Study finds people drink more alcohol on days they hit the gym

"Social weekend" days are throwing people quite the curveball: A new study from Northwestern Medicine found that while adults work out more Thursday through Sunday, they also increase their alcohol consumption on those days.

"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," David E. Conroy, the study's lead author, said.

What the study, published in science journal Health Psychology, did uncover is that previous research may have made too large a leap between those who exercise and those who drink. For the latest study, 150 participants were asked to record their physical activity and alcohol intake on their smartphones each day for 21 days. They did this three times over the course of one year. Previous studies used a single, self-reported 30-day stretch, which Conroy believes may have skewed results because participants may have had trouble remembering their specific activities over the course of an entire month.

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"We zoomed in the microscope and got a very up-close and personal look at these behaviors on a day-to-day basis," Conroy said. "It's not [that] people who exercise more drink more — it's that on days when people are more active, they tend to drink more than on days they are less active."

Conroy said future studies will research the why part of this "exercise + alcohol" increase. I suggest they interview baseball's playoffs-bound celebrants for some insight.