On the weekend I drank too much, it was for a celebration and a great one it was but my body did NOT cooperate the next day.
Want to know why? Let me explain.
For the most part I fill my diet with vegetables (mostly greens, but it varies), fish, fruit and some basics like rice and oats. In addition to this I will treat myself to chocolate and when invited to dinners or just because my boyfriend and I don’t want to cook we will eat out and choose a healthy option but we won’t say no to what our bodies are craving or a yummy dish on the menu. So all in all, I don’t eat a strictly 100% clean and organic diet, but what I do eat works for me.
Alcohol doesn’t work for me. It’s processed to the max, it is designed to make your body react and react it did. I didn’t even have what most people would consider too much, 5 champagnes and Mojito over the course of 5 hours isn’t going to send me into an alcoholic spiral and a lot of people will wonder why I was so unwell the next day. But it’s because my stomach can’t process the toxins or preservatives and the freshest thing that went into my body that night was the mint in the mojito (it was delicious by the way). Because it can’t process the alcohol I often feel bloated and that my stomach is full of sloshing liquid the next day and my body retains the everything that I’ve drunk for at least a week afterwards (after a big night).
I’m not saying I’m going to give up drinking alcohol, I love to have a drink to celebrate, or with food, as part of a catch up and a giggle with the girls or friends or even at different social gatherings or events. It’s part of the society I grew up in and I know that I don’t have to drink at any or all of those events but I will if the occasion calls!
When I do drink from now on there is one thing that I am going to remember and I’d like to share this with you. Because all too often we fall into this cycle of drinking or eating something we know our bodies don’t like or accept or perhaps even downright reject, and in order to fix that we take something else, whether it’s a painkiller or medication or greasy unhealthy food in order to compensate and make our bodies feel better again. This creates a cycle, a cycle of masking the pain and the real problem, a cycle of masking how our bodies really feel, of pretending we’re ok when our bodies are screaming at us to say it’s not.
I could have taken painkillers or anti-nausea tablets after my big night out, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to pretend that my body was ok with the alcohol I had drunk. This may be a punishment to my body and my brain, and sure there are times when it will be absolutely necessary to take medication or ask for help in order to get better. But as a society we are so fast paced that we forget to see the signs when our body or our mind is telling us that it’s not ok. We cover it up because we have to keep going, because we can’t afford to lie in bed all day, because maybe we aren’t tough enough to face what we have created ourselves?
This cycle continues, you feel pain, you take a pain killer, the original source of your pain isn’t necessarily resolved, the pain killer wears off, you take some more. By taking more you start to wear away at your organs, then you need more because you have more pain, maybe your stomach reacts so you take something different in addition to the pain killers… And so it goes on.
So next time you make a choice to eat or drink something that you know is not right for your body, and that you have felt a reaction to before, I challenge you to stop before you take something to mask the pain and at the very least consider a natural remedy.
Be wise, be conscious, be mindful and most importantly listen to yourself.