Everything you need to know to workout the day after a night out!
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Unless you are like the motivational powerhouse Lewis Howes (see what I did there?) and don’t touch alcohol, there is about 100% chance you’ve been in this scenario:
It started with happy hour, a few turned into many, and when the tequila is starting to pour, you begin to realise you might not be able to make that run or workout you had planned the following day. The day after drinking workout (or the DAD workout for short) has challenged us all.
We’ve all been there, but fear not! We’ve been far and wide in search of nutrition, foods and steps you can take to get you to lace up those shoes, and join Lewis in the gym next weekend! Before we reveal the 9 Natural hangover cures that really work, here are a few facts you need to know.
Hangover fact: one of the best ways to get rid of a hangover is actually to move your body and sweat the toxins out! In an article on Active.com about running with a hangover, Sarah Wassner Flynn (@athletemoms) explains that getting your blood pumping helps flush out the toxins in the system.
“Running or any exercise helps regulate the cytochromes within your cells” Dr. Gina Sirchio, a Chicago-based physician whose client list includes marathoners and ultra-runners, told Sarah. When cytochromes are regulated, aerobic energy production is accelerated Sarah explains.
Alcohol is always going to take its toll on the body
No matter what pre-emptive methods we take, alcohol is always going to take its toll on our bodies. I’m a huge fan of anything containing tequila but the fact still remains that alcohol is a neurotoxin. Putting a toxin into our body is always going to have some effects.
In fact, according to the American College of Sports Medicine, everything from your aerobic power to your psychomotor skills are adversely affected by five or more alcoholic beverages in one night, which can affect brain and body activities for up to three days.
BUT, We are going to figure out together how to be tactical and minimise these effects to get the best of both worlds – Tequila AND Crossfit, Cosmo AND Running!
Drinking tactics to reduce hangover
To master the art of avoiding hangovers we need to look at how you drink as well. We all know that the best way to avoid a hangover is to drink less but we aren’t here for that.
We want to know how we can knock’em down, dance aggressively with no respect for other people’s personal space and chat to random people in a club’s bathroom and still be able to hold the commitment we set ourselves for working out the next day.
The thing is, we can be tactical about how we put this toxin in our body to maximise the fun and minimise the bad effects.
Not all Spirits are created equal
It turns out that in order to avoid hangovers, it really matters what type of alcohol you decide to drink. Why you ask?
When ethanol (alcohol) is produced by sugar-fermenting yeasts, side products called congeners are formed as well (5).
Congeners are toxic chemicals, other than ethanol itself, formed in small amounts when alcohol is produced. Well known congeners include methanol, isopentanol and acetone (6, 7).
Drinks with high amounts of congeners increase the intensity of hangovers compared to the ones that have low amount of congeners. Makes sense right? The fewer toxic chemicals we put in our body, the less the reaction becomes. Powerful stuff.
Drinks that are high in congeners include:
- Cognac
- Whiskey
- Red Wine
- Dark Tequila
- Dark Rum
Bourbon whiskey is exceptionally high in congeners. Unfortunately for me, the tequila lover, I should actively try to avoid certain types tequila if I want to be able to #JoinLewis.
On the other hand, colorless drinks like vodka, gin and rum, contain low levels of congeners. In fact, vodka almost doesn’t contain any congeners at all! (5).
For all you beer lovers out there, alcohol specialist Dr. Thomas Stuttaford explained the relationship with congeners and beer in an article with Men’s Health:
“The congeners are the things that give beer its taste, and there are more of them in dark beers, hence their superior flavour.”
This means that a light lager will be a better option than a dark stout
Try not to mix it up too much
If you start blending dark liquors, such as mixing red wine with brandy, you’ll be ingesting different varieties of congeners from both, setting yourself up for a worse hangover than if you’d stuck with only one type of spirit.
Conclusion: When you have a workout the next day, stay away from dark liquors like whiskey and cognac and opt for clear alcoholic drinks like vodka and gin instead. With beer, keep away from dark beer and opt for lager and ‘lighter’ beers instead.
