After lurking for long enough, i thought it was time to pipe up and contribute and share my shitty experience of binge eating post show. Im sure this topic has been covered before, but i just wanted to share my experience to hopefully prevent other people from doing the same.
This year i competed for the first time, i did 2 shows with 20 weeks of strict prep. Placed 2nd in both shows, came away with positive feedback and areas to work on for next year. After My second show i made a huge mistake. Instead of reverse dieting, gradually building myself back up to an offseason diet.....i ate everything in sight! burgers, donuts, pizza, sweets, ice-cream etc etc. I basically ate like a pig for the week following the show.
By the following friday my ankles swelled up really bad.....no big deal i thought, just a bit of water retention...it will go down soon. Then they started to ache, then a few hours later it was painful enough to make me walk with a limp. A couple more hours later and i was in agony!! i couldn't have anything touch my feet or ankles because of the pain. The locally pharmacy took a look and told me to go to hospital straight away.
By the time we got to the hospital my wife had to help me walk in. They asked me if i had been short of breath and funnily enough i had been for a couple of days so i said yes. Straight away they took blood to be tested, had me on a bed having an ECG test of my heart, then went to x-ray to have a chest x-ray.
I was left for a while, until all the results had come back......in this time i was in panic mode!! why the hell were they checking my heart and lungs!? When the doctor came back he reassured me that there was nothing wrong with my heart or lungs and the cause was gout!! By eating so much shit in a short period of time i had given myself gout in both ankles!!
All in all, i spent about 6 hours in the hospital on a friday night (and my 1st wedding anniversary......the Mrs wasn't impressed). Had to take a week off from the training and couldn't wear anything on my feet for about 4 days........all because of my own greed!! The worst thing is, i knew to reverse diet.....i just chose not to. i will never make that mistake again.
Hopefully 1 or 2 people might have found this read useful ......on what not to do!