forget the cruciferous vegetables—like cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, kale, turnips. These vegetables are rich in nutritional value and their phytochemicals may protect against cancer. The same is true for carotene-rich vegetables such as carrots, winter squash and greens.
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A personal note I used to get a side stitch (cramp) only if I ate too soon before running. Interestingly, after forty, I started getting them also when running while I was totally famished. If I’m really hungry, I’ll eat half a banana before I go out—I can run almost immediately after eating that. |
Fresh, Frozen or Canned—What’s the Best Vegetable Choice?
Although fresh vegetables are always the preferred choice because they are nutritional powerhouses, if convenience and price are key considerations, canned or frozen vegetables shouldn’t be ignored. There is little nutritional difference between canned and frozen vegetables, and both provide a good percentage of the nutrients you need from the vegetable group. Overcooking vegetables, in whatever form you buy them, is the real killer of nutritional value. So don’t leave vegetables off your table because your favorites are out of season or not available in the fresh produce section. Check the shelves or freezer, and you’ll probably find what you want there.
Milk, Yogurt and Cheese
Dairy products supply your body with calcium, protein, and riboflavin. They help you maintain strong bones, reduce the risk of osteoporosis, and protect against high blood pressure and muscle cramps. You can maintain a low-fat diet and still get sufficient dairy products by choosing low-fat milk, yoghurt and cheese. There are also nondairy choices rich in calcium, such as sardines, tofu, and spinach.
Meat, Poultry, Fish, Eggs, Beans and Nuts
These protein-rich foods form an important part of your diet and shouldn’t be neglected in the quest for lower fat and cholesterol or weight reduction. Among the most important benefits these foods provide are amino acids to build and repair muscles, assure proper muscle development and reduce the risk of iron-deficiency anemia.
The best low-fat, high-protein choices are lean meat; fish, particularly salmon, tuna, swordfish, sardines, or bluefish; chicken or turkey with the skin removed; beans; legumes; and an increasingly popular option, protein-rich tofu. Prepare meat, poultry, and fish by broiling, baking, or grilling rather than frying.
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A personal note Dinner is my main protein meal. Twice a week I have fish, and the other days I mix it up with chicken. At least one dinner every other week will feature eggs and or cheese, and another will be a purely vegetarian meal on pasta or cous cous. All meals have a raw salad. The starring dish at dinner used to be the meat, but now it is the array of vegetables. My husband and I have a kind of contest to see if we can get nine different vegetables into every dinner. |
Fats, Oils and Sweets
There is a misperception that low-fat means no-fat. That’s not true and not good for you. Fats, oils and sweets sit on top of the nutrient pyramid because they should be used only in small amounts. But they are important to a balanced diet. They add taste, flavor and a feeling of fullness, so you walk away from eating satisfied. Fats also help to transport fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K and provide essential fatty acids the body can’t produce itself.
What fats or sweets should you add to your diet? Among the best choices are olive oil for cooking and salad dressing; whole berry jams for sweetness, and walnuts. Also, it’s okay to eat your favorite dessert occasionally. Many nutritionists now agree there are no totally ‘bad’ foods, if they are used in moderation. So don’t wage a losing battle with yourself about an occasional portion of ice cream, cake, or that piece of chocolate you crave—just eat it in moderation as part of an overall balanced plan.
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A personal note I don’t believe in totally fat-free or even in very low-fat diets because I think that fat, carbohydrates, and proteins need to work together. Not only do you need fat for long-term energy, but if you cut out fat entirely or reduce it too much, you’ll wind up feeling cold and very depressed. Balance is essential. If I crave a food I know is high in fat, I eat it in moderation. I’ve found it’s better to satisfy that hunger when it hits me than to try to deny it. I don’t ever feel the urge to binge! But I also don’t put temptation in my way; I know what does me in so I try to keep potato chips out of the house completely! |
How to Prepare Lower-Fat, Tasty Meals
The following menus are lower-fat and lower-calorie alternatives to traditional meals. These menus provide the balanced nutrients you need without adding empty calories, and they are tasty and satisfying. The ultimate goal is to eat food that is good for you without totally depriving yourself of food you enjoy.
