My Birthday (Food) Hangover

hang·o·ver   
–noun
1.the disagreeable physical aftereffects of excess

Okay...as some of you know, yesterday was my birthday. Two weeks ago now, I planned lunch out with a friend and happy hour after work with some girlfriends. I never made a conscious decision to take the entire day off from "dieting" though until I woke up yesterday morning. The day did not start on a good note. I woke up too tired to work out and decided I'd let myself sleep in...after all, you only have one birthday a year right? In the shower that morning, I suddenly thought...hmmmm....a Starbucks coffee and one of their old-fashioned doughnuts (my favorite) would just start the day off perfectly. Unfortunately, I had such a stomach ache by the time I was near a Starbucks that I skipped it. Fate?!

So lunchtime rolls around and my friend asks where I want to go - "anywhere" she says..."my treat". Well, if I'm going to cheat, I might as well go for the gold...so I choose Teepee...my favorite Mexican restaurant. I'm so hungry from missing breakfast because of my tummy ache that I proceed to eat half the bowl of chips slathered in their amazing salsa. I order two sour cream enchiladas and rice. Back in the day...before I was eating healthy, I often thought that two of these babies was just too much. I'd be full all afternoon...like miserably full. But I ordered two anyway telling myself that I would not get to eat this again for a VERY LONG TIME. I guess I am a glutton for punishment...what can I say? By the time we get back to the office, true to past experience, I am miserably full. So full that when happy hour rolls around at 3:30, the thought of having a drink is not even pleasant in the least.

I get to happy hour and order a raspberry lambic, one of my favorite beverages. It's kind of like a cross between a beer and red wine - malt liquor. My girlfriends order a pub board that has soft pretzels, cheese, nuts, etc. I have to try one piece of the pretzel with a little cheese...it looks so good. I am still full (although I'm not miserable at this point). Then I order another raspberry lambic. All in all, happy hour is not a disaster. Like it really matters at this point anyway. I probably ingested 2,000 calories (or more?!) at lunch.

After happy hour I pick up two thin crust gourmet pizzas for my birthday dinner with my family. And 9 mini Tammie Coe cupcakes (my absolute fav). I eat a piece and a half of the margherita pizza (it was cut really small though). Then I have one mini cupcake and a couple of bites of my son's. Oh, and some of my dad's frosting. He scooped most of it off - just wrong.

All day yesterday and last night I felt bloated and gross. I woke up this morning still feeling that way. If there is such a thing as a food hangover, I definitely had one. I haven't worked out yet today but hope I will muster up the energy to walk on my treadmill tonight. You see, I'm not a morning person AT ALL and 5:30 a.m. is just tough for me...although God knows I really try. I had an internal tug-of-war this morning about whether to weigh myself or to just wait a day or two when I've had the chance to try to minimize some of the damage. I'm sure you already know what I did. Yep, I weighed myself anyway...couldn't help it. Now for some strange and totally unrealistic reason I half expected the scale to go up like 4 lbs. It went up 1 since yesterday morning.

I hope I learned a lesson here. Gluttony is one of the deadly sins for a reason. And if that's not enough, it's just not worth feeling yucky for a day and a half.