It’s Sunday morning. Your phone wakes you up, and you are too hungover to decide between reaching for it or your Nalgene first. As your hand hovers in midair, you notice something peculiar on the corner of your fingernail. Is that …cheese? Suddenly, horrifying memories of you shoveling nachos into your mouth by the handful at the VT start coming back to you. Your stomach turns and suddenly brunch with your friends seems a lot less appealing.
How could this have happened? You are usually so health-conscious! The entire night, you had been so disciplined; only drinking Vodka Sodas (low-cal!), and making sure you danced enough to burn the calories off as you consumed them. But despite the full meal that you ate before getting to the bars, at some point you transformed from a lady sipping “a few drinks” to a drunk, eating machine.
It’s not just you. Countless other Hamilton students probably felt the same guilt that Sunday. Studies show that this overwhelming desire to eat is more than psychological. Because alcohol is almost entirely sugar, your body starts secreting large amounts of insulin to process it. This causes your blood sugar to drop to even lower levels than when you started drinking. At this point, all it wants is —sugar—hence the junk food cravings—and since alcohol also lowers your inhibitions, you are much more likely to end up ordering (and finishing) a full plate of pancakes and bacon at the Howard Diner at two in the morning.
To make matters worse, the late-night food options here are exactly what you crave. Sweet, salty, and devoid of any nutritional value . . . you don’t even need to leave campus to fill your junk food cravings! Try this trick: if you know that you will be hungry after a night out, leave yourself a nutritious snack on your desk for when you get back to your room. A granola bar will boost your blood sugar for longer than those pancakes will, and it’s about 1/5 of the calories. Also, leaving yourself a reminder (like a post-it note on your hill card) not to use your bonus meals can give you that extra kick of self-control that you otherwise may not have had. Most importantly, drink responsibly. If you are so wasted that you can’t make rational decisions, a plate of nachos is the least of your problems.
Sources: http://www.medicinenet.com/alcohol_and_nutrition/page4.htm