Monday morning bloat after a big night of watching football and eating chips, pizza, and chicken wings is an all too common scenario. Fortunately this is the most benign kind of bloating it is just your penalty for loading up on carbs and sodium the day before. Your bloated body is a results of increased sodium causing water retention in combination with hyper-saturation of your muscle glycogen stores (i.e. your muscle sugar stores). Dealing with the increased sodium that is causing water retention is simple. Don’t do anything drastic with your sodium intake over the next day or so; your body is very good at regulating and balancing levels of electrolytes like sodium. Drink lots of water and let your body do its job. The extra sodium and water that it is causing you to hold will be flushed out in no time.
[see:
5 Ways to Curb Your Salt Intake >>>]
The hyper-saturation of your muscle glycogen that you are feeing post binge is due to an unconventional carbohydrate loading. While endurance athletes and bodybuilders usually take several days to carb load, research shows that hyper-saturation of your muscle glycogen stores can occur in 24 hour period. This can make you feel bloated because your body stores multiple water molecules with each sugar molecule inside your muscles. To accelerate the restoration of your muscle glycogen stores back to normal levels eat a carbohydrate reduced diet on your post binge day. You do not need to take drastic steps to eliminate all carbohydrates in your diet that day but foregoing food with a high carbohydrates density like breads, rice, pasta, potatoes, and other grains for more green vegetables and protein will force your body to rely more on its carbohydrates stores for energy. This will get rid of the bloat and get you feeling back to normal faster.
