People Drink More after a Workout

Fitness freaks, watch out! You are more likely to drink alcohol after you workout, at least that's what a new study states.

Researchers at Northwestern University found that the average individual works out more on Thursdays and Sundays, increasing their chances of indulging in drinking.

"Monday through Wednesday people batten down the hatches and they cut back on alcohol consumption," lead researcher David E. Conroy, professor of preventive medicine and deputy director of the Center for Behavior and Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a press release.

"But once that 'social weekend' kicks off on Thursdays, physical activity increases and so does alcohol consumption."

For the study, the researchers recruited 150 participants aged between 18 and 89 who were asked to record their daily physical activity and alcohol consumption for 21 days at three different times throughout one year.

"In this study, people only have to remember one day of activity or consumption at time, so they are less vulnerable to memory problems or other biases that come in to play when asked to report the past 30 days of behavior," Conroy said. "We think this is a really good method for getting around some of those self-report measurement problems."

According to Conroy, the researchers found that people who were more active on certain days tended to drink more than on days they were less active. "This finding was uniform across study participants of all levels of physical activity and ages."

The findings are published in the journal Health Psychology.