Did you enjoy your BIG Thanksgiving dinner? I sure did! In my family we split the meal up so it lasts longer, is less hectic & we don’t feel quite so stuffed! Our afternoon went something like this:

• 1:00PM – Appetizers & Drinks
• 2:00PM – Soup
• 4:00PM – Main Course
• 7:00PM – Dessert

It was truly delicious & enjoyable & full of more…more total food quantity, more sugar & more alcohol than I’m used to consuming. And, as I discovered the next day, there was a cost to pay for all that frivolity. I’m labelling it “The Thanksgiving Effect”.

Just what exactly is “The Thanksgiving Effect”? Well, it’s the strain that lots of food (particularly sugar AND alcohol) put on our bodies. You can often feel those effects while you’re awake – sleepy, sluggish & tired. But, it’s at night that the effects are really exacerbated. At night…when your body is trying to rest & recover…the optimal time for your body to heal & rebuild itself.

Here are several screenshots from my Oura Ring. The Oura Ring analyzes daily activity & sleep metrics & assigns each a number. Those two numbers are then combined into an Overall Readiness Score which indicates how rested & ready your body is to train. Let’s take a look!

Overall Readiness Scores

As you can see, my Overall Readiness Score on Thurs. was really good. A 90 score (out of 100) indicates that I was well rested & well recovered. Compare that to Fri.’s score of 63. Ugh…!! That’s a huge drop!

Let’s look closer into why that Overall Readiness Score dropped so low.

Sleep Metrics

The above screenshots show my sleep data from Wed. night (on left) compared to Thur. night (on right). The interesting thing is that I felt like I got really good sleep both nights…and the data substantiates that. My Sleep Scores were EXACTLY the same! I slept basically the same amount of time (approx. 7hr 20min) & my Sleep Efficiency (a score that takes into account all sorts of data) was actually better after that big meal!

So, if I got great sleep both nights, what caused that Overall Readiness Score to drop by 30%?? Here’s the deal. I might have slept well the night after Thanksgiving Dinner, but I didn’t RECOVER well.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the recovery factors that happen during sleep. Then it’ll make more sense.

Recovery Metrics

In looking at the above screenshots, you can really see how that big meal (with lots of sugar & alcohol) affected my recovery. Take a look at my Resting Heart Rate: 38 bpm on Wed. night (on left) vs 47 bpm on Thurs. night (on right). My Body Temperature was also substantially affected: -0.6 deg on Wed. night vs +0.7 deg on Thurs. night. That’s almost a full degree higher!

And finally, my Heart Rate Variability (HRV) was crazy affected! HRV is the amount of time in milliseconds between heart beats. You want this number to be high. Lower HRV’s mean that your “fight or flight” system is activated whereas higher HRV’s indicate that your “rest & digest” system is more active. With that in mind, compare Wed. night’s HRV of 85 ms to Thurs. night’s HRV of 55 ms! My body was under a lot more strain (it was working much harder) during the night after that big meal!

So, even though I slept well & I slept the same amount both nights, the quality of my recovery during sleep was very different. Those two factors – higher resting heart rate & higher body temperature – indicate that my body was working much harder the night after the big meal. It makes sense. My body had a lot to do! It had to digest lots of food & metabolize alcohol & sugar.

Deep Sleep Changes

Here’s one additional piece of data. Because of all that extra work that my body had to do after the big meal, I spent 15% less time in Deep Sleep (38% on Wed. night vs 23% on Thurs. night). This is important because Deep Sleep is when your body repairs itself. During Deep Sleep your body performs functions like:

• Energy restoration
• Cell regeneration
• Increasing blood supply to muscles
• Promoting growth and repair of tissues and bones
• Strengthening the immune system

The key point to remember is that the body can’t do everything all at the same time. So, if we want to maximize recovery, we need to make sure that we are not distracting it with other tasks like unnecessary digestion.

Does that mean that we never eat another big meal again? Or that we never have a drink again? Or no more dessert? Absolutely not. We have to enjoy our lives too! The take-away is this:

You have a choice.

Now that you know how these things affect your recovery, you can decide at any given time if you’re willing to accept those consequences. I often decide (except at Thanksgiving, of course!) not to have sugar AND alcohol together. And I often decide to skip both when I have a particularly hard workout or an early wake-up time. This is how we are able to fine-tune our health & fitness. This, my friends, is power!