For England football fans, it’s been a summer of fun - a great performance from the team in the Euro 2020 championship saw us reach the final. Great news… but it comes at a price!
There’s a good chance that watching a match will be accompanied with a beer or 5. When the beer flows, there are usually a few bad choices that follow… mostly around food! A few beers in, kebabs, curries, chips, fried chicken etc become even more appealing. When you add 5 or 6 pints (around 250 calories each) to a takeaway (around 1000 calories), you’ll understand why a lot of people gain weight during a football tournament!
So how do you give your health a kick start? How do you get rid of the bloating, the water retention and the general lethargy following a few weeks’ worth of boozing and bad food choices?
In this article we’ll look at a mixture of lab and anecdotal evidence to help you feel better… fast.
The Solution to Pollution is… Dilution
One of the early pioneers in the modern health and fitness industry, Paul Chek uses this line a lot. His thinking is that many of us exist in a state of dehydration, which puts pressure on internal organs and reduces our ability to clear our toxins from our bodies.
On the back of a few weeks’ worth of boozing and bad food, there’s a good chance you’ll be pretty dehydrated. Salt, sugar, alcohol, caffeine are known diuretics, so do their bit to keep you dehydrated. You can kickstart the healing process by cleaning yourself with a lot of water consumption, which rehydrates the body.
Evidence suggests that water consumption helps the body effectively deal with toxins by supporting kidney function. Making sure you are fully hydrated doesn’t just help the kidneys however, it helps to improve the health and appearance of the skin and helps to improve general digestion.
Hypermineralisation…
This is the next step of the recovery is the increase in vitamin and mineral intake. By giving the body all of the support it needs to function, you’re providing an insurance policy. There’s strong evidence that vitamin supplementation can help to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease and with COVID-19 still so prevalent, it could be a good idea to take daily vitamin supplements.
The best way to increase vitamin and mineral intake it with dietary sources though. Consume massive amounts of fruit and vegetables, clean protein and water. That’ll certainly help you feel better!
Fasting…
Proponents of intermittent fasting claim that it helps to reduce inflammation, arguably down to the lack of foods that create inflammation. For a long time this was seen as an anecdotal benefit, but recent research has shown that fasting does actually help to reduce inflammation. A poor diet is one of the major causes of inflammation so by removing the foods that cause this inflammation, you help to improve how you are feeling.
Fasting also gives the digestive system a break and the reduction in calories consumed helps us to lose weight any weight gained with the boozing and bad food choices! Extra benefit.
Sleep…
The ultimate recovery tool is sleeping, which is seriously compromised when you drink excess alcohol or caffeine. A quick way to recover post alcohol binge is to sleep well. You do this by removing anything that will compromise the quality of your sleep, which goes beyond the obvious booze and coffee - staring at screens in bed won’t help at all either, so reduce your screen time to enhance your sleep.
This is NOT a detox!
Your body does a good job of detoxing - this is a step by step approach to help your body along the way by not re-toxing. It’s a good idea to follow these steps post the Euro’s celebrations, just to help your body fully recover! You’ll improve your physical and mental wellbeing, perhaps lose a bit of weight and make yourself feel better very quickly!
If you’re looking for personal training in East London, get in touch!
At AdMac Fitness we’re not about fads, fashions and short term fixes. We want you to succeed properly over the long term, so with our help and advice you can get your fitness back on track! If you’d like us to help you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!