If you are a passionate about improvements, there’s a good chance over-enthusiasm could cause you to lose your lunch at some point, but why do we vomit during exercise?
The science behind why you vomit during exercise
When your muscles are flexing at full throttle during a game or workout, they become hungrier for blood than a vampire after hibernation.
Your body devotes the lion’s share of its claret supply to them so they’re flush with the oxygen and nutrients they need to perform at their peak. This steals the blood from your stomach and intestines, slowing digestion. So, if you’ve scoffed a big meal too close to your workout, an eviction notice gets served to that food, sparking your liquid scream.
It’s not just bro-science either because a study in the journal Appetite found that eating too close to intense exercise can, in fact, cause nausea.
How to stop puking during intense exercise
The obvious solution is to scoff your last meal 60 minutes before exercise and 120 minutes before a match, but there is another reason: over-exertion. Exercising too hard can give your lactate levels a dramatic hike, upping the acidity of your body, which can cause your brain to trigger the vomit reflex to alleviate this toxic state.
Another reason for your lunch being lost is actually over-hydration. Yes, too much of a good thing is bad, even something so crucial to life as water. Drinking like you’re expecting a desert drought before, during or after intense exercise dilutes your electrolytes and can cause nausea, confusion, muscle tremors and confusion.
People have even been known to die for drinking too much water, but you’d really have to go HAM for that unfortunate event to occur. Still, it’s something to be wary of as well as dehydration.
A final thing to watch out for in order that you keep your food on the inside, is a proper cool down. A great percentage of bucket-pukers do so after their intense training session. Usually because they went so hard and left nothing in the tank, that they think they deserve a nap. Well, you have to lose something to gain something in life and, this time, your lunch is the sacrificial lamb. Taper down your session with a cool-down, as jelly-legged as you may be to lessen the chances of losing one of your daily meals.
The take-away…which hopefully stays inside your stomach
Whether it’s because you trained too close to lunch or just tried to be overly competitive with the dude next to you – if it’s a once a month thing that’s fine, but check with your doc if it’s a regular occurrence.
Making yourself vomit during exercise does not make you awesome, it means you’re over exerting yourself in the kitchen and workout arena. While it may earn you a badge of honor with the grunting meathead in the gym, it can be dangerous if done on a regular basis. Learn your limits…and the science.