| MEAT MEAL | |
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Traditional preparation Fried pork chops Pan gravy Mashed potatoes with butter Broccoli with hollandaise sauce Ice cream with strawberries |
Lower fat preparation Grilled pork chops, fat trimmed Steamed potatoes, with skin, served with teaspoon of butter, chopped chives, and parsley Steamed broccoli with sesame seeds Strawberries with low-fat vanilla yogurt and sugar or sugar substitute |
| PASTA MEAL | |
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Traditional preparation Spaghetti and sauce from a jar Fried Italian sausages Tossed salad with ranch dressing Garlic bread Italian pastry |
Lower fat preparation Spaghetti and homemade fat-free sauce* Tossed salad lightly dressed with olive oil or balsamic vinegar Grilled bread lightly brushed with olive oil and sprinkling of basil, (or eliminate this; you have all that pasta!) Fresh fruit |
| OMELET BREAKFAST | |
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Traditional preparation Three egg omelet prepared with milk and butter Grated cheddar or gruyere cheese in omelet Honey buns or Danish Orange juice Coffee |
Lower fat preparation Egg Beaters omelet prepared with low-fat milk. Use a nonstick fry pan and spray lightly with canola or olive oil. Grated Edam cheese and chopped parsley filling for omelet Whole wheat or rye toast and jam Orange slices Coffee |
Preparing Your Own Fat-Free Pasta Sauce
Combine a large can of tomatoes with their juice, half a can of water, a handful of fresh, sweet basil or I tablespoon of dried basil, chopped onion, with any or all of the following: chopped mushrooms, eggplant, or spinach. Cook slowly for ten to fifteen minutes. You can add extra protein (and a slight amount of fat) to your pasta meal by adding sliced chicken, chopped tofu, or grated cheese when you serve the pasta.
Tips for Exercise-Friendly Eating
- BEGIN THE DAY WITH A GOOD BREAKFAST. Not only should breakfast foods provide essential nutrition, this is the meal that starts your system off right. As I said, food is fuel, and after eight hours (hopefully!) of sleep you need energy to get the day off to a good start. Once you eat, your metabolism revs up, as does your digestive system. Even if you’re in a rush, you can eat a good light breakfast quickly:—juice, fruit and plain, low-fat yoghurt, maybe mixed with granola, a slice of toast or a bagel, and coffee or tea.
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READ FOOD LABELS. The ‘Nutrition Facts’ food label required on all packaged foods helps you make good food choices. With such information as serving size, calories, fat content, protein, cholesterol, sodium, fiber, sugar, vitamins, and carbohydrates listed on the label, there is a wealth of information available.
For instance, the ‘% Daily Values’ shows how much a particular food, in a specific serving size, contributes to your overall daily requirements for the major nutrient areas. You can compare one food to another easily to create balanced meals that provide the nutrients you need without loading up on too much fat or sugar.
Beware! Low-fat does not mean low-calorie. Always check the label for calories per portion of a food. - IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE, BUY FRESH RATHER THAN PACKAGED FOODS. When you place a premium on wholesome foods, it makes sense to start out with fresh ingredients. Packaged foods often have more fat, sugar, and sodium than you need. If you’re pressed for time, prepared foods may be the best choice, but be selective. You can probably steam fresh vegetables in the time it takes to read the packaged food label. Be sure to read the label and maintain balance in your diet.
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SET ASIDE TIME TO SHOP, SO YOU WON’T HAVE TO RESORT TO EMPTY CALORIES AND NUTRITION CHOICES IF YOU ARE RUNNING LATE. Time management is as important to eating right as it is in finding time to exercise. Try to keep a stock of basic foods in the house and plan before you make trips to the supermarket or meat, fish, and produce shops. By doing this, you’ll be able to make quick meals if you have to, and you’ll have good ingredients to choose from.
Always stock up on the basics: pasta, spices, and canned foods. If you live in the suburbs or the country, sketch out a week’s worth of meals, including breakfast and lunch, before you make your weekly trip to the supermarket. If you live in a city, where you have easier access to food vendors but less storage space, you may make more frequent trips to the markets. Try to avoid ready-made takeout meals or restaurant foods, as they are notoriously high in saturated fats. It helps if you have an eating plan in mind when the week begins. - MAKE MORE THAN ONE MEAL TO SAVE TIME LATER. This is a corollary to the previous point. When you’re spending time in the kitchen to prepare meals for the next day or week, why not double up your preparations and freeze the extra? You’ll make better use of your time and have food ready when you come home, so you won’t be tempted to order takeout food or go to a restaurant instead.
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BEWARE OF THE PITFALLS IN RESTAURANT EATING. Although this point is often made when talking about weight-loss programs, it has a place here as well. Restaurant food almost always contains too much fat, too many calories, and the portions are hugely ridiculous. You can do the best job of controlling these elements when you prepare food yourself.
