People Tend to Consume More Alcohol on Days They Exercise: Study

People tend to drink more alcohol on days they exercise, suggests a new study. Beer is the most popular post-workout alcoholic beverage, Time reports.

The 150 adults who participated in the study used a smartphone app to record how much they exercised and how much alcohol they drank for 21 days at a time, at three times during one year. The study found both exercise and drinking increased Thursdays through Sundays.

The findings are published in Health Psychology. The researchers took into account the fact that people tend to have more alcohol-related social events on the weekend, and may prefer to drink primarily on the weekends.

“Monday through Wednesday people batten down the hatches and they cut back on alcohol consumption,” lead researcher David E. Conroy of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine said in a news release. “But once that ‘social weekend’ kicks off on Thursdays, physical activity increases and so does alcohol consumption.”

He added, “Perhaps people reward themselves for working out by having more to drink or maybe being physically active leads them to encountering more social situations where alcohol is consumed — we don’t know. Once we understand the connection between the two variables we can design novel interventions that promote physical activity while curbing alcohol use.”

Previous studies have shown that too much alcohol can negate some of the positive effects of exercise. Drinking adds to a person’s daily calorie count, and could impair muscle recovery, the article notes.