PODCAST - You will never be elite if you drink
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[00:00:00] Have you ever wondered how good you could be? If you gave up something completely like drinking, this was me back in 2015. I remember waking up from a ~pretty ~horrendous hangover ~and I got up ~and I made my way to my local yoga studio and I felt terrible.
But I pushed through, and ~at the time ~I was still one of the top people in the classroom, so it would've been really easy for me to be like, well, you know, I still performed really well and I drank way too much last night. I could have used that as an excuse, but I didn't. Instead I asked ~the question, ~what if.
I didn't drink, how good would I be? and I'm not alone with asking this question. Some of the top athletes in the world, which I will go through today, have asked [00:01:00] themselves that same question and have found themselves at the top of the top of the top of their sport, which is why today on the show, we're gonna ~explore why you, which is why today on the show, we are going to ~explore why you will never be elite if you drink.
Now, I think all of us can agree that drinking alcohol in excess is not a positive life activity for you. And I do think that all of us as well ~will ~look at things and be like, you know what? I know I drank a little heavy that one night ~or ~last week, ~or ~last month ~or ~last year, or when I was in my twenties, when I was in college.
All these. Things we are very good at looking at our drinking habits in the past, but I don't do that anymore. I just have a beer here and there. ~I have ~some wine. ~I have ~some champagne. ~All of these things ~I think we're all very good at making ourselves feel good about our drinking habits in the present.
[00:02:00] Welcome to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host Johnny Ha, an ultra runner endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a hundred K ultra. I prove them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
Now before we get too much further into this, I personally have not drank since June 29th, 2024.
And I [00:03:00] decided to do this for the same reason why I am recording this podcast episode today because I had a race in September ~of ~2024 ~that in general I, in 24, ~that I wanted to be my best at. ~And I told myself. And you've probably heard me say this before, that ~at least three to four months before any big athletic endeavor, I cut drinking out completely.
~And basically what happened is ~I performed so well in September, 2024 that I decided that I would. Take even more and more time off, and now it's ~kind of ~waterfalled to the point where I'm about three months out from my next race and I still haven't drank. So why would I drink now? I know there's a debate around alcohol being everywhere and you should ~be able to ~have a little bit, at least when ~you're ~celebrating. I get it. ~And the athletes I'm gonna go through today. ~And the athletes I'm gonna share with you today get it as well. But one thing ~that ~every single athlete ~that ~I share with you today has in common, [00:04:00] including me, is that we know that when it is game time, ~that when we need to be at our absolute best, we don't want to be, ~when we need to be at our absolute best, we completely stay away from alcohol. Back in 2015, I did not stop drinking, but I did start moderately drinking. I cut back my alcohol intake, I cut back my frequency of drinking, and I did slowly see myself get better and better with endurance sports. And that's where the debate of, should you cut alcohol out altogether? Should you drink a little bit? Should you drink wine at dinner? ~Doesn't wine inre? ~Isn't wine good for you? Well, the reality is wine in some parts of the world is good for you, but it's not the alcohol ~that is, it's the fact. It is.~
~It is the process of how they create the wine, how they. It is the process of the wine making where they, ~it is the process of how the wine is made, where the wine itself is taking in all sorts of vitamins and minerals that your body needs. And yeah, there's alcohol in it, but you're getting all these other things in addition ~to the little bit of alcohol, and that is really only in.~
And that is only in certain [00:05:00] batches of wine worldwide. So when people say, ~oh yeah, ~you should have a glass of wine every day, I completely disagree. Now I'm not a healthcare professional. ~I'm not a scientist. ~I am ~an athlete with asthma, an elite athlete with asthma, who an elite athlete with asthma, who ~an elite athlete with asthma, who shares his experience. Everything I teach on this podcast on my YouTube channel is based on my experience, so I highly recommend that you. Consult with your healthcare professional with anything ~that ~I talk about today. I have a disclaimer in the show notes and in the video description.