Still, sometimes it’s nice being waited on! So if you eat out, select your food carefully, ask how it is being prepared so you can make informed choices, and don’t clean your plate since portions are usually very large. Take leftovers home with you—there’s an easy lunch for the next day in almost all restaurant doggy bags.
Weight Control and Exercise
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A personal note Diets alone don’t work in losing weight and keeping it off because they stress the negative—what you can’t or shouldn’t do. To achieve something, you need to feel positive about your efforts, and that’s what exercise provides—a powerful positive reinforcement that makes you happy with your body, not hate it. |
Bring together any group of women over forty and you’re likely to hear an abundance of ‘war stories’ on efforts to lose weight. From liquid diets to pills, from low-carbohydrate to grapefruits and back again, the stories almost always end in failure and discouragement. Even professionals believe that those who have a lot of weight to lose and who have been overweight a long time are more likely than not to fail.
However, in Thin for Life, nutritionist Anne M. Fletcher recounted success stories of 160 patients, who managed to keep off at least twenty pounds for a minimum of three years. They didn’t use a magic formula, drugs, or appetite suppressants. Nearly ninety percent of these patients lost weight by a combination of modified eating habits and increased exercise.
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A personal note I have met hundreds of women at event expos who tell me that it was running and/or walking that finally got their weight under control, and gave them the body they had always wanted. It was the combination of creating a faster-burning metabolism along with a positive activity that helped them embrace proper nutrition. The results were nothing short of phenomenal. Many women told me they’d lost as much as 100 pounds with this system, not with gastric bypass surgery. One thirty-five year old woman, who was so beautiful she looked like Venus herself, claimed she’d lost 125 pounds and had three kids. As she only weighed about 125 pounds when I saw her, I flat out didn’t believe her until she pulled out progressive photos of herself from the past three years. With her friends standing around beaming, she showed me the photos, and then her pals all bragged how her pathetically slow walk eventually became brisk and how that morphed into running and how she was now an ultra runner and was running a 100 mile race the next day. Honestly, I had to sit down! I asked her why she had let this happen to her, and she told me she had been desperately unhappy in an abusive marriage, and constant eating was her only comfort, just as an alcoholic must feel. She began to walk, and the positive sense she began to have of herself gave her the guts to leave the marriage, and take charge of her own life. Sometimes the greatest acts of courage are when we take the first step for ourselves. |
There are some basic truths about losing weight. Calories count, losing weight requires work, and you have to be patient—it won’t happen overnight, no matter what fad diet proponents tell you. But there is one additional truth. The best way to achieve long-lasting weight loss is to combine new eating habits and exercise.
How does exercise promote weight loss? There are several ways:
- Exercise burns fat.
- Exercise increases your rate of metabolism, which is the measure of how quickly your body uses up the calories needed to maintain daily activity.
- Exercise increases the size and tone of your muscles, and muscles use more calories than fat does.
Exercise also makes you feel better mentally. It relieves stress, gives you a sense of accomplishment, and fosters a better self-image—all very helpful in keeping you motivated on a weight-loss program.
Once you see results from a combination of exercise and more healthful eating habits, you’ll feel a natural reinforcement that will keep you on the right track. However, some people fall into a trap of overdoing things, either with eating or exercise.
Most doctors and nutritionists believe that a sensible weight-loss plan means that you lose about one pound a week and that you not be restricted to fewer than 1200 calories a day. They also agree that you need to eat to lose weight, since the consumption of food raises the metabolic rate. Eating three proper meals a day, along with healthful snacks, will allow you to lose the weight you want to and keep it off.
Time after time, it’s been shown that you can’t starve yourself into being thin. If you try the starvation method, your body simply slows down to protect itself; it’s not getting enough calories to maintain itself. Any weight you lose will be slow going and quickly regained—and probably some more, since the body doesn’t like being hungry.
In the same way, you shouldn’t overdo your exercise program. If walking or running thirty minutes, plus doing some weight training, is allowing you to lose pounds, don’t think that you’ll get twice the results if you do twice the exercise. Doing too much exercise can lead to injury, fatigue and irritability, and most likely your exercise program will screech to a halt. Even if you are running or walking primarily to help you lose weight, the activity itself should always be fun. If you want to increase time and distance or become competitive, do so gradually.
If you are committed to a weight-loss program, it makes sense to talk with a doctor or nutritionist before you begin. He or she can help you determine how many calories a day you should be eating in order to lose weight without feeling deprived and can help put together a sensible eating plan that includes a wide variety of food, full nutritional value, and tasty recipes.
