There are reasons why alcohol is bad for your diet, namely the empty calories. Then there’s the hangover.

Usually I’m already onto my second pint of green beer by now on St. Paddy’s Day but after last Saturday, I don’t want to be anywhere near anything alcoholic. I went had dinner with a friend who wanted to try sushi for the first time. He’s recently single and I told him that if you live in LA and want to successfully navigate the dating pool, you need to like sushi. He actually hates the taste of fish but was willing to give it a shot — as long as there were sake shots to go with it.

And boy, were there!

(Un)luckily for us, the restaurant was having a 2-for-1 hot sake promotion, so we ended up with four large bottles… and a small Kirin Light. So by the time our cab pulled up to our second stop of the night, we were already heavily buzzed… but of course we kept on drinking. Two vodka-sodas later, we pulled into our third stop of the night; a massive mansion party in Hollywood. One more vodka-soda and we ended our night with a 3am lobster pizza at Berri’s Pizza. Waters all around.  (Mmm… I totally recommend Berri’s if you’ve never been. Soooooo yummy!).

Anyhow, the next day I was absolutely useless. My head wasn’t pounding but I could only sleep for about 5 hours so I was in a hangover haze all day (I rarely sleep in no matter what time I eventually nod off). I hardly ate. I didn’t leave the apartment. I didn’t even have the energy to shower. I was a gross, useless human being who watched a three movies back-to-back that I had already seen and worked on my personal website — all while I was in bed or strewn across the couch.

I’m all for savoring a glass of wine (or two) with dinner or a couple cocktails at happy hour, but I’m too old for those good ol’ fashioned benders and I swear my body just doesn’t process alcohol the same anymore. And not only did I kill my system with a drinking binge so soon after cleansing/detoxing, but I easily added on a few thousand calories in drinks and food that night.

So much for my four mile run Saturday morning… what a waste!