From Sleepless Nights to Skyrocketing Cholesterol: The Impact of Alcohol, Ice Cream, and Red Meat

Zach: [00:00:00] Have you ever eaten or drank something where the next day you said to yourself, I'm never doing that again.

Jeremy: I think anyone's journey to fitness from the fit mess, , definitely contains multiple instances of mornings like that.

Zach: today's show, I'll share with you why a little bit of ice cream has the capability to unravel 40 years of work that I've done on my life.

Jeremy: It's delicious. Where's the Whipp cream? Zach, you mentioned eating or drinking something that you regretted the next day. And we have joked about ice cream, but as you dip your toe back in the waters and by water, I mean alcohol, that you're starting to see some negative side effects.

Zach: How many years did I go up without drinking, like seven years,

Jeremy: like that.

Zach: . And while [00:01:00] I. I quit drinking, not because I had a problem. I think I was, I had a medical issue that I was starting to like self-medicate with, and I, I think I would've had a problem had I continued on.

, and I learned to manage my feelings and emotions along the way. So like, now I'm okay having a drink here and there and like, I don't feel like I need to drink a six pack like I used to, to like bury all my emotions. , but what I have noticed is when I do have a drink, I sleep like shit,

Jeremy: you do?

Zach: It is noticeably different.

So I go so many days without having a drink and doing my normal sleeping. And then when I have that one, like I can directly attribute the fact that I'm just, I. Tired the entire next day to that one alcoholic drink, even if it's like seven o'clock and I go to bed four hours later, it still impacts my sleep.

And the other thing that I found, like I've, anyone who's listened, knows that, like I have some genetic predisposition to high cholesterol [00:02:00] that kicked in when I was like 37, had normal cholesterol all my life. , I would eat steaks every single day for breakfast, lunch, it didn't matter.

My cholesterol was fine and all of a sudden my cholesterol like doubled. It was up in the 400 range, And it is. If I eat red meat and dairy products,

Jeremy: Mm-hmm.

Zach: like those are the two things I need to cut out. So I mostly eat like vegetarian, vegan ish to keep my cholesterol down. But every now and again, like I will have ice cream.

So I don't eat a lot of dairy. I don't eat a lot of sugar. Especially before I go to bed. But here's the other kicker , I don't know, maybe three weeks ago I had a beer at dinner cuz I was out with people. And then I had two scoops of ice cream with my daughter like an hour later. And I didn't sleep at all that night at all.

And I was like, well, this is weird. So I had to recreate it. So I was like, okay. We'll do one night with a beer and we'll do one night with ice cream. I want to figure out, and both nights, I [00:03:00] also didn't sleep well, but the ice cream was the kicker. That one kept me up all night,

Jeremy: Whoa.

Zach: literally kept me up all night.

It was like every 15 minutes I was waking up. , and I've repeated this two or three times now because, you know, I'm a sucker for ice cream and I, I love, I love me some chocolate peanut butter ice cream. But if I go eat, literally, like I, I don't eat that much sugar anymore. I don't eat a whole lot of dairy, but if I go eat two scoops of ice cream, which is not a ton.

Not a whole lot, anytime after five, six o'clock, like I'm up all night.

Jeremy: dude, I, I don't want to be Mr. Obvious with the solutions over here, but you don't have to cut out ice cream. Just have it for breakfast.

Zach: I think that's a fantastic idea. I mean,

Jeremy: You'll be fired up and working all day long. You'll be off to the races.

Zach: I'll just eat coffee ice cream.

Jeremy: Boom. Well, this has been the fit mess. Thanks for listening.

Zach: No, but I say all I, I do seriously though I say all of this just because , we live in a society where it's okay to eat ice cream every night. [00:04:00] It's okay to drink every night. It's okay. And we, you know, I was there once, right? I had that, constant tiredness

Jeremy: Mm-hmm.

Zach: and it was just normal. Right? And now that I've removed all that stuff, like I can see this.

Gigantic impact in how good I feel without it. So I really, really am just trying to emphasize the fact that like, this stuff isn't great for you now.

Jeremy: Wait a minute.

What?

Zach: enjoy your life. But let's, , let's think about this. Like you shouldn't be having that much sugar right before bed. You shouldn't, like any kind of alcohol, like within, I don't know, probably six to 12 hours of going to bed, that's gonna be a problem, right?

