PODCAST - Why the Only Beer I Drink Is Non-Alcoholic (And Why You Should Too)
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[00:00:00] 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.
Today on the show, I'm gonna share with you why the only beer I drink. Is non-alcoholic and why you should [00:01:00] too now. It all began ~with me ~when I started taking ultra running. Seriously. I decided ~that ~three to four months before any race that I did was gonna cut alcohol out of my diet, which this is extremely good advice for all the athletes out there, and this is extremely good advice if you are an athlete like me.
Alcohol is a poison. It is a toxin to our system. The second alcohol ~enters your body, ~enters your bloodstream. ~Your body. Your body. ~Your body wants to get rid of it. It starts taking energy away from other systems and focuses on expelling it from your body, So I thought to myself, if this is how it works, then I want my body to focus on healing my muscles as I put my body under strain of 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, a hundred miles per week.
' cause if I run a hundred miles in a week and then I drink a [00:02:00] regular beer. My body isn't gonna recover like it needs to. I'm not gonna be as good as I could be. This ballooned into me taking a year off from drinking because I had multiple races back to back, and then I won my a hundred K Ultra about four to five months into this experiment. but it didn't stop there. I had another race that made this so that I abstained from alcohol for another two months. So I ended up not drinking for 14 months since breaking my 14 month fast from drinking, it's been two months of sobriety for me
And a big part of this is because any beer ~just ~tastes better. Then beer with alcohol, and I have five reasons why you should be drinking na beer instead of beer with alcohol in your life starting today. The first one is caloric content, I love IPAs. And if you also like IPAs, you understand ~that ~[00:03:00] IPAs have a lot of calories.
They also have a lot of flavor, and you're probably like Johnny, there's no way that an na, a non-alcoholic beer, a non-alcoholic IPA tastes anything like ~an ~a regular IPA. Well, I'm here to tell you that it has more flavor than a regular IPA ~and. ~So I would even argue that typically hazy IPAs have the most calories of any beer. The point is, we have a hazy IPA ~right ~here, and it is an NA hazy IPA, ~and ~if we compare NA to full alcohol, normal beer, whatever you wanna call it, ~I don't know what they're calling it these days.~
Then we're looking at from a caloric perspective alone, 70 cals opposed to 200 to 300 cals, ~and this is ~for 12 ounces.
This is amazing.
At worst, NA beer has three times as few calories as beer with alcohol in it. At best, it has [00:04:00] almost five times. That means just from a caloric perspective, maybe you're trying to lose weight and you're struggling because you may not even be drinking very much, but you're having, ~you know. ~One IPA every couple of days, ~which ~by the way, ~if you really want to elevate your life, ~even having one beer once a week is a detriment to your productivity, your motivation, and ~just ~you becoming the best person you possibly could be.
~So ~you could be watching this and be like, Johnny, I only drink once a week. I don't care if you drink once a month. ~Okay. Because ~you're gonna get a good three weeks a month out of your productivity, depending on how much you're drinking once a month. ~But ~this alone should convince you that if it tastes the same, if not better, it tastes better.
By the way, if here, let's see. Oh, by the way, I can drink this since ~it's 2:00 PM on a Tuesday. It is two. ~It's 2:00 PM on a Monday, ~and I can drink this ~during the workday. ~Oh, it's so good. ~It tastes better than a regular IPA because I'm not hit with the taste of cough syrup ~right out of the gate. ~[00:05:00] Once you take time off from drinking, you'll understand what I mean. And that brings me to the second benefit of any beer over regular beer. The alcohol content. Now, Johnny, I already know any beer, don't have any alcohol. This is obvious. Well, here's a crazy thing. Let's look at the hazy IPA again, and let's look at the NA versus the alcohol version when it comes to alcohol content, NA has less than 0.5%. And a typical hazy IPA has somewhere between six. At 8% and typically when people are talking about drinking and hey, it's okay to moderately drink and you can, you know, having one beer a week isn't a big deal. ~Well, ~even with six to 8% alcohol content ~in a beer, when I drink, when ~when I tried a hazy IPA after not drinking for 14 months.
