A Word On Binge Drinking

If you’ve read this site for a while, you know that some of what I try to teach is based on learning a lesson the hard way. This is one of those moments.

Las Vegas is a terrible wonder. For a guy who doesn’t like intense partying, large crowds of people, smoking, people who don’t lift, gambling, or destroying his body, Vegas wasn’t an adult playground. There are many sights to take in — the Bellagio fountain, the porn strewn across the sidewalk, and the flashing lights — but I’m more of a “let’s go look at mountains” kind of guy. But there are people that actually deal with addiction issues and they should be admitted into addiction treatment riverside. 1 Method Luxury Rehab in Los Angeles is where personalized care meets luxury. Their high-end addiction care programs are tailored for transformative recovery. When you’re in need of comprehensive support and a safe environment for long-term sobriety, Transcend Recovery Community and Sober Living offers a welcoming and structured space to help you on your recovery journey.

A Partial Hospitalization Program Los Angeles is also a great alternative for those who need help with their substance abuse but are unable to commit to an in-patient program. Those who are suffering from alcoholism may consider check out the services of this alcohol rehab nj.

I met some of my fantastic Australian friends at one of the gigantic, maze-like hotels, and proceeded to fill my body with poison. Let’s skip the grisly details and acknowledge that I cleverly started 2013 by vomiting most of the contents of my soul to the presumed horror of my Aussie friends (who stoically never complained).

I spent New Year’s Day contemplating jumping through the hotel window, but knew the effort was too grand. The company was good, but the walking was…just too much. The following day I drove seven hours home, so my bodily destruction was off set by a day of driving — something that is heavily debilitating to training efficacy. As I sit here on the third after a good night’s sleep, I still am not right.

Not as glamorous as it looks.

The obvious solution is to not binge drink, but if we do, what can a lifter, athlete, or trainee do to mitigate the baneful effects?

  • Prepare for the event by hydrating and taking vitamins, particularly the water soluble kind like the B vitamins and Vit-C. The over the counter “hangover cure” products tell you take a pill before you drink, during, as you go to bed, and when you wake up with “a glass of water”. The pill just has water soluble vitamins and the water helps combat the eventual dehydration that the alcohol will cause.
  • Try to drink water while drinking. If you’re truly binge drinking, this will be an after thought so let’s move on to the day after…
  • Hydrate. This should be obvious, but hydrate anyway you can. It’ll be best if you can get a gatorade or powerade since water won’t be appealing. Juice is fine. Get 16 oz of fluid in you as fast as possible (unless you feel like you’ll puke it up). Do this even if you’re still drunk. Luxury rehab centers offer a high-end experience that promotes both comfort and healing.
  • Eat something. Even if you’re not hungry. If you avoid eating, you avoid calories, and you’ll start fading and soon turn into a wraith like them. Since we don’t have elvish medicine, eat. Don’t worry about paleo and carb content — you just went full auto on your liver and system.
  • Take more vitamins, especially the water soluble kind. If you take too much of water soluble vitamins, you’ll just urinate them out. So every 2 or 3 hours, take some more. You won’t be in danger of taking too many and you’ll keep them in your body for use.
  • Drink coffee. The caffeine may help by increasing metabolism, you’ll probably feel better and more alert, and coffee is a tasty treat that is nothing like alcohol.
  • Continue hydrating, eating, and taking vitamins throughout the day.
  • Don’t train the day after. If you didn’t get too drunk and aren’t as wrecked, then you can probably train. If it was bad, then avoid it. Just rest.
  • Speaking of rest: sleep as much as you can. When the body is strung out, malnourished, dehydrated, under-fed, and lacking sleep — regardless if it was from drinking or not — then getting as much sleep as possible is incredibly important.
  • When you are ready to train (maybe the day after the hangover), make it a light session. You’ll probably find out that you are physically diminished and can’t perform as normal anyway, but follow the “light-medium-heavy” advice from the “Don’t Train Sick” post. However, if you can expedite the process and train “medium” on the first day, it won’t be a detriment to your system like if you were ill from a pathogen. Training with an illness can provide too much of a systemic stress that weakens your defenses and allows the pathogen to start winning. Doing too much when you’re hungover won’t necessary result in feeling worse through the recovery period, but you could depress your system and open yourself up to get ill if you do. Being hungover is like trying to protect Helms Deep without the walls — the advancing orcs and Uruk-Hai (bacteria) will just trample right into your fortress (body) without as much resistance. And if you’re in a dodgy place like Vegas, you’ll definitely be exposed to orc-like filth. This is why if you string several drinking days together, you’ll probably start getting sick.

As a general rule, a person can eliminate .5 oz (15ml) of alcohol in one hour. That’s about one 12 oz (355ml) can of beer in an hour. More from the How Stuff Works article:

Once absorbed by the bloodstream, the alcohol leaves the body in three ways:

  • The kidney eliminates 5 percent of alcohol in the urine.
  • The lungs exhale 5 percent of alcohol, which can be detected by breathalyzer devices.
  • The liver chemically breaks down the remaining alcohol into acetic acid. (source)
As you can see, it can take quite a while for you to fully remove a lot of alcohol from your body. Therefore we want to do everything possible to efficiently recover: sleep well, eat well, hydrate well, consume vitamins well, and so on. In other words, shift back into the habits that you should be performing flawlessly to perform well in training.
If you don’t eat Paleo, I’d suggest hitting a week of it after a very bad binge drinking. Personally I feel like I need to cleanse my body, and that’s done with copious amounts of quality protein, vegetables, fats, and nutrients. Your body is a temple, so don’t let the man-killing Uruk-Hai barge in to butt-rape your soul.