If you're watching this on YouTube. With that being said, I've done a lot of research on this topic and ~I have ~experimented with my own body and ~my ~athletic performance, therefore, I'm gonna share with you the science that I know about alcohol's impact on our body I'm also gonna share ~with you ~examples of other elite athletes, and how they manage alcohol in their training regimens. And then I'm gonna give you some actionable takeaways that you can integrate into your life today if you [00:06:00] have goals of becoming an elite athlete as well.
~Well, ~let's start with ~the science. Okay? ~The science of drinking. ~Okay, so ~some ~people ~may say ~that ~moderate drinking is okay, but even moderate drinking, ~which is ~defined as one or two drinks per day. Even Dr. Peter Attia in his book Outlive says ~that you can have alcohol every week and you. He says that ~you can have ~says that you, he shares that you can drink ~alcohol every week as long as you keep it moderately and still have the ability to live, to be a centenarian, to live, to be a hundred years old the problem is that the second alcohol enters your system. Even moderate drinking. The number one goal of your body is to expel the toxin. ~Okay? ~This is what happens when any ~sort of ~foreign substance enters our system ~and our body.~
That is a toxin. Our body wants to get rid of it. This is what happens when, for me, I have allergic reactions. My [00:07:00] body doesn't like certain substances, specifically peanuts, ~for basically my entire life, ~but there are other substances ~that'll enter my system. Or ~think about it as an athlete ~with asthma, as a person ~with asthma.
When something enters your system, ~maybe it's an environmental toxin. Maybe it is. Maybe it's an environmental toxin. Maybe you're allergic to something. Maybe you have some sort of dust. Okay, ~maybe it's an environmental toxin. Maybe you're ~having ~allergic ~reaction ~to something. What happens? Your body can go into an asthma attack that substance has a negative impact on our body. Same thing with alcohol. No matter who you are, the ~number one goal, ~number one goal of your body is to get rid of the alcohol. Alcohol be gone. ~Okay, so ~what does this mean? ~This means that ~when alcohol enters your system, your body stops focusing on other things.
Now, it's still gonna put some effort into muscle recovery. It's gonna put effort into the normal functions of your body, but it is also gonna try and get rid of the alcohol from your system as quickly as [00:08:00] possible. Which means that some of your energy is being ed to getting rid of alcohol from your system. Now, this isn't the only thing that happens when alcohol enters your system.
So what does this look like? Well, dehydration. When you have alcohol in your system, your body is working in so many different ways to get it out of your system. This is why ~when you start drinking and then ~you drink water, ~and then you ~go to the restroom, ~you empty your bladder, ~and ~then you ~continuously have to go ~because your body is working to flush it out of your system.~
Your body is using the water in your system to flush it out, your body is dehydrating it. Self to get rid of alcohol from your system. This can affect athletic performance greatly, and not just on the day that you drink it. Now your body has to recover from the dehydration. It has to rehydrate.
If you're drinking once per week, then your body's gonna be dehydrating itself once per week, and then you have to rehydrate. Well, the other thing here is it has a [00:09:00] huge impact on sleep. Sleep disruption. So now you aren't sleeping as well. And the crazy thing with alcohol, even a little bit of alcohol in your system.
It can throw off your sleep ~so much, it can ~decrease ~your, ~the effectiveness of your deep sleep exponentially. ~Go ~check out Brian Johnson. ~Okay. ~He's done ~so much ~research on this topic and how sleep is ~so ~important for our age, for our biological age, for our performance.
When you disrupt your sleep from alcohol or other substances or eating too late, or addiction to scrolling to screen time, you are effectively decreasing your performance the next day as if you were drunk. ~Okay, so I'm not saying that you drink a bunch, you go to sleep, you wake up actually drunk. No. ~The effects of sleep deprivation on your performance in your life [00:10:00] is similar to if you showed up drunk to work, drunk to the track, drunk to the gym, drunk to the yoga studio, you are not going to perform as well.
