Food Hangovers

Do you know what a food hangover is? It’s when you eat so clean and then have a cheat meal (insert pizza here) and wake up the next day feeling like ass. You have cottonmouth because you are dehydrated, you feel lethargic, sickly and achy because your body is horribly confused as to why you poisoned it and it is taking revenge.

I would say my husband and I partake in a cheat meal about once every two weeks or so, give or take. The culprit is usually pizza as it is a big part of our past and we used to eat mass quantities of it. The same thing happens EVERY time and yet we foolishly keep consuming it.

Here is the cycle, we will order a pizza each and devour it but never feel full because our bodies are used to being fed properly and don’t know how to digest this crap we just ate. On top of that, it never tastes as good as we remember. I have found this to be true on almost every single thing that I have cut out that is unhealthy or an allergen.

Then we proceed to lie around and bloat as our bodies desperately try to break down all the grease, fat, sugar, gluten and sodium we just inhaled. I’m a special case here because I am actually allergic to milk, tomatoes and wheat and gluten doesn’t really “like” me. So to make this some-what better I order a thin crust, light sauce, light cheese and pretend like I am doing myself a favor.

Eventually we go to bed and have weird dreams because what is a cheat meal without dreams that leave you creeped out (apparently that’s just me)? Now we get to wake up feeling restless and attempt a full days work and work out with more trips to the bathroom than a normal day, TMI?

I would like to say we learn from this but history has proven that we clearly do not. It’s one part “I am sick of being so good” and two parts of cravings. I can honestly say this is the “cleanest” I have ever eaten in my life and I feel amazing. I never used to feel this bad after eating pizza so what changed?

I changed! This is the sad thing about the American diet; people don’t know what it feels like to feel good. I used to eat and feel heavy and bloated after eating and I no longer feel that way when I stick to whole nutritious foods. I never feel miserable and “stuffed” or “oh I just can’t eat another bite”, I feel full and satisfied and I don’t think people know what the difference is.

I wish more people would step back from these highly processed foods and give their bodies a chance to reset and see the difference for themselves. I am a huge advocate for eating whole, nutritious foods and I am also a huge advocate for not creating an eating disorder. You can easily become neurotic when tracking calories, macros or trying to adhere to a “strict” diet.

I track my Macros using MyFitnessPal to keep me honest and accountable (previous blog on Macros here) and I did track my pizza but not to “fit” into my Macros, I went over on everything but for the first time in weeks I hit my carbs! Cheat meals will always exist in my world but for once I see them not so much as a cheat meal but more of a over consumption of Macros. For some reason that seems less negative to me and feels better mentally, hangover or not.