Why Drinking and Smoking is Not Good for You

Last night was my holiday party. All the trainers from work got together and we went to Friday's for drinks and appetizers. It was really nice. We exchanged gifts and spent the entire time laughing. I had two glasses of wine, smoked a couple of cigarettes (I reserve smoking for social reasons), and barely ate (one mozzarella stick and a sliver of a chicken quesadilla). By the time I got home and finally went to bed, it was 2:30 in the morning.

I finally made it out of bed at 10:45, which gave me an adequate amount of sleep. But I have to say, that I felt crappy. My throat was sore and my voice was raspy. My head ached a bit and so did my stomach. Even though I wasn't a hundred percent, I decided to go to the gym. Why don't I listen to myself? I only lasted on the elliptical machine for 16 minutes working out at a slower pace than I normally do. Not only that, but my heart rate was through the roof and I got another stomach-ache. I then jumped on the treadmill and walked at 2.5 miles per hour with an incline of 3% for 22 minutes. Normally, I'm on the treadmill walking at a 3.5% incline and at a pace of 4 miles per hour.

All the while, I kept on thinking on how I sabotaged my workout because of the night before. Today was supposed to be the day that I worked out longer because I don't have to work tonight. Instead, I worked out a total of 38 minutes and burned 287 calories as supposed to the 500+ I normally burn. I'm quite disappointed in myself. Then again, how often do I get together with friends and have so much fun? I didn't over drink. I had two glasses of wine, not a full bottle. I should have stayed away from the cigarettes. In fact, smoking is not appetizing to me anymore. I guess I did it out of habit.

I've been noticing that stuff I like having has not been so appealing to me lately. I'm not liking my coffee. At first, I thought it was the flavored creamer I was using. I went out and bought two different flavors, but they don't taste good either. Wine is also not tasting as good as I usually find it to be. Actually, a small glass of wine is fine, but if I try for more it bothers me, which it did last night.

You could say that my body is sending me big signals. I need to start paying attention to what my body wants in order to balance out my energy. When I say to myself that I only want one glass of wine, I should listen. I suffered unnecessarily at the gym because I ignored the signals my body was sending. But as I always try to do, I learned from this. Now I know what to do and not do when I'm out celebrating.