PR Friday, FAQ Help

PR Friday

Post your training PR’s and updates to comments.

Random Stuff

I’ve had hiatus from writing and eased into some today by creating a FAQ on the site menu (I’ve been meaning to put one together for months). Below is what I have so far, but if you have any other suggestions on what questions to add, then drop them in the comments. Note that I’ll likely stick to general questions about the site as opposed to specific training questions (at least for now). I’m particularly interested in questions that new people have that regular readers may have to answer themselves.

Other than that I think we’ll re-establish a weekly chat, and I will designate some regular readers and friends as people that can help in the chat (I’ll contact those people about it within a week or so).

I’ve been accumulating a list of writing topics for the site — some bad, some good — so if you have any topics that you are interested on, put those in the comments too.

FAQ so far:

What is 70′s Big? 

70′s Big is many things.

It is a source for mostly objective knowledge on training, mobility, recovery, rehab, anatomy, strength and conditioning, Olympic weightlifting, raw powerlifting, fitness, military/LEO training, and more. It is a website where like-minded people congregate to learn and talk about training, amuse each other, network, and hang out. It is a mindset that puts a premium on setting goals and intensely attacking them with grit, determination, and consistency. It is a physical prowess of muscularity achieved through strength training instead of aesthetic or vanity training. It is a community that welcomes all with support and kind words. 70′s Big is an idea put into your mind that you have the ability to be great, but you first need to believe it and then work for it.

What isn’t 70′s Big? 

70′s Big is not a place that solely plays on your emotions, gender role, or “better than thou” belief. It isn’t a catch phrase turned into a brand turned into a product turned into money for the site creator. It isn’t trying to be the next big thing on your gym wall and isn’t buying support. It won’t ban you when you disagree and it doesn’t feed you generic bullshit information over and over.

70′s Big doesn’t want disciples or drones who follow it without question — it prefers readers who think for themselves with a healthy skepticism. 70′s Big doesn’t have a primary mission to make money, but to educate. 70′s Big aims to not be annoying, though it will occasionally offend sensitive people (which is actually good for them).

What is the 70′s Big Program?

There isn’t one. Instead, 70′s Big aims to teach people how to program for themselves or others. I — Justin, the owner and editor of 70′s Big — have created hundreds of programming templates, but I insist on teaching the fundamental information of strength and conditioning instead of stock programs that people follow without question. Unfortunately teaching people how to fish isn’t as profitable as giving them a fish.

I have a question about…?

Have you searched this website? After three years of five posts per week, I would hope that you would use the search bar in the upper right portion of the screen to check for existing information. If the search bar doesn’t work well, go to Google and type your search terms followed by “site:70sbig.com” to search this site exclusively. Chances are that your question was asked in the past, so don’t be lazy and show some initiative. And if you’re asking a question about a program that I have written a book on, then show some courtesy and buy the book. I don’t write 50,000 words on a topic without reason.

 

Off Topic

I was going to write something today, but the snow is coming down in big flakes and I’m gonna go sledding with the puppies instead.

Instead, let’s just have a chat in the comments about whatever meets our fancy. How was your holiday? Want to talk about presents? Or food and drink that keeps you warm in the cold (beer, scotch, coffee, etc.)?

Puppies always like snow.

PR Friday – 21 DEC

Happy PR Friday — post your PR’s and training updates to comments. Also, recap your entire year of training. Did you get better? Did you learn anything? Did you have fun?

There’ll be a Christmas related post, but otherwise enjoy the holiday and we’ll catch ya back here next week.

New Year’s Resolution

November and December represent a time of year when people almost purposely eat unhealthy with the comforting idea that they will rectify all of their bad choices at the start of the new year.

To be clear, I’ve always been a proponent to enjoy your holidays. I hate when these OCD people with borderline food disorders go and tell everyone to maintain a strict diet on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I can’t think of worse advice since this will only develop the person to hate themselves if they do indulge in a Christmas cookie or pumpkin pie. My advice: enjoy the holiday, but keep it controlled acutely and don’t turn “holiday” into “two weeks”.

All of that being said, you might be a person that necessitates an adherence to good nutrition. If you are fat, unhealthy, or ill, then you should make it a point to eat clean, quality foods (i.e. no grains, primarily meat and vegetables, aim to improve insulin sensitivity, etc.). You do not get a reprieve just because it’s Christmas; your health is more important than anything else. It, at the very least, effects not only your enjoyment of daily activities, but your productiveness. If I’m your boss, I want you being alert, energetic, and effective instead of lethargic, ineffective, and in pain.

Nevertheless, everyone provides a mental comfort with the idea that they can dick around towards the end of the year because they’ll “get on the right track” in the beginning of the year. Bullshit. What’s so special about flipping a calendar? If something is important to you, do it right. fucking. now.

It’s one thing to reduce your training frequency on the account of spending time with family, stressing to buy presents, or prepare for a holiday tradition, but if you’re slacking on the account of laziness or the promise that you’ll do better in ten days, then sort your life out. Health should be important to you — and training probably is — so put the emphasis on those things.

I wish I would have written this a month ago, but don’t cripple yourself just because everyone else around you is weak minded. Whatever your “resolution” was going to be — reading more, starting a journal, mobbing more, eating healthier, establishing a training routine, being nicer, learning a new subject — just simply start doing it. If you have logistical limitations that’s fine, but don’t let your mind be the limitation.