Beach and booze – the two just seem to go together. And as of late, I’ve been enjoying that pairing.
I’m not a big drinker and try to remain alcohol-free during the week but when my weekdays merged into a mini-vacation last week, those alcohol-free days ceased to exist. By the time Sunday rolled around, I’d clocked in 16 hours of sleep over 4 nights and knocked back close to half a case of wine.
To counter this, I was still getting up to exercise. A commitment I made to myself over 10 years ago. If you drink, you train the next day, no matter how poorly you might feel. Besides the rare occurrence, I’ve stuck to this. So as Sunday morning rolled around, I utilized my waking with the sun to get to East Hampton and do a spin class. I biked there (3 miles), did the class and biked back. Feeling invigorated (or perhaps still drunk), I followed up with a 9am meditation class. Half-way through the class, I started to feel it… that lucid, dizziness… I’d either taken myself to another plane or I was experiencing that dreaded hangover state accompanied by too little sleep.
Needless to say that when I got home, all I wanted was carbohydrates. Anything to settle my stomach. One of my beach room-mates was eating bran cereal and despite being an active cereal-hater, I wanted to rip the bowl from her hands and down those little flakes like it was my last meal on the way to the elocution chair. But as I’m gluten-sensitive, those bran flakes would have done me in. Like a caged animal, my beady eyes sought other carbohydrates that I might have been able to eat. Nothing was there.
Instead, I was left with ingredients that would actually help me recover – freshly picked mixed greens, herbs from the garden, aged parmesan cheese, Summer corn and eggs from a local farm. So that became breakfast.
Post breakfast, I jumped on my cycle again, fell on the beach and got my much needed rest and vitamin D. Several hours later, I did feel better.
Nutrition bonus – mixed greens and herbs help the liver to detoxify alcohol, eggs and parmesan cheese help repair damaged brain cells (they need saturated fat), and corn stimulates insulin to transport the nutrients into the cells.
