OMG! Don't exercise on a full stomach

I'm visiting relatives in Houston, Texas for the holidays and it seems everything in Texas is big, big, big.  Cars are big, houses are big and food portions are BIG.  And so, I'm ashamed to say that confronted with a land of such boundless plenty, I failed to control myself again and went on a crazed food binge.

The day started out hopeful, I was munching on a healthy and yummy apple as my husband and I were heading out in the morning to my sister-in-law's house to spend the day with her family (she has three of the cutest little girls).    But then I got to her house, and I felt so hungry.  The big honey crisp apple was long forgotten and all that was left was thunderous grumbles in my tummy and a definite whiff of cupcakes in the air.  And low and behold a huge cupcake with creamy strawberry frosty was sitting on the dining room table.  The kids had made it for me!  How could I break their little hearts and forsake their efforts; so I had to eat it, didn't I?  So down went about 500 calories. Then my eyes caught sight of a bag of fresh cheese bagels; and you know, I just can't resist bread. So down went another 400 calories.  

The rest of the day was a blur of one feast after another.  First, we had lunch at a super delicious Vietnamese shop that served up the most flavourful chargrilled pork sandwiches.  The pork had the perfect balance of lean meat and fat to make the meat heavenly tender.

Vietnamese chargrilled pork sandwich, delicious!

Then in the afternoon (which was really only 1 hr after lunch), we went to a big block party.  Literally, the entire block was cordoned off with police patrolling the premises to keep out loiterers.  The party was like something out of Animal House but G-rated.  There was artificial snow that transformed the front yard into a winter wonderland (it was 78 degrees that day!) where countless little kids high on sugar rushes were screaming and squealing as they pounded each other with snowballs and wheezed down dangerously in snow tubes.   There were two pens with mechanical rodeos that were flinging more squealing kids off left and right; live reindeers roaming around in pens; a Santa Claus in cowboy boots and hat; and a real cowboy on stilts that made kids jump through his lasso (plain weird!).  

But most of all there was food!  There was a mobile food truck serving out platters of free burgers and fries.  Two huge chocolate fondue fountains (one milk, the other white chocolate) accompanied with a buffet of fruits and ahhhh so many bad things.  Another buffet of savoury finger foods next to the fondue buffet, I suppose the host wanted to make sure his guests got a "balanced" meal of both sweet and savoury.  A trolley serving 4 flavors of Italian ices close to another station that was turning out hot, greasy and powered-sugary funnel cakes!  But most of all, there were trays after trays after trays after trays of chocolate truffles and bonbons.  I thought I walked into a Godiva factory!  But one that allowed visitors to eat for free! And I certainly didn't pass up the chance.  

I gorged myself with nearly everything in sight: hamburgers, fries, chocolate fondue, finger foods, and I descended on the unsuspecting trays of chocolate truffles like a starved pterodactyl.  I had to try every flavour, then I had to retry everything again to make sure I didn't miss any flavour and then again just to be doubly sure.

Then we went to another party that featured another table laden with a buffet of food.  At this point, you would think that it's  physically impossible to fit anything more into my stomach, but the strength of willpower and the elasticity of the human stomach can shock you.  Too bad my willpower was in gorging myself to death.  I won't go into the gory details but lets just say that it involved lots of thick sausages, meatballs, sweet potato casserole, raviolis the size of saucers and generous portions of pecan pie blanketed in sweet gooey molasses (they sure know how to spoon out the hospitality in the South!).  

When I finally rolled myself home my conscience finally kicked in.  (Took it long enough!)  My guilty conscience thought to repent for all the tasty sins I committed that day by doing some hardcore aerobics workout.  And like a warrior, I strapped on my heart rate monitor and readied myself to do battle with Zumba Cardio.  I gave it my all.  I threw myself into it; I've never shook my booty soo hard or so high before, I nearly dislocated my hips.  My heart rate was sky-rocketing; 60%, 70%, 80% and then bam!  It all came tumbling down.  I felt nauseated; I was going to throw up; I couldn't breathe, the heart rate monitor felt like it was cutting off my circulation and air supply. My head was dizzy.  I paused the video.  I took a sip of water and I tried to shake it off.  I restarted the video and started to samba again like there was no tomorrow, but, "Ohhhh, I'm going to throw up!"  I was literally one burp away from vomiting all over my mother-in-law's plush-carpeted living room.  

I crashed, I couldn't go on any more; it was too much for my body.  My body was simply overloaded by the mountain of food, the exertion, and the added huge intake of water and air due to the exercise.  I ended up doing only 33 minutes out of 45 minutes of the Zumba video.    

But the good news was that I performed one of my best exercises ever.  My average heart rate was 149, the highest ever!  In the 33 minutes of doing Zumba I ended up burning 486 calories, which is close to being 15 calories per minute.  That means that if I had stuck with the entire video, I could have burned over 700 calories, a record in my books.  

But, what should be the take home lessons from today.  First, DON'T over-eat, (which I had already stated in another post.  I got to start listening to my own advice!)  Second, should you "accidentally" over-eat, never EVER combine it with hard exercise; it will only lead to sickness or disaster.

The only trouble now is remembering these lessons tomorrow when after a long, nice sleep I wake up feeling hungry all over again...sigh