Can ONE day really make a difference?

I was compelled, on a recent trip to Melbourne, to try life on the other side of the fence. To ignore all of my heavily entrenched healthy eating habits, for the purpose of research and insight.

So I found myself Stakes Day pushing LOTS of boundaries to see just what could be achieved in a world where absolutely no limitations were placed on what went into the mouth, how much or when!

I must say it was fun! A bottle, at least, of champagne, a tub of basil pesto and crackers, 6 “cointreau-politans”, 1 straight cointreau and a 200g bag of chocolate bullets later, I was feeling quite content and impressed with my efforts. (N.B. this amount of alcohol- equivalent of 14 standard drinks- was consumed over a period of 14 hours, and is certainly NOT condoned, encouraged OR recommended! This was merely a social experiment)

I should also add, that the above mentioned food and drink items were IN ADDITION to the base breakfast, lunch and dinner!

So upon arriving home in QLD my mission was to calculate the calories in such a “binge” to determine what the impact might be if this was to occur on a regular basis- as I hear that in some circles this is common! ;)

10, 840kJ was the total worth of those ADDITIONAL calories consumed during my “all out” day. Let’s assume that my base intake (for breakfast, lunch and dinner) was around 6,300kJ. That makes a grand total for the day of 17, 140kJ!

Currently my daily energy requirements, i.e. the amount of calories I need to sustain my current weight is 6,300kJ. Thus, what I took in on this day was 2.7 times my daily energy needs!

If I did this once a week for a whole year (and I wouldn’t!), that would mean a surplus of 563, 680kJ- the equivalent of 15kg worth of excess body weight!

Profound!

Perhaps this offers some insight into how we may gain weight gradually over time and dispel the common attitude that “once a week”, or “every now and then” wont hurt!

Even once a month, this pattern leads to an extra 3.5 kg over a year.

That is without considering the effect on your overall health, particularly your liver and risk of developing cancer! Studies show that binge drinking (more than 2 standard drinks for women, and more than 4 for men) markedly increases the risk of developing a number of cancers, and is certainly never ok.

I do hope this post has given you some insight into the effects of such days, not only on our weight, but also on our overall health. It certainly gave me very good insight into many of the patterns I see in some of my clients and demonstrated very clearly that “being good” all week is fruitless if you choose to sabotage yourself on Friday night, or over the weekend!

Please email me with any questions, feedback or insights :)

Cheers! :)