How to kill a hangover

If morning (or perhaps afternoon) rolls around and your head is pounding, your mouth tastes like a garbage dump and your stomach is rolling as if you were on a boat in the middle of a storm, Congratulations, you have a hangover! At this point you have a couple of options:

1. Stay still. Don't move an inch! The hangover may subside on its own. (This is super unlikely.)
2. Get up and out of bed and actively fight this hangover. Helmets and gloves style, you will take this hangover DOWN! (Also unlikely, depending on hangover severity.)

If you choose option one, good on ya - I wish you the best of luck. Please note that you may turn to option 2 at any time, when you realize that you still feel terrible.

First of all, if you are out partying and have the sense of mind to do some forward thinking, go order a glass of water and then three more. If you skipped dinner and had beers instead, be kind to yourself and grab a slice or two of pizza or make a pot of Kraft dinner. You will thank yourself in the morning.

Now, let's talk business! The following steps are an almost maybe sure-fire way to kill that nasty hangover.

1. Advil. Take 3 before opening up your eyes. Ideally, you should sleep with a bottle under your pillow to facilitate this step.
2. Get your hands on some coffee. If you come across a bottle of Bailey's, you should definitely incorporate it. Total twofer - caffeine and hair of the dog.
3. A hot shower will probably make you feel slightly more human. If you can't stand long enough to make that happen, at least wash your face and brush your teeth - you probably did neither before going to bed and you probably are disgusting.
4. Time to eat. McDonald's breakfast - GO! If it's past the sacred McDs breakfast hour, fear not, you have options - try Dennys. If you are a slug and have slept most of the day away, feel free to have lunch instead. Either way, get something carby and greasy and bacony in your stomach and try not to regurgitate it.
5. Depending on your level of hungoverness, you now should either go do something active or hit the couch super hard. Fresh air and keeping busy will make the hangover feel less awful. If, however, it hurts to move, you should camp out on the couch. It is imperative you set yourself up correctly here - you MUST be wearing sweatpants, have a blanket handy, have snacks and drinks at your immediate disposal and have the blinds shut tight. You are looking for a cave feel here. I would recommend putting your phone on silent. If you lost your phone last night, ever the better.
6. Drink a diet root beer.

If you are still feeling terrible, it probably means you had a really good time last night, and you will just have to wait this one out. It should be noted that during steps 1 through 6 you should drink at least your body weight in water. Also remember, misery loves company. Surrounding yourself with other hungover individuals is a good idea! There's nothing worse than suffering a hangover with someone who feels amazing... Actually, there's' a lot of things worse. If you DO have a friend at your disposal who IS feeling great, use them! Steps one through 6 can easily be facilitated by a buddy. If you can get them to bring you the Tylenol and breakfast and root beer all the better!

I sure hope these steps help. If you have any alternate suggestions, please let me know. I will test them out next weekend.

That is all.Good luck and god speed!

Backwards Day

Every once in a while, I like to throw myself a curve ball. Now, I don't play baseball so I really don't know how to throw a curve ball in real life, nor do I know if it's even possible to throw yourself one. I imagine not. Luckily it's just a saying and I need not throw any balls at all. So, this proverbial curve ball I'm speaking of today is......wait for it...... Backwards Day!

I woke up feeling a little strange (stranger than usual) and decided that was a sign that today was a good day for some self-made entertainment. I'm not 12 so I'm not wearing my clothes backwards or walking backwards all day, I'm much more sophisticated than that *blows bubbles in her milk*.

My enjoyment for shaking these things up stems back from high school when my basketball coach challenged us to do things with our left hand instead of our right. Have you ever tried opening the fridge with your left hand? It's mind boggling and easily results in injury. All the same, it's a really great challenge and I learned how to open the fridge with my left hand. It made me realize how many things we do subconsciously with little or no active thinking involved.