You also don’t need to try to go it alone. Besides the help those professionals can give you, there are commercial weight-loss programs such as Weight Watchers and Overeaters Anonymous, as well as university-based health and wellness programs, where you can join others who are learning to take control of their eating habits without relying on prepackaged meals or other gimmicks. Again, a training partner or group can be a great motivator in both weight loss and exercising.
Kathrine’s Quick and Painless Tips for Cutting Calories
- Do the old “push back”—3/4 way through dinner, push your plate back.
- Switch from sugar to one of the new natural sweeteners, like those from the stevia plant.
- Drink water with a splash of fruit juice; this helps you drink more water and much less juice.
- Switch to low-fat milk.
- Drink a glass of wine rather than a mixed cocktail or beer.
- Switch from toast to cheerios. You’ll save sugar, fat, butter and jam, too.
Keeping Yourself Liquid: Water, Sports Drinks, Alcohol and Caffeine
Water is one of the most easily overlooked parts of a healthful diet, particularly if you are active in sports. If you don’t drink enough or lose too much liquid because of profuse sweating, it can affect your performance and leave you feeling less than your best.
We hardly take note of all the jobs water performs in our bodies. In the blood, water transports fats to muscles and carries away metabolic wastes such as carbon dioxide and lactic acid. In the urine, water eliminates waste. As sweat, water coats your skin and evaporates as you exercise, cooling the body. Throughout the body, water lubricates joints and cushions organs and tissues.
With all of that work to do, the body needs a constant resupply of liquid. Although feeling thirsty is usually a reliable gauge of how often to drink, it’s not good enough when you’re involved in regular workouts. Under these circumstances, we often don’t drink sufficiently to replace the liquid lost during exercise. The best rule of thumb after exercise is to drink enough to quench your thirst and then a bit more.
Keeping yourself adequately hydrated involves three steps.
- Drink enough every day. The typical recommendation of eight glasses of water a day—more or less depending on temperature—is a good start, but when you’re involved in regular aerobic exercise, you’ll probably need up to an extra quart of water per day. The best way to keep track of whether you’re drinking enough is to monitor your urine output. If you go to the bathroom every two or three hours and your urine is a light color, you’re probably drinking enough.
- Drink additional water or an electrolyte drink twenty minutes before your workout. How much depends on your size and how much your stomach can tolerate—usually a cupful is fine. You don’t want to feel bloated when you start to walk or run.
- Drink while you’re exercising. If you’re working out in hot weather, drink more and often. Even in cooler weather, a tough workout makes you sweat, and you need to replace that fluid. Either carry fluids with you or, once your walk or run is over, start drinking to replace what you’ve lost.
Water is not your only fluid replacement choice. Juice, herbal tea, skim milk, sports drinks, and low-sodium soup are also good additions. Most soft drinks are high in sodium and therefore not good fluid replacements. Colas and coffee or tea (hot or iced) are refreshing, but unless they are decaffeinated they cannot be considered fluid replacements. Caffeine is a diuretic that promotes fluid elimination, just the opposite of the effect you want. If you don’t want to give up caffeine, be sure to add extra water to your fluid intake.
Still, coffee is a very popular drink among competitive runners. Many of them have a cup of coffee before a morning run to get their systems and bowels going. Before a race, most of us consider our cup of coffee essential.
Sports drinks are designed to replace not only fluid but also the minerals and energy lost through sweating. They have become essential to today’s athletes, particularly endurance athletes, as many combine minerals in fluid that is absorbed rapidly and keeps the athlete sweating, but they also have energy-producing carbohydrates so the athletes can perform at a maximum level longer. Some of these drinks could benefit you, if you sweat a lot, but they may not be worthwhile for moderate-level exercisers who are also looking to lose weight because they are high in calories. Read the label carefully (or go online for their in-depth descriptors, and try not to be overwhelmed by the scientific language).
One huge benefit of sports drinks is that they help prevent hyponatremia (low blood sodium), a dangerous condition which can occur when people completely over-saturate their system by drinking too much water, which flushes out important body salts. This has occurred occasionally among some women in long slow walking events, who are not sweating and drink way too much water. Let thirst be your guide and you won’t be far wrong. For additional information on hydration, see Chapter 6.
For many runners and walkers, the post-race beer is considered a part of the sport’s ritual. While alcohol in moderation won’t adversely affect your performance, it’s best to save the beer for your after-the-race meals and relaxation time. Alcohol dehydrates (and disorients!) you, so it’s not advised at all before exercising. After a workout, be sure to drink water before and then along with your beer to get the fluid replacement you require.