You're also gonna be dehydrated. Your sleep can decrease. The effectiveness of your sleep can decrease by 80%. That's crazy. Sleep disruption is huge. ~Now. ~Your endurance and ~your ~power
can be greatly affected.
~Studies show that your aerobic capacity and your strength study aerobic capacity and strength. Okay. Studies show that your aerobic capacity and your strength ~studies show ~that ~your aerobic capacity and ~your ~strength can take a huge dip post drinking. ~So ~think about it, ~you're moderately drinking, ~you're drinking once a week, twice a week.
Maybe ~you're ~only having one to two drinks ~once or twice a week. ~You're ~literally. ~Causing yourself to not be at your best while ~you're ~training. So now, if you're training and your endurance and your power is going to be affected every single time you drink, ~then ~how are you going to push to that elite level?
You're [00:11:00] not. It's impossible. ~Okay. ~I'm not saying that there aren't amazing athletes out there that drink, I'm just saying that those amazing athletes out there that are drinking could be even better, so how does this look if you have asthma? We've talked about this in other episodes on the show, alcohol creates inflammation, ~okay? ~So for asthma, or even if you don't have asthma, alcohol is going to increase inflammation in your body. Well, if you have asthma like me.
~Having ~increased inflammation ~in our body ~can make us more susceptible to asthma attacks, ~to asthmatic symptoms. So by ~having alcohol in your body, you're going to be having more inflammation in your body, and you have a higher chance of ~having ~asthmatic symptoms.
Now, we already talked about the fact that endurance and power is affected because your aerobic capacity and your strength is affected. Well, if alcohol has a negative impact on your aerobic capacity and your strength, then it has a [00:12:00] negative impact on our lungs. I ~also ~don't drink at least three to four months before a race, and this time around I haven't drank for nine months. And by the time my race happens, I will be a year.
Plus without drinking, ~which has amazing benefits. All of these things, think about it. ~I. Never ~have to ~deal with dehydration because of being drunk. I never have to deal with my body shifting its energy to the number one goal being to get rid of alcohol.
I never have ~the problem with ~sleep disruption due to alcohol. I have sleep disruption due to other things sometimes, ~but sleep disruption, ~if you moderately drink every ~single ~week ~or ~every ~single ~day or every ~single ~month, ~whatever it is, ~you're gonna have disrupted sleep no matter what. On that night, your sleeve is not as good as it could be.
~Okay,~ my endurance and power is great, and then my inflammation is significantly lower 'cause I ~just ~never put alcohol in my system. There's still other ~inflamm. There's still other inflammatory factors and ~inflammatory things that can occur, but I have less 'cause I don't have alcohol in my system. ~The last thing with.~
Being an athlete with asthma or someone with asthma and drinking alcohol is, you gotta look at the medication that you're taking. Now, you're gonna gonna talk to your healthcare professional about this, but there can be [00:13:00] some interactions that occur if you're drinking alcohol and taking different medications for your asthma.
So you gotta be careful with that as well. So that's the science. ~Okay. ~
Hey, friend, I wanted to take a moment to ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to lose weight due to your asthma? If so, I get it. I used to run marathons and still kept gaining weight. It wasn't until I learned about the three pillars of healthy living that everything changed,
so I put together a healthy living guide that you can access absolutely free by clicking the link in the description. This guide shares these amazing three pillars of healthy [00:14:00] living that you can easily integrate into your life to start losing weight and live healthier today. Click the link in the description or go to.
Athlete with asthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy. Now let's get back to the rest of the show.
Now let's go into some real world examples. ~Okay.~ Here's the real world. ~Okay.~ Back in 2023, I ran my first 50 plus mile ultra. ~Okay.~ At the time I was moderately drinking. ~Okay.~ And I did complete the race. ~Okay.~ I finished it in 13 hours and I got somewhere around 29th place out of 50 finishers. I was [00:15:00] moderately drinking. ~Okay? ~A couple beers here and there throughout the week, maybe ~here and there. I get a little crazy and have ~five or six ~beers, you know, ~once every quarter.