Jeremy: This came up over the weekend. Somebody was asking me why I, , quit drinking. She, she'd heard through the grapevine that I don't drink, and so she, she asked about it, and I think, you know, for a lot of people, they're always looking for the story, like, what's the rock bottom? How, how bad did things get before you turned your life around?

And I'm like, yeah. You know, I, I kind of, I was kind of trying to not do some stuff. So I stopped doing some stuff and [00:05:00] one of 'em was that, and as it turned out, I felt a lot better, but it started from like what you're talking about, I woke up one New year's morning with just the slightest hangover from like the two beers I had on New Year's Eve.

And it wasn't, I mean, by a mile wasn't even the worst hangover I'd ever had, but it was enough and it was the straw that broke the camel's back where I was just like, I don't want to feel like this ever again.

This feels horrible. And it just happened to follow, like getting off of antidepressants, getting off of painkillers, getting off of these other things that I was taking to manage other things that were going on.

But it is so interesting when you do strip things away. How it reveals the way your body reacts to them. Especially when you do dip your toe back in the water and start experimenting with a beer at dinner and a, you know, a scoop of ice cream and then you're just like, holy crap. I think supplements are the same way.

Like you can take a bunch of supplements and not really notice anything and then you stop taking them and you're like, oh God,

Zach: And that's huge, huge impact.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Zach: But it, but it's [00:06:00] like, you know, , cutting those things out for three days, well, your body's kind of still recovering. If it's been a constant thing in your life, like you need a good 30 days without those things in order to really assess the impact.

Jeremy: And when you talk about alcohol, I mean, I don't think either of us qualified as alcoholics before, giving it up. But I think we both used it heavily to manage emotions and deal with feelings and all of the things. It took me two years to not suffer from it in some way. And, and I mean from like mild suffer of drive by a brewery that I loved and go, I can't go there anymore.

To the more extreme like, oh shit, I'm feeling things. What do I do with this? And

just becoming a mess and an asshole and treating everybody like crap. So, , giving up ice cream, , it's heartbreaking, let's be honest. But something like alcohol or, or any drugs when you cut them out of your life completely, that is a long, brutal battle to saying goodbye to that for good.

Zach: Yeah. But it's funny how you, you know, you mentioned like [00:07:00] drugs, right? I mean, Sugar is totally a drug. Like it, IM, it impacts your body in the same way that alcohol or cocaine or like heroin does. Like, it literally fires up your dopamine receptors and then you crave it more and you want it, , and then it leaves, you know, leaves you , wanting more.

It's so good, but it doesn't have like that negative connotation to it, and I, I really think it should like, it, it,

Jeremy: In terms of stigma instead of in terms of social stigma?

Zach: Absolutely. Like it literally wreaks so much havoc on my wellbeing. Just sugar. Just sugar. It reeks so much havoc on my wellbeing that I can't function for a couple of days the way, like in an optimal fashion.

It's

Jeremy: no, people poop their pants if you, you know, are smoking too much weed, but you know, have six scoops of ice cream and a couple of beers with dinner, and everyone's like, oh, cheers, celebration. Like, no, this is toxic.

Zach: Uh, none of it's, I mean, again, all things in, in moderation, right? I'm not gonna say don't enjoy your life, but like,[00:08:00] , it is really interesting how as a society, we have conditioned ourselves to be okay with a drink every night at dinner to be okay with having ice cream after dinner every single night.

Like, I, when I was a kid that, that was like Sunday night dinner. Special stuff, ? That was the thing. But now it's like my daughter asks me all the time, she'll eat like a relatively healthy dinner on a Wednesday night, and then she'll be like, what's for dessert? Can I have dessert?

Where's the sweet thing? , where's the thing? And I'm just like, God, it is really, it's really, it's going crazy. It's every single night.

Jeremy: . We talked recently on the show about like our, our tendency to emotionally eat from time to time when things get difficult. Man, I can tell you when I trace it back, when I have those days where for a couple of days the pantry is my pacifier. That's when like the thoughts return, the anger like boils up the achy joints feeling like crap, like very much like a hangover, like just [00:09:00] feeling terrible and, and the, like, the hints of depression come roaring back and it's almost always tied to you ate something terrible, like something that you shouldn't have that at the moment felt good, made the feelings go away, whatever it was, but the prices now suffer for a couple days with what you've done to your body.

