It’s no shock that people like to drink alcohol at festivals, but there are ways to drink that aren’t so taxing on your physique. For example, beer is probably one of the worst things you can drink if you want to keep a decent physique. It’s high in calories, you generally consume a lot of it (because who really stops at 1 or 2 drinks?), and it bloats you like crazy. The healthiest option you could do is to drink vodka-waters. Often times with mixing drinks, its the mixer that is doing more harm to your physique than the liquor itself. Coke has somewhere between 35-45g of sugar per can, and chances are that if you’re drinking rum and cokes all night, you’re going to have multiple cans of coke, lets say for example 3-4 over the course of the night. So lets say coke has 40g of sugar per can, and you have 4 of those in a day, thats 160g of sugar, which is 640 calories. Sugar is by no means the ultimate enemy, but having it in such excess quantities is terrible for every aspect of your health. You will burn a portion of it from all the dancing you’ll be doing throughout the day but most of it is getting stored as fat. Nobody likes drinking liquor straight with no mix, but if you need to mix something go with a diet version of whatever mixer. You will be getting aspartame and other sweeteners that aren’t good for general health, but no sugar. That’s a conversation for another day though.
Above I spoke about mixers , but lets talk about the caloric value of the alcohol itself. Alcohol is a macronutrient, just like protein, fat, and carbs. But what makes alcohol different from the other macros, is that alcohol is completely useless and it is detrimental towards your physique by adding useless calories that immediately get stored as fat. Vodka for example, has approximately 72 calories per 1oz shot. Lets say on average for a heavy drinker they will drink half, to an entire 26oz bottle of liquor in a night (don’t try this). Half of a bottle would be 13oz. Multiply that by 72 and you’ve consumed 936 calories from the alcohol alone, not to mention those 3 cans of coke you mixed it with, which is 120g sugar and an extra 480 calories, making your grand total approximately 1400 useless calories that are going straight to your gut. Alcohol also severely dehydrates you, so staying hydrated at these festivals is SUPER important. Many times when you hear of people dying or going to the hospital at these different festivals, it wont directly be drug or alcohol use that does it, but the combination of drugs, alcohol, and failing to stay hydrated in 100+ degree weather.
Next thing to cover would be food intake. I’m not going to dance around the fact that some people consume drugs at these festivals, which in turn kills one’s appetite. Alcohol obviously has pretty much the opposite effect, making you want to binge on McDonald’s or pizza. The best thing I could recommend to any of you, and kind of a rule I’ve made for myself before going out partying, is that I need to get at least 3 meals in me before I even think about partying. Even if you only have access to burgers and fries, its better than eating nothing at all. At raves and festivals you wont have access to organic or even remotely healthy foods unless you bring it yourself and cook your meals prior to the event. So lets say I’m at a festival but posted up in a hotel for the weekend. I will go grocery shopping and buy some not-so-bad foods to make for my meals, such as sandwiches, oatmeal, eggs, fruits , etc. My typical rave day diet would be oats or cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, then maybe a burger or something for dinner. And somewhere throughout the day I try to get a high calorie protein shake down the hatch, just so I’ve got some extra nutrients in me because when you’re at the show, you won’t want to eat because you want to be in the crowd dancing and having fun.
Hopefully these tips will come in handy this festival season. If you have any questions feel free to post in the comments and I’ll respond to as many as I can.
Check out my previous editorials:
about my background in edm and fitness and how to get in shape for a festival!
