What the title says. I am tired, hungry, and generally slow today. A bit of backstory:
I am a sturdy, heavy-built person. That's an understatement. Frankly, I'm one of the largest people I know. This is true in many aspects... for example, I'm 6'3". Actually, I may be closer to 6'4", but I've never gotten around to verifying my exact height. I'm also quite broad-shouldered. I don't have a measurement for that, but I'm that person you don't want to sit beside on a plane, as my shoulders appear to be skeletally wider than seat designers would have you believe a human body is.
As it happens, I'm also 348 lbs. As I gather, most people consider 200 lbs a lot of weight... 350 lbs is unfathomable. I carry my weight quite well, actually, and I'm still in reasonably good physical shape. Honestly, my body type is intended to be heavier than what popular culture considers "the ideal," and the BMI holds a special and well-earned place of contempt in my heart. That said, I'm still undeniably obese. It's not even the heaviest I've been, either... I'd reached about 370 lbs earlier in the year, but after getting married in May my eating habits changed. I realized that I had my own kitchen to cook in, that the food I made there was generally more exciting than Sun Chips and cereal, and that Beth was going to nag at me if the seasonal Little Debbie cakes remained a staple of my diet. But alas, my cooking is still my cooking, and I refuse to give birth to any of that soulless "health-conscious" food people recommend. If it was made to keep track of calories then it probably wasn't made to be enjoyed. And my portion sizes would positively offend the sensibilities of five-star chefs who are used to feeding tiny rich people. So yeah, I'm not exactly good with diets,
However, Beth recently had me watch a documentary on juice fasting featuring an Australian guy who consumes nothing but fruits, vegetables, and water for 60 days to lose weight, start an active lifestyle, and get rid of a disease he's facing. As expected, it works miracles. I had some skepticism, and there were definitely commercial interests at stake, but I've gone a little less scientific recently and have warmed up to things like "detox diets" and the benefits of fasting. So this past Sunday we borrowed my in-laws' juicer and I started stocking up the fridge with less cheese and more vegetation.
Yesterday we began hammering out the details of the fast. We decided to do it for ten days, agreed that having some unsweetened herbal tea was probably fine, and tried to pin down the actual start date. I gave a tentative "Thursday or Friday," although Beth seemed to be indicating Friday. All was set.
This morning, Wednesday, Beth called out sick from work and went to see a doctor about a sinus issue she's been having the past week. We needed to make breakfast before she left, so she suggested making a practice batch of juice "since we'll be starting tomorrow." This sounded great to me... all except for that "tomorrow" part, which was a day early. In the blink of an eye, my 48-hour grace period had suddenly become 24.
So we made our first juice... one honeydew melon, two cucumbers, one lemon, and a thick slice of pineapple. It was the only fruit recipe we actually had the ingredients for. I discovered two things: that removing the rind of a honeydew melon with any amount of precision is impossible, and that attempting to do the same to a lemon is downright dangerous. The end result was a bit too healthy for my tastes, and a bit too cucumber-y for Beth's, but we both agreed that it wasn't bad.
And then the horrible part came. Sitting on the couch, finishing our glasses of homemade juice, Beth's voice suddenly sounded out: "Why not just start today?"
It wasn't a question.
I tried to explain that it was impossible. For one, I'd sneaked a small nibble of melon off a piece of rind that we'd thrown away. For another, I'd eaten a wedge of cheese last night before bed, and it was clearly after midnight when I'd finished. For some frustrating reason neither seemed to disqualify me, and so it came to pass that I was trapped into dieting two days earlier than planned, all according to Beth's whim.
The good news is that if she continues on her pattern of knocking the start date back, tonight she'll tell me we started two days ago, and my tomorrow morning we'll be over it. Not holding my breath on that one, though.
Made a little bit more juice before I left for work, a V8-style one with tomatoes, carrots, spinach, celery, and parsley (bit of trivia: there is almost no juice in a handful of parsley). It was all right... not one I'd really choose to drink, but then again, if it was about what I wanted to taste I'd probably try juicing a cheeseburger right now.
This whole business started around 9:00am.
It is now 5:33pm, and I am starving. I have a thermos full of the melon-cucumber juice for lunch/dinner, but I know it's not going to do the trick. Nor is water nearly as filling as they'd have you think... sure, it works for the first 30 seconds, but not for too much longer. My stomach stopped growling a couple hours ago, but I actually kind of wish the growls would come back. They felt strangely relieving.
Furthermore, since I didn't realize what was going to happen this morning, I went to bed at around 3:00am last night and woke up to Beth's alarm at 7:20. I was thinking I might go back to sleep after Beth was gone and at work, but unfortunately she never actually went to work, and instead I spent the early morning making juice. It's not Beth's fault that I only got four hours of sleep, but I can tell you that sleep deprivation does not mix very well with starvation and blood sugar crashes. So yeah, that's another thing I would have liked to have changed.
Here's to hoping that I transcend hunger by tomorrow.
Aside from eating again someday, there is one single good thing left in the future: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is coming out on Friday! Hopefully that will help me forget about how I'm starving. >_>
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