What I most resent about a stomach bug (outside of the obvious) is the massive inconvenience it brings to my life. Here it was, the weekend, family time, on top of which I had a huge list of things that absolutely must be done. We had guests checking out of our rental apartment (cleaning, inspection, and preparing for next guests who arrive on Wednesday, and who happily will stay for a full month). I did a lot of laundry (it seems all I do anymore is laundry, between the two apartments -- and we have no clothes dryer which means either I have to hang-dry everything and our apartment looks like a tenement, or I have to haul it all, wet, down to the laundromat to spin dry at a cost of about 3-4 euros per load). And somehow I even managed to get out of the apartment on Saturday afternoon long enough to do the food shopping... and then just afterward the stomach bug got serious about beating the shit out of me. I was grateful for one thing during that long 30 hours of illness: that I was the only one in the family who seemed to have it. We have only one toilet in the house.
However, there is one part of a stomach bug that can almost -- for a chronic dieter like me -- make it seem worth the agony. And that is the sometimes massive weight loss that follows a couple of days of being unable to eat and your body releasing a lot of, well, stuff.
I dropped 4.1 pounds. Bringing me to a new low weight (since I started this journey 102 days ago) to 217.5, a 7.5 pound total loss.
Believe me, I realize there may be a boomerang effect and that at least half that will probably come right back as soon as my body stabilizes itself. But I can also use this to my advantage and try to build on this -- well, I can't really call it a "success", more of a "situation" -- to get some momentum going again. There is something about seeing a new lower number on the scale, no matter what disgusting things occurred to get you there, that can suddenly make you want the numbers to drop even more.
So, I wouldn't have asked for a stomach bug as a means of restarting my weight loss efforts but since I had one anyway, I might as well look for the silver lining and get on with things.
Sounds like food poisoning to me. Not everyone necessarily catches it who has eaten the same thing; the "bug" isn't on everything always. It could even be a condiment, like mayo, that you added. Why are people in the french blogs I read, especially Paris, always getting this ailment?
ReplyDeleteI have lost some weight along with you since you started by the way. Please post every week, even when you don't lose. It's still encouraging somehow. And I totally agree that a weight loss is really an incentive to keep going. Cool!
Love you.
Sheila
Sheila, good for you! Congratulations on your weight loss!
DeleteThank you. I almost didn't want to mention it as I don't want to jinx myself. It's been pretty slow, like a pound or less per week, and I'm often hungry. I wish I would have been born one of those "naturally thin" ones with good hair.
DeleteSheila
I was just talking with a co-worker about how we each seem to get the same illnesses...for example, I get upper respiratory infections, another friend has constant problems with her teeth. Yet another breaks at least one bone a year. You? You get stomach bugs. Sometimes I wish I would get a bug just for the weight loss. And then I think better of it. I will take an upper respiratory problem over a broken bone any day!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. I'm someone who believes that most (if not all) illnesses are something we create or attract in some way (Law of Attraction) and that therefore there is probably some deeper reason behind these repetitive types of things you're talking about. I never got as many stomach bugs living back in NJ as I've gotten here, and the simple answer would be that I'm living in a city and not in the country, and therefore exposed to a lot more people. It's definitely not something I sit around worrying about getting, though, until I get it of course. I've also been prone to bronchitis since I was a kid and had pneumonia. I have a feeling that it's my BELIEF that I'm "prone to it" that brings it on.
DeleteOr, maybe (to quote Freud), sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and la gastro is just la gastro. It passes (heh heh).
I think I just snorted some coffee....
DeleteI live in NYC and have never had a gastro bug, and if you can't get it here...sheesh, that subway is just a petrie dish. And sometimes I just wish that I would JUST ONCE get the bug to get rid of some of this extra oomph.
Hope you are feeling better!
One of my close friends commented today also on how often I seem to get la gastro... which tells me that if other people are observing that I get it a lot, then I really must have done. So, now reviewing habits to see where I'm going wrong (although if they're airborne there's not much you can do. I refuse to wear one of those surgical masks when I leave the house.) I do have a habit of chewing on my cuticles and although I try NOT to do it when I'm out and about and taking public transportation, it's such an ingrained habit that I may be doing it unconsciously and THAT could be the culprit, no matter how much hand-washing I'm doing otherwise.
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