Disastrous Effects of Smoking & Drinking On Your Bodybuilding Efforts

Do you think your smoking and drinking habit is hampering your bodybuilding efforts? The solution in the form of “so what are you waiting for, go ahead and quit…!” won’t be too easy to follow and I won’t be giving you that either. Why? Because I know that instant quitting won’t solve your problems, instead you’ll be exposed to a number of metabolic problems.

These were the findings of a research in which regular smokers and drinkers (both men and women) stopped taking the two elements after prolonged periods of regular use:

• Problems Facing Men: Quitting alcohol caused HDL (good) cholesterol levels to decrease, while quitting smoking caused an increase in body’s insulin, glucose, triglycerides, waist and BMI.
• Problems Facing Women: Quitting cigarettes caused an increase in HDL cholesterol, waistline and BMI.

Outcomes of Regular Nicotine Use

Your daily nutrition plan is capable of controlling nicotine to alter your body weight, and reveal that chronic nicotine use causes adaptive changes in central and peripheral molecules which regulate our diet intake and metabolism rate.

This fact equally pertains to bodybuilders who want to enhance their muscles or retain their already existing muscle mass. Nicotine can greatly shrink one’s body weight, while smoking cessation may cause a sharp increase in your body weight. Why retreating away from nicotine cause you to gain weight? It’s because abandoning nicotine may release orexigenic peptides called neuropeptide Y and Agouti-related protein in the hypothalamus, while hamper the production of metabolic protein.

• Neuropeptide Y (NPY): Large quantity is produced in the brain, and is a powerful element to make people regain their eating habits.
• Agouti-Related Protein (AGRP): primary element of the metabolic process that normalizes eating habits and body weight.

Bodybuilders, Nicotine and Muscle Building:

The above facts display that for bodybuilders looking to boost their muscles and get lean muscle mass, smoking is hard to be adopted. Even if the bodybuilder indulges in a smoking habit, a smoking cessation clinic might be the only helpful way out!

In order to determine the effectiveness of medical assistance in smoking cessation, a study was conducted in France where smokers who were given 1 year hospital treatment were analyzed. This study didn’t undertake patients suffering from schizophrenia and the one-time visits.

Two treatment methods were employed:

• Nicotine substitutes
• Cognitive-behavioral therapy

The study confirmed that medical assistance is successful in helping men detract from smoking while women still required another approach for complete smoking cessation. This demonstrates that bodybuilders who don’t drink or smoke in the first place have higher chances of building muscles, while those who underwent the cessation process may find it somewhat hard build muscle since their body has already endured a change in metabolism, appetite, and human growth hormone levels.

Bottom Line…

Being a bodybuilder, you must be aware of what you’re putting into your body since that is the focus of your entire workout and diet programs. If you learn to take control of what you consume and adopt only the positive habits, no one can stop you from reaching your ultimate goal – BUILDING MUSCLE!