Now that you are armed with what to drink and not to drink, let’s dive into the 9 natural hangover cures that work!
1. Pears!
There is no shortage of alleged hangover cures, but now science is actually backing one up.
How someone got the idea for this experiment is beyond me but I’m very thankful that they did!
Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (“CSIRO”), announced last month on its blog that in its research with Horticulture Innovation Australia, it made an unlikely discovery.
Pears can lower alcohol levels, preventing hangovers before they even start.
If consumed in advance of the alcohol, pears, and specifically Korean pear juice, the researchers say, “significantly reduced” hangover symptoms compared to a placebo drink.
The biggest impact was seen in the subjects’ ability to concentrate, says Professor Manny Noakes, the project’s lead researcher.
It works, Noakes explained, because the pears affect the enzymes involved in alcohol metabolism, helping the body metabolize and eliminate alcohol or even inhibit its absorption. “In particular, reductions were seen in blood acetaldehyde levels, the toxic metabolic thought to be responsible for hangover symptoms,” says Noakes.
These were just preliminary studies however and a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on the topic still needs to be done. But in the meantime, there is no harm in trying this out.
Conclusion: Try to keep a stock of Korean pear juice in fridge or nearby and drink up before going out.
2. Throw the alarm clock out of the room
“Independent of any other effect alcohol might have, sleep disruption causes you to feel worse the next day and causes cognitive disruption the next day as well.” says Gantt Galloway, Senior Scientist in the Addiction & Pharmacology Research Laboratory at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute.
I think this is common knowledge but it’s still important to mention. When you are sleeping, the liver is working overtime to process and get rid of the alcohol in your bloodstream. It’s important work and we shouldn’t interrupt it by forcing an early morning workout. Toss out the alarm clock and let your body wake up naturally if it’s an option.
Conclusion: Let your body wake up naturally and don’t try to force an early morning workout.
3. Stretch
Some say doing yoga poses and stretching might actually help with easing the hangover symptoms. Although there is no scientific evidence for this yet, Ashtanga yoga has long been viewed as a way to flush the body through with blood and oxygen, ultimately detoxifying the body.
Or as Scott Harig, who teaches yoga at Manhattan’s Pure Yoga said in an interview with Scott Christian at Esquire; “think of it like twisting a rag to get the water out of it, yoga helps get out the toxins and increase blood flow.”
If you are dead serious about getting the most out of a DAD workout, It might be something worth experimenting with, just watch out for the headstand. That’s definitely not a good idea.
How about doing a few poses as soon as you feel like it or just include them in your warm up?
Here are 7 Ashtanga yoga poses from Scott Christian (@scottchristian1) and Scott Harig specifically intended for hangovers that you can try out.
4. B vitamins before and during drinking
Now, here is a chance to take your hangover recovery game to the next level. Be crazy tactical and always have B vitamins on standby in case you go ahead and turn up. Alcohol depletes B vitamins from your system, which can make you feel worse the next day.
These vitamins are essential to mental and emotional well being.
Taking a 50 milligram B complex vitamin before you start drinking and another one while you’re drinking is a game changer to lessen your hangover in the morning.
Pro tip: Try adding peanut butter to the DAD breakfast – it will give you a one-two punch of detoxifying B vitamins and protein.
5. Add Ginger to the DAD (Day After Drinking) morning
Anyone who has ever soothed an upset stomach with a glass of ginger ale knows that ginger is a helpful digestive. The ginger root contains chemicals called gingerols and shogaols.
When using ginger to treat upset stomach, these chemicals relax the intestinal tract, preventing motion sickness and relieving the nausea that often accompanies a good old fashioned hangover.
I find it best to make a turmeric and ginger tea to sip as the morning winds on but the ultra tough that are still feeling a bit adventurous and want to hold on to some of the epic atmosphere of the night before can also take a shot of pressed ginger. It’s incredibly healthy but beware, it’s heavily concentrated and not for the faint hearted.