It tasted like cough syrup. No [00:06:00] wonder when you had your first drink. When I had my first drink, we didn't like alcohol. It tastes bad. And a beer has the best parts of beer. The taste, the flavor. I can actually taste. When IPA tastes like now, this is crazy when you look at this in order to have the same ~amount of ~alcohol content as ~one, ~one hazy, IPA. ~How many NA beers would you have to drink? ~How many athletic na beers would you have to drink?
Athletics says near beer contains less than 0.5% alcohol by volume.
So let's say ~that ~it's on the high end ~of the spectrum. So let's say that there's ~0.5% alcohol content in the hazy IPA, well, let's do some math.
Let's take 6%. Let's divide it by 0.5. What does this equal? This equals 12. Now let's take 0.5 divided into 8%, or does this equal
16? 16, [00:07:00] 16, 12. So if. There was actually half a percent of alcohol in this beer to have the same amount of alcohol as a normal hazy IPA. You would have to drink minimum 12, maybe 16, maybe way more. 'cause maybe there's 0.1% alcohol. I don't even want to do the math for that. Be 60 beers. You'll get bloated before you get buzzed when drinking NA beer.
You'll be so hydrated that even if you had this many beers, you're gonna be getting rid of the alcohol so quickly that you aren't even gonna be able to get bused. This is crazy. This is why I love any beer. Benefit number three, you avoid the negative effects ~of ~of alcohol
[00:08:00] even.
One beer, and I know you're still thinking ~of and saying, ~Johnny, I can have one beer and I'm fine. ~I'm just saying ~I took 14 months off, drank a beer and I had brain fog for days. I also lacked motivation. I. For days, you don't know what the effect ~is ~on you until you cut it out. ~I lacked productivity for days.~
~My diet drenches even ~one beer, ~first of all, ~it's three to five times more calories ~than an any beer, but it also ~causes cravings. ~Mood. ~Alcohol metabolizes into sugar, which leads to blood sugar, spikes and drops. Spike feels good. Drop feels depressing. Mood, sleep, even a little bit of alcohol, messes with your sleep.
This may be the biggest thing when you are drinking one beer per week. You are messing up your sleep for at least one night per week. That's 52 nights a year. That compounds over time, and that's just if you're having one per week ~hangover.~
~I. ~I didn't have a hangover with one beer [00:09:00] unless you count ~all of this, or I guess not diet, but ~brain fog, motivation, productivity, and mood as a hangover. If you define hangover as headache, then for me it takes about two or three beers ~to get that. ~But you avoid all this by drinking ~and a beer. May as well drink ~any a beer.
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 [00:10:00] shares these amazing three pillars of healthy 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.
Number four, always be at your best. It's always used to stress me out. Can we be real ~for a second here? ~I used to get stressed ~out ~when I planned on drinking, so I always planned. I got to the point where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna make sure that I don't have to drive anymore. I'm gonna make sure that I don't have anything important going on that needs my attention because I know that once I start drinking, I'm not gonna be able to show up at my [00:11:00] best.
Isn't it crazy? You have to plan that. I don't know if you've ever done that, where you're like, okay, I'm gonna go out with the guys. ~I'm gonna go out with the gals. ~Got it all in order. ~We ~got the babysitter, ~got ~everything done. I don't have to make any decisions, don't have to talk to anyone. I don't have to do anything important.
So I'm go drink and have some glass of wine. I have some beer, whatever. She was just stressing me out. Now I can always be at my best. This past Friday ~night, ~I went to a Halloween party. I teach yoga at this amazing gym called Endorphin, ~and ~they had a Halloween party. ~And, uh, well, there wasn't a bunch of alcohol around. ~I brought five na beers with me. I only drank three of 'em, but I brought 'em with me 'cause I knew there was gonna be beer around. I knew there was gonna be alcohol around and it's pretty far from my house and I don't drink anymore.