So I started Backward Day'ing with breakfast. Oatmeal is my daily fare, I don't even consider any other breakfast foods Monday-Friday. This morning, I added all the ingredients in the opposite order I normally do. Banana FIRST, followed by milk, cinnamon, Splenda, walnuts and oats. I was really nervous this was going to ruin breakfast, but lo and behold- same deliciousness as per usual. In the shower I shaved my legs AND THEN washed my hair. I did my makeup BEFORE brushing my teeth. No holds barred! When I got to work (I drove here in reverse of course) I made a pot of coffee without putting any coffee in the filter. Zing! How backwards is that?! OK OK... I'm just an idiot and forgot to put the coffee in. Sometimes I need a cup of coffee to get my brain working enough to figure out how to make a cup of coffee. Today was one of those days.

It's early yet, but I can tell you that I am going to do some crazy backwards things today and here's an idea - you should too! Perhaps throw some left handed tasks out there !sdrawkcab epyt ebyaM. Going grocery shopping? Do the store in the opposite order you normally do- meat aisle first, produce last! Have breakfast food for dinner, but make sure you have desert first. Check your email Top to Bottom. Get crazy, people! Happy Backwards Wednesday.

Oh and I flipped this picture horizontally so this is Backwards Shelly. A sight to behold.

17 Day Diet. Part 1

Periodically since I became a "grown up" I've had a twitch in my right eye. It comes and goes. When it's gone it never even crosses my mind. When it's here it's all I can think about. Horrifyingly, it's been hanging around on and off for the last two weeks. Ugh. I looked it up and it may be caused by: Fatigue or lack of sleep; Over consumption of caffeine; Physical or emotional stress; Anxiety or phobias; Brain damage or other neurological disorders; Eye stress associated with extended viewing of the computer screen; Epilepsy.

I thought long and hard about these potential causes and have decided I must have epilepsy. Darn it! Seriously though, I think it's from this diet that I'm on, and by diet I mean healthy eating plan. The word diet arouses too many negative connotations that I'd rather not arouse.

I jumped on KT's 17 Day Diet bandwagon as that's what I do. I am a bandwagon jumper. Whatever you're doing I want to do it do. Jumping off a bridge? Fine. I'll be there.

Let me give you a run down on the 17 Day Diet. It's a four phase diet, each phase is 17 days. If you fail the first 17 days or are not happy with the results you start from the beginning. The first phase has the most eating restrictions. You are allowed 2 servings of fruits and 2 of probiotics (eg, yogurt) before 2 PM and are allowed unlimited amounts of vegetables and lean protein (eg., chicken or turkey). The next three phases slowly reintroduce other types of fruits, vegetables, proteins and whole grains (in moderation).

I, like most people, love carbs...and by carbs I mean starchy, bready, delicious carbs- bread, oatmeal, pasta. I only eat fruits and vegetables in order to make my plate look pretty. I am on day 4 of the diet. Last night we went for dinner and I spent the entire time staring at my mom's garlic toast and at the pita situated at the far end of the table. A few times I looked to katie for permission to eat the heavenly carbs. She gave me a "go ahead, but i'm not eating any". She doesn't care if I cheat BUT cheating isn't the same if you're doing it solo. Cheating = Failing. On that note, let me tell you of my fails so far... I have had two cups of coffee with cream over the last four days and I probably have had more fruit today than I should have as I was snacking on prunes from my desk drawer to fight off starvation. That's not so bad hey?

I just read an article in Macleans written by Dr. William Davis the author of "Wheat Belly", he claims that eating wheat is making us fat. In his interview with Macleans he states that wheat is addictive and if you 'go off' wheat you will experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms for about five days. After that your cravings will subside, your calorie intake decreases and your alertness and overall health improve.

So I'm pretty sure the reasons why I feel absolutely terrible, why my eye is twitching and why I can't focus on anything (but thoughts of cheese bread) is because I'm going through withdrawal. Essentially, I am a crack addict for carbs. Fantsic, i'm sure my mom would be so proud! The good news is that as I'm on day 4 of no wheat, by tomorrow or hopefully the day after, I will be FREE from my addiction to wheat. Yippee! FREE AT LAST! *insert jolly jump with heel click here* In the meantime, I'm thinking that the coffee I had after lunch (in hopes it would make my eye twitch and raging headache go away) kind of helped. I feel capable of being less of a raging b*tch now. Hooray!

Stay tuned for more misadventures of Diet Girl, a story of the hunt for healthy.