Pro tip: Try adding turmeric as well for detoxifying the liver. I drink ginger & turmeric tea because of its incredible health benefits. It also helps relieve muscle and joint pain after workouts. Check out this article about the incredible benefits of turmeric for athletes
6. Have a tablespoon of olive oil
This may sound a little gross, but many Mediterranean cultures swear by this hangover prevention technique. Basically, it’s the same principle as eating fatty food before drinking – the fat in the olive oil will limit your body’s absorption of alcohol.
So if you can stomach it, swallow a tablespoon of olive oil before you head out for the night
Pro tip: Alternatively, you can increase your intake of olive oil less directly by dipping some crusty bread into it, or drizzling it over a salad.
7. Bananas!
One fruit (aside from Korean pear juice) that deserves its own bullet point is the banana—especially if you’ve (yikes!) thrown up. It’s the obvious choice to get potassium into your system fast, plus bananas are gentle on the stomach. What’s more: they’ll provide necessarily electrolytes lost during heaving drinking.
8. Honey
Honey helps the body break down alcohol
Fun fact: According to the Smithsonian, modern archeologists, excavating ancient Egyptian tombs, have often found something unexpected amongst the tombs’ artifacts: pots of honey, thousands of years old, and yet still preserved. Apparently honey doesn’t spoil!
Anyway, because of its antioxidant properties, honey neutralizes the toxins created by consuming alcohol.
Dr. John Emsley, UK Popular Science writer and chemistry academic, claims the natural fructose in honey helps the body rapidly metabolize alcohol.
According to Dr. Emsley, “the fructose in honey is an essential compound that helps the body break down alcohol into harmless by-products.” The body uses the fructose found in honey to convert the acetaldehyde made during alcohol metabolism into acetic acid, a substance that is “burned up naturally by the body.”
Pro tip: Add a teaspoon of honey to that ginger turmeric tea you just made!
9. Eat a high protein meal
Ever wondered why you crave a generous plate of bacon and eggs for breakfast the morning after a big night out?
I always thought that I was craving that greasy bacon and eggs because of the grease and fat but it turns out that it’s also because of the protein.
In the body, proteins are broken down into individual amino acids – the substance that helps detoxify your liver and, in turn, assists your recovery.
To ingest protein before knocking back the tequila will also help because it slows the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream which lowers the pressure we put on the liver.
Pro tip: If you didn’t it a high protein meal before drinking, pick up a bag of cashews or other form of nuts. From a handful, or about 18 cashews you should get between 4 to 5 grams of protein, plus they are also very high on fiber!
The Workout itself:
Alright, you’ve woken up without an alarm clock, did all the preparation yesterday, are sipping on turmeric and ginger tea with a tablespoon of honey and are about to put on your yoga pants to do some serious hangover stretching.
You’re doing great and you deserve to pat yourself on the back. It’s not easy to be a responsible athlete by day and party lion by night.
Now before you work out, try to get in a good meal about an hour before the workout. Some oats, nuts, fruits and berries are good for replacing the energy you lost through your vocal chords while you were trying to keep up a conversation over the usually incredibly loud music last night.
During the workout
Try to stay away from high intensity interval training and hot yoga. We have to accept that we’re probably not going to be setting any personal records today.
Opt for stable cardio or scaling back on reps and weights because it will be easier to overexert yourself, your body is still trying to get rid of the toxic goodness you drank yesterday and make sure you DRINK WATER! After before and during every exercise, set and preferably rep.
Pro tip: Try adding bits of oranges to your water bottle. It tastes nice and gets you a little extra vitamin C kick.
Conclusion:
Hopefully you are now armed with all the information you need to become the hangover avoidance master you know you can be. It’s time for you stop bowing down to the tequila gods, offering your tribute to them through the porcelain portal and giving up on your hopes of #JoinLewis in the gym on the weekend.
Enjoy life, go out with friends but be tactical so you are able to keep your fitness schedule.
Need a motivational story? Kindal Boyle ran 6 miles after a night flowing with wine, sugar and ice cream while training for a half marathon.
Did you manage to #JoinLewis? Have more tips or hacks? Let us know on Twitter by using the hashtag #JoinLewis or talk to us @TurmericSports!