So I was like, I'm gonna bring na beer with me. I'm gonna share it with some people if they want it. And I did. I shared it with some people and they were very happy. My friend Brett was very happy. He is like, is it a beer? I'm like, yeah. He's like, oh, thank you for bringing this. I was at my best the entire time.
I was able to drive without worry after, [00:12:00] and I slept great. Everything ended up great and I was available if my fiance needed me. My parents needed me, my friends needed me. ~I'm available. ~I'm fully present. When you replace alcohol with something else, ~could be a beer. Could be what I talk about on another episode on my channel, my favorite substitutes for alcohol.~
You are able to show up at your best all the time. Now, I know I'm drinking this well recording to make a point. I don't necessarily think ~that ~you should drink any beer during the day, but the point is, if you did. You're still gonna be able to work. ~You're still be at your best, which is the most important thing.~
~That's why I chose to do this in the first place. ~I chose to stop drinking because I wanted to be the best athlete I possibly could be. And I knew scientifically that this was a thing I didn't know in practice until I did it, and that's why I'm sharing this ~with you today. In practice, this works. This is a cheat code.~
Not drinking is ~literally ~a cheat code in ~your ~life. Not partaking in substances in general is a cheat code in your life. I know that a lot of people nowadays are like, well, I don't drink, but I smoke ~a lot of ~weed. ~And you know that ~you can get the benefits of weed by taking [00:13:00] CBD with zero THC. ~That's the other side of this.~
You may be like, ~well, ~I smoke weed. I don't drink. ~I'm sorry. I know that you, you're thinking, okay, this is good and all this stuff, and ~maybe ~you were prescribed weed, ~you were prescribed marijuana by a healthcare professional. ~And again, I have a disclaimer in the show notes and in the video description, but ~the benefits from marijuana come from the CBD part.
You can just intake the CBD. ~You gotta ~be careful ~there too ~though. There's a lot of C, B, D where there's still a lot of THC in it. You want the purest CB, D, and that's where you get the health benefits. It's crazy. So if you want to be at your best, ~let's ~cut ~the ~substances out. ~It's fine. ~Replacements that are healthy, na beer is a step in the right direction.
~Now ~if you are an alcoholic, ~I have heard that ~having na beverages like na beer may not be a good idea for you. So I am not recommending that alcoholics should drink any beer. You, I've even been told ~that ~alcoholics shouldn't drink kombucha. Because there's a little bit of alcohol and it can trigger something.
So if [00:14:00] you're an alcoholic, I'm not saying you drink na beer. I'm not an alcoholic. I don't know how that works. You gotta check with your healthcare professional. Na Beer is a great replacement for someone who's not an alcoholic ~that's ~looking ~for a way ~to get away from alcohol and live a healthier life.
If you're an alcoholic, ~I. If you're an alcoholic, that's outside my expertise and ~I highly recommend ~that ~you talk to a professional about that.
~Hello? Hello. Good.~
~Looking good.~
~Hmm. Um.~
~And that brings me to number five,~
and that brings me to number five. This is ~a ~very interesting ~one, ~and ~this ~may be important to you. ~At one point it was important to me, it's not anymore. But ~early ~on ~in my NA journey of taking a year plus off from drinking, ~and now I'm two months into another year, whatever it's gonna be, ~this was important to me and maybe this is what's gonna help you.
Maybe you are gonna be served by this benefit, the placebo
effect.
Now I have felt this. I'm not an expert ~at how this works, ~so I'm going to read ~you ~the research ~that ~I have done ~on this. But before I get there, basically ~the placebo effect is when you start drinking NA beer, you may still feel the effects as [00:15:00] if ~you were ~drinking a regular beer. I definitely did when I started drinking any beer, and I sometimes do to this day feel the placebo effect.
As you abstain from alcohol ~for ~longer ~though, ~the placebo effect will decrease. ~Basically what ~the placebo effect is, you may feel. ~A little ~loopy. ~You may feel ~how you feel when you drink alcohol, when you drink na beer. ~Here's what the ~research says. Even though non-alcoholic beer contains less than to no alcohol, many people feel some of the same sensations they associate with drinking alcohol, relaxation, warmth, mild euphoria, lowered inhibitions simply because you expect to.