~Okay, this is moderate drinking. Okay, now let's ~fast forward one year, ~one year later, and all I did was ~I didn't drink for three ~to four~ months prior to my race. I got second out of. ~I believe ~20 finishers. I got first overall male, which was basically 19 finishers. There was one woman who finished and she beat me and she got first, so I got first outta 19 male finishers.
~Okay.~ I ran farther, by the way. It was 12 hours to complete. 62.2 miles and I didn't drink for three months leading up to my race. Why did I do this? Well, 'cause my recovery was better. My body wasn't [00:16:00] focused on getting alcohol outta my system. All of these things over here were not even a part of my life for three months leading up to this race.
And my next race is July 11th, 2025. I'm gonna have ~a year. Almost thir, ~almost 13 months of none of this. ~You know how powerful that is. ~You know how powerful my body is because of this. ~Well, this is just me. ~Now let's look at some of the best and most popular athletes in the world. Let's look at Christiano Ronaldo.
~Okay, Rinaldo. I know there's a lot of different Ronaldos, but we're just gonna write his last name here. Ronaldo one of the best soccer players of all time, okay?~
One of the best soccer players of all time. He doesn't drink at all. ~Now, he has other reasons for it. ~He had a family member, his father, who struggled with alcoholism. ~Okay. And ~that ~definitely ~had an impact on him choosing this life of not drinking, he is also the top all time international goal scorer. ~And one of the best players. ~And one of the best players to ever play the game. One of the biggest names out there. And he [00:17:00] says the ~other ~reason ~why ~he doesn't drink is ~because ~it allows him ~to have ~peak performance. ~Okay? ~He's been playing ~for ~a long time.
Ronaldo is an amazing athlete. Next. Katie Ledecky,
one of the greatest swimmers of all time. ~She says that she has never drank alcohol ever.~
She has seven ~Olympic golds. She has numerous Olympic golds. She has numerous Olympic golds, even more world championship golds. She is. She has numerous ~Olympic golds, even more world championship golds and holds multiple world records in swimming,
and she outwardly talks about how she avoids alcohol to maintain peak performance. One of the best swimmers of all time. Got one more for you, Tom Brady. Yes. There are some press photos of him drinking after the Super Bowl, but Brady specifically did. This strategy where during the season, during training, he cut alcohol out after the Super Bowl. I mean, he had a little bit of enjoyment, but he has done this for [00:18:00] longevity purposes too.
There's a reason why he's been ~able to play. There's a reason why he was ~able to play so long. ~Okay, so ~these are three of the best athletes to ever live, and they have all gone away from even this moderate drinking mentality. They've done. At the very least, the mentality of when I'm training, when I need to show up, I'm not drinking.
~Now I can't promise that after my July ~now I can't promise ~that ~after my next race, I'm never gonna touch alcohol again. ~'cause I may, and ~I may have some beer here and there. ~Okay. But. ~But I can promise that ~in order ~to ~maintain and ~become even more of an elite athlete ~than I am right now, ~I will always do this.
~Will always give myself as much, will always ~give myself as much benefit as much of a level up on the competition as I ~possibly ~can by having a healthier body, ~by ~avoiding alcohol ~during my training cycles, during my race, ~during my training cycles, so I can achieve peak performance. Now I have some action steps for you.
~A couple different things you could do. ~At the very least, ~I invite you to ~drink moderately. ~What does this mean? This means that ~my. [00:19:00] Definition ~of moderate drinking ~is ~only ~drinking at most once a week and keeping it ~down ~to ~just ~a couple of drinks. ~Okay?~ Now definitely talk to a healthcare professional and get some actual advice for you and your situation, but I invite you to, at the very least, go down to drinking once max per week, if not once per month, if not, cutting it out altogether.