Zach: Yep, exactly. I am happy and thankful that I am at a point in my life where, like, when I do have those slipups, when I do, , break here and there, I notice it. So much more than I ever used to because it was just like this constant thing. So I'm, I'm really happy that I've gotten to that point, but man, for like three days, I feel it.

It's horrible. Don't, don't talk to me.

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Jeremy: Then tell me, Zach, what are the lessons learned from these little experiments you've been doing on your body?

Zach: I don't know. Um, no, seriously, no. What what did his is is really like just to be mindful. Like just remember the things that you are putting in your body, like. That everything you put in your body is a drug. Even the food, right? It is fuel for your body. And if you put bad food in, if you put bad fuel in, right, your, your engine's not gonna run all that great.

saying, you know, don't cut everything out. You need to enjoy life. But like, you know, I live by the 80 20 rule. As long as I'm okay 80% of the time, 20% of the time, I can, I can go off the rails a little bit and yes, you pay for it, but like, Just be curious about your body, like really try and understand like what is making you feel the worst, and figure out a way to limit that.

Like for me it's alcohol makes me feel like absolute dog [00:11:00] shit, so I have to limit it. But at the same time, like I wanna have a little bit of fun. So just remember, be human, enjoy some stuff. But those things that really, really bother you, that have a really bad chemical makeup in your body that make you feel like shit, maybe you should avoid those.

Jeremy: I don't know about you, but one of the ways that you can deal with that issue of. Not consuming them as much, . There are tons of alternatives. I can't tell you how much I enjoy drinking a non-alcoholic beer from time to time or the time in between those times because I still love the taste of beer and there are some incredible ones on the market.

So things like that are great. I hear from people that are trying to quit drinking all the time, like, what do you like? What do you do? There was one guy, I think we even interviewed, interviewed him on the show and he was talking about how he gets ice tea in a, in a highball glass with an ice cube cuz it looks like whiskey.

He'll just sip his iced tea all night long because socially he looks like he's drinking and it helps relieve some of that social stress. [00:12:00] Uh, there are plenty of other alternatives. I will say none of them, uh, mask the social anxiety that I suffer from the way that alcohol used to Having gone to a couple of parties lately, being in that situation, it's really tough to not wanna reach for a beer and just lubricate yourself into that social situation. But, uh, whenever you can avoid it, I highly recommend it because, Man.

Life without alcohol for me has been a lot better other than, you know, the dealing with the people. Stuff.

Zach: Oh people.

Jeremy: People.

Zach: One last thing, I just wanna make sure everyone hears, we all make mistakes. We all eat ice. Like I eat ice. I, I will say that I'm never eating ice cream again because of how it makes me feel. And then three nights later I find myself eating ice cream again. ? Have some compassion. We are human.

You're gonna make mistakes. . You're gonna go off the rails. Just be compassionate with yourself remember it too, like that. That's the one thing that I really do try and focus on is when I do make those mistakes and I do feel [00:13:00] bad, like the next day, and like I, I physically don't feel good. I really do try and lock that feeling in. Right. , I remember years ago when I'd wake up with like super bad hangovers.

I'm drinking a lot, and I'd be like, I'm never drinking again. And three days later I'd

Jeremy: Or, or 12 hours later. Yeah.

Zach: And potentially hair of the dog here. , but re, you know, I say it all the time, like the times I fall off the wagon, those are the moments for, for anything, right? If I'm like not working out or if I'm not doing the things I need to be mentally and physically healthy.

Those are your moments to like, really take it in and reflect and go. Okay. This is why I do all the things I do. This is why I avoid some of these other things. So I don't feel like this. Like really try and take it in and remember that feeling. So the next time you do get that ice cream in front of your face, or a beer in front of your face that you didn't want, , just remember that, that's how it makes you feel.

It can help you through it. But again, if you cave, it's okay. Like you're a human being. It's okay to cave. It's okay to enjoy yourself. Just don't let it go too far.

[00:14:00] And with that, I'm gonna go have a beer and ice cream.

Jeremy: Delicious. Give me one too. All right. That's gonna do it for us. This has been the fit Mess. Thank you so much for listening. We will have outtakes and bonus clips in our newsletters still to come. You can sign up for that@thefitmess.com and that's where we'll be back in just a few days with a brand new episode.

Thanks for listening

Zach: See everyone, and if you're interested in what our outtakes are, ugh, they're horrible.

Jeremy: now.