Your brain expects ~that ~when it smells the beer, ~that ~it's getting a specific effect. This is crazy how our brains work. That expectation creates a placebo response. [00:16:00] Here's a neuroscience behind it. There is a conditioned
response. Here's how it works. If you've ever used beer to unwind, your brain has linked the taste. So there's a link to the taste, the smell, and the ritual of having the beer with relaxation. When you drink a non-alcoholic version, those ~same ~sensory cues can trigger dopamine and endorphin release. Even without alcohol, you have a conditioned response to when your body ingest something has happened for years and now you're ingesting na.
And even though there's no alcohol in it or low alcohol in it, a conditioned response occurs.
Next expectation
theory. Here's how this works. Studies show that when people [00:17:00] believe they are consuming alcohol, their body and brain often reacts as if they actually are. You're expecting something.
A 2018 study in psycho-pharmacology found participants who thought they drank alcohol but didn't reported feeling tipsy and relaxed, and ~even ~showed changes in reaction time and self-control tasks. This is why this is important. The placebo effect may look at it as a benefit. But in the moment, maybe if you're under the placebo, you may not be at your best you are, but neurologically you may have a response that might be causing you to not be at your best.
Really interesting Next social. Signaling resist. The placebo effect also happens socially. Holding a beer, even an NA cues your environment and ~your ~[00:18:00] brain, that it's relaxed time. That triggers parasympathetic nervous system activity, ~rest and digest mode, ~reducing stress hormones like cortisol. This is a good thing.
You're getting the benefit of ~this ~social signaling without the negatives of the hangover the next day, the negatives that alcohol causes in your body. This is crazy. The placebo effect.
You'll know if it affects you when you start drinking and na beverage. One of my friends, what he's done to cut back on his drinking is he'll actually alternate. He'll have a regular beer followed by an NA beer. Regular na. Regular na, and it would do that during ~a ~poker night. I ~just ~stick to NA the whole night.
But hey, I like the fact that he's haling his alcohol consumption. That is a strategy that you could do as well to really start shifting towards na. Here's the flip side and why I really wanted to share with you the placebo [00:19:00] effect today. You may have a false permission. Loop. What is this? Some people with alcohol dependency history may find that NA beer triggers cravings because of its sensory and psychological similarity. ~So I said that ~if you are an alcoholic or someone ~who's ~dependent on alcohol drinking na beer may not be the best move for you.
Because your body may respond as if you're drinking regular beer and may cause you to start craving regular beer, craving alcohol. So the false permission loop is something to be extremely careful with, and this is why it is ~so ~important to know yourself and ~to ~work with a healthcare professional if you really do have an alcohol.
Problem if you ~really do ~have an alcohol dependency. The second thing is ~something called ~expectation [00:20:00] fade. ~And this is something that I've started to experience is ~over time, if you know it's NA beer, the placebo effect can weaken. Your brain learns there's no ethanol reward ~attached, ~so you may feel ~less of the.~
Less of the fake buzz. ~See, ~I don't see any problem with ~this, and I'll tell you ~this, it's been a while since I've drank beer consistently and I'm about halfway through this NA beer, and I am feeling a little bit of a placebo. It's less than when I first started drinking na beer, but I don't ~really ~care.
You get to the point where you don't care, you're not looking for that placebo effect. Now if you want to take your health ~and wellness ~to the next level, I have my three pillars of Healthy Living Guide, movement, tracking, and accountability. You can grab this guide linked in the description below if you're watching ~this ~on YouTube or in the show notes.
~If you're listening to this as a podcast. ~Or ~you can ~go to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living. Guide to grab your free copy ~today. ~It's gonna take you a matter of minutes to read and start integrating into your life. I'll see you in the next [00:21:00] episode. Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with 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. 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.