~Okay,~ action. Step two, try it. Take ~at least ~a month off before your next race, ~okay? ~Don't drink for a month and see how good you feel during ~the end of ~that training cycle and how you feel during that race. I highly recommend you taking at least three months, if not four months off, leading up to that race ~stone.~
You will see amazing results. You'll perform better than you ever thought you possibly could.~ Okay.~
Now you may be saying ~no, ~but Johnny, I love the taste of wine. I love the taste of beer. I love the taste of Margaritas. ~Great. You know. ~Great. [00:20:00] Over the holidays in 2024, I told myself, you know what? I have plenty of time between training cycles. I had a very successful race. I won my a hundred k. I have another race that I have some pretty amazing goals for, but it's plenty of time out so I can enjoy some alcoholic beverages during the holidays if I want.
Then I discovered non-alcoholic beer. ~And ~I'm not a wine person, but there's amazing non-alcoholic wine too that I had over the holidays. I had a glass and I'm like, wow, this tastes exactly like regular wine and non-alcoholic beer. Specifically athletic, which I'll link to in the show notes.
Athletic is my favorite brewery. I'm a big beer person. I love breweries. That used to be one of my big social things ~is I go to breweries. ~My cousin has been to over a thousand breweries. We'd go together to different breweries. ~I love breweries. I love beer. Well, ~when I discovered athletic brewing. It ~completely ~changed how I looked at the holidays.
It kept me from drinking over the holidays. 'cause instead [00:21:00] I would just go pick up some athletic, some IPAs, some hazy IPAs, some golden ales, ~some ~Belgians. ~They even have specialty beers that they come up. They even have specialty beers that they come out with. ~They even have specialty beers ~that they come out with ~for different holidays.
~Like they had a Irish red and a, ~they had an Irish red and a stout mimicking a Guinness that they came out with. Athletic brewing and these companies that are able to create amazing wine and other beverages that mimic the taste ~of some of our favorite A, that mimic the taste of some of our favorite A, that mimic the taste of some ~of our favorite alcoholic beverages, but without alcohol, ~make it possible for you to do this and make it so that.~
You can't use the excuse of, ~well, ~I love the taste of beer. ~I just drink it for the taste. Great. ~If you just drink it for the taste, ~go ~pick up a six pack of athletic and drink that. ~Now, if you're, now, if you are recovering alcoholic, now, ~if you're an alcoholic or recovering alcoholic, I'm not sure you can actually drink and a beer because there are trace amounts of alcohol in it.
So you definitely wanna work with your healthcare professional, ~whoever you're working with, and don't. ~And most likely you're gonna wanna avoid na beer altogether. But if you are avoiding alcohol for peak performance reasons, you could get the taste of some of your favorite beers by indulging in NA beer and specifically checking out athletic brewing.
Now, if you want to ~take your health and wellness to the next level, I have a gift for you for spending.~
~Now if you wanna ~take [00:22:00] your health and wellness to the next level, I have a gift for you for spending. ~That's ~time with me today. ~It is my three pillars of Healthy Living Guide. It is my three pillars of Healthy Living Guide. ~It is my three pillars of Healthy Living Guide. ~You can grab it in the show notes below in the, ~you can grab it in the show notes below, or go to www.athletewithasthma.com forward slash healthy dash living dash guide to grab your copy today.
~Now highly rec re. Now it's only gonna take you two or three minutes to digest when you grab it.~ Now, it's only gonna take you two to three minutes to read and start integrating into your life. Today I go through my three pillars of healthy living, movement, tracking and accountability. And by combining that with what we have gone through in this podcast episode today, I can guarantee ~you that ~you are on your way to becoming your own elite athlete. At the very least, you are gonna see yourself get better. ~You're gonna see your run, you're gonna see ~if you're an endurance athlete, you're gonna see your times decrease. If you're a strength-based athlete, you're gonna see your lifts increase.
~You are going to, and most importantly, you are going to live. And most importantly, you're going to live a healthier. And ~most importantly, you're going to live a healthier and happier life. I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with [00:23:00] Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. I. It is about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals, and if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible.
