Disclaimer: I am recommending supplements as well as foods. If these could potentially interfere with any medications you are on, you need to discuss that with your doctor. You need to tell your doctor that you are adding supplements to your diet before drinking and see if that fits with whatever medical issue you may be dealing with. This post also assumes you are healthy enough to drink some alcohol.
Summary :
Foods – Miracle Noodle, Miracle Matcha, Whey Protein, Coconut Oil
Supplements – N-acetyl-cysteine 1200 mg, Vitamin C 2000 milligrams before and 2000 milligrams before sleep, Thiamine 100mg, Milk thistle 100mg.
Alcohol is actually very calorie dense. Fat has nine calories per gram, alcohol has seven calories per gram, carbohydrates have four calories per gram so you’re getting a lot of extra calories without any benefit. Miracle Noodles helps here because being zero calorie and filling you can have a full meal and then not worry about the calories of the alcohol.
When you drink alcohol, you get massive free-radical damage, which means that these free radicals are running around your body causing damage. How do you reverse free-radical damage? You need lot of antioxidants, but there are specific antioxidants detailed below that you can take that can get rid of this free-radical damage, can eliminate toxic acetaldehyde (which is formed by your liver in response to alcohol), and prevent you from getting hangovers.
Acetaldehdye needs glutathione plus an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase to convert it into something that your body can easily get rid of. We will discuss glutathione and why Whey protein is amazing for this in a moment and how making sure you have enough glutathione in your body will help you process alcohol more effectively. Taking glutathione directly doesn’t seem to work – you need something that causes your body to produce it.
Is Alcohol Healthy in Moderate Amounts?
A recent study out of Sweden showed that only 15% of people show positive cardiac effects to alcohol despite what the mainstream news says. This impressive study found that only 15% of people have a gene that when they drink, the gene and the alcohol complement each other resulting in a positive heart effect. Maybe you’re one of those that have that gene but there’s no easy way to know. We do know that even a little bit of alcohol causes acetaldehyde, which without lots of glutathione in your system is toxic.
When I talking to patients and they say they’re having a drink because either their doctor told them that it’s healthy or they read that it’s healthy, there’s nothing really healthy about it. Nonetheless, I understand that we live in a social culture, and if you’re out and you’re with friends, it’s nice to have a drink. I have a drink every once in a while, and it pays to have this information and be smart about it. If you are going to have more than one drink and want to be productive the next day listen closely.
The supplements that I recommend are :
1. N-acetyl-cysteine 1200 mg,
2. Vitamin C 2000 milligrams before and 2000 milligrams before sleep,
3. Thiamine 100mg which is Vitamin B1 and is notorious for being depleted with alcohol. That’s why a lot of alcoholics end up having a lot of problems.
4. Milk thistle 100mg, which is historically known and also proven to have liver-detoxifying effects.
I recommend the supplements and New Zealand Whey protein from the Life Extension Foundation.
These are the core supplements. There’s lots of other protocols out there that have these as well as a whole list of other supplements, but this is what I found that works really well, and we want to keep it simple.
These are the four core supplements that I recommend that you take if you’re going to be drinking. They are not meant for daily use.
The Foods To Eat Before Drinking Alcohol
1. Whey protein, and the reason that whey protein is so great is that it allows your body to form an enormous amount of glutathione. As I mentioned before, we want to tailor what we’re eating and what supplements we’re taking to be related to alcohol detoxification, and glutathione is really great for that.
2. Miracle Noodles and Miracle Matcha are also great. (Disclaimer: as well as a practicing physician, I also own Miracle Noodle and Miracle Matcha.)
The reason Miracle Noodles are great is because they are zero-calorie noodles, and you can have an enormous bowl of noodles, feel like you’re eating a full bowl, feel like you’re eating a full meal, but you’re not getting any calories, which is great because if you’re going to have 300, 400 extra calories from a couple cocktails, you don’t have to worry about those calories because you still feel full. You don’t feel like you’re deprived of food, and you can enjoy those extra calories without having to worry about packing on some extra pounds of fat. If you want the Miracle Noodles, use “drcarp” coupon code and get $7 off any order.
Miracle Matcha is great. It’s a white matcha tea from a protected farm high in the Rift Valley of Kenya. It’s a white tea with a high amount of a chemical called L-theanine. L-theanine is great because it’s a neuro-protective factor. The ancient monks in Japan who would drink the green-tea matcha would like it because the L-theanine gave them a sense of alertness without the jitteriness of caffeine, in addition to the fact that it acts as a neuro-protective, brain-protective factor, which is also important when you’re drinking alcohol.
3. Healthy fat like coconut oil, as an example, or avocados or raw nuts and seeds, these types of healthy fat are great because they slow the absorption of alcohol.
Drinking At Home
If you’re having cocktails at home, you can be a little more precise. Don’t eat any carbs during that meal. If you’re going to have a cocktail every night, be careful with the carbohydrates. You can use Miracle Noodles as a carbohydrate substitute, still feeling like you’re eating a full meal but not having to worry about the calories from the alcohol. Take your supplements that we discussed before going to sleep. When you sleep, your body is in a natural detoxifying phase, and you want to have all of those supplements in your blood stream to optimize that detoxifying effect. Note – dehydration is also important to prevent. Have a full glass of water/ sparkling water in between each alcoholic drink
Drink Miracle Matcha tea during the day so that you can get the L-theanine and a massive dose of antioxidants.
Make Your Home Liquor – Medicinal!
Add dried Reishi mushrooms to your home liquor. This is a tip that a friend of mine, Sandy Lee L.Ac, who’s a traditional Chinese medicine doctor gave to me, and I’ve been using it myself. You can buy dried Reishi mushroom. It comes in what looks like blades, and you can put them in your liquor. I put them in gin, vodka, and rum, and let it sit for six weeks. It will color the gin and vodka a light brown and only affects the flavor slightly.
Reishi mushrooms have been known to be a longevity mushroom with chemicals in it that promote longevity. The ancient Chinese medicine doctors would put it in spirits to accentuate the potency. In other words, the alcohol would extract the longevity factors much more than any other way. Keep it in there as long as you possibly can, a minimum of six weeks, but it gets more potent the longer you leave it in there.
Drinking When Out
If you’re going out on a night on the town, I recommend that you take a whey-protein shake to get that glutathione production with one tablespoon of coconut oil as well as Miracle Matcha, a tablespoon put into the protein shake, or the Matcha Mix-In, which you’ll find at miraclenoodle.com, which has goji berries, flaxseeds, chia seeds, which means you’re getting a lot of fiber as well as other antioxidants, as well as the L-theanine. Miracle Matcha has three times the antioxidants of green-tea matcha. Green tea matcha is already one of the most potent antioxidents on earth and this has 3x more!!
Take 2000 milligrams of Vitamin C before you go out and before you go to sleep, the N-acetyl cysteine, the milk thistle, and the thiamine as indicated above.
Stay healthy my friends!