Since yesterday morning I have been starving - literally. It's for medical reasons, ahead of a colonoscopy tomorrow morning, but I am enjoying the experience in a strange sort of way and I think I may repeat it on a regular basis.
Some diet experts say you should fast every week or month, as a way of cleansing the system and of course shedding weight. If you starve two days a week that's 40% fewer calories consumed!
I am not being as strict as that, as I am allowed broth - basically a stock cube in hot water - and apple juice (250 calories a pint) as well as the calorie-laden cola and lots of other non-calory drinks from water to coffee. No alcohol, but I've been on the wagon since late last October, so that is no hardship.
My stomach is rumbling a fair bit, but I can't claim to be going without food of any sort and there is enough variety in that lot to keep going for a reasonable amount of time. It's certainly a big change from my days as a Business or Personal Finance Editor in London, when the meals and drinks come at you like the now-proverbial tsunami (I wonder how many people could even spell that word before the Asian tsunami a couple of years ago?).
The big difference is the lack of solid food, and it has made my realise how important solids are to our daily lives, not just for pure nutrition but as punctuations in the day for mealtimes, snacks to accompany reading, watching TV or going to the cinema, comfort food when we are feeling cold or depressed. Take solids out of the equation and you are left with hot drinks, cold drinks, sweet or savoury - much more limited.
The toughest moment, and OK it wasn't that tough, was going to an art exhibition at a local restaurant, Gale's, yesterday and confronting a table of snacks - nuts, cheese, dried apricot, the sort of stuff I would hoover up. That was a blow, but you'll be glad to know I got over it. Otherwise I have kept away from food, other than raiding the fridge for apple juice or water.
I imagine one of the attractions of fasting to ascetics is not so much the lack of calories as the denial to your mouth of a whole range of tastes and textures which, to be honest, we take for granted and feed ourselves unthinkingly. Mild addictions such as chocolate or sweets or curries are perhaps an extreme version, but chips (US fries) can be just as habit-forming.
Food is something I greatly enjoy, particularly since I am not drinking, but I think carefully about what it is doing to me. I restrict my intake of stodge, although there are times when there is nothing more satisfying than hot bread or fat steakhouse chips. I am now vegetarian, which I find simplifies food choice and cuts out a lot of rubbish that is served up in restaurants: it is just harder to mess around with vegetables, although that did not stop me succumbing to a pretty awful case of food poisoning from eating tofu in a Chinese restaurant a few weeks ago. There is, in the end, not much you can do about a cook with dirty hands or food that is left lying around.
However, all this is within the context of a normal eating framework. Confining yourself to liquids is completely outside that framework and feels like being in a different dimension. I am not thinking just about the feeling of lightheadedness, which I have not experienced much in the past 36 hours. I have felt tired and sluggish, but a few shots of coffee corrects that. I am typing fine, no more mistakes than normal, so my reactions are OK. I drove yesterday and I reckon I'll be fine driving today - we'll see if I can get myself to the clinic tomorrow morning without falling asleep at the wheel! No last-minute shots of coffee allowed, as nil by mouth from midnight tonight: I might give myself a jag just before I go to bed.
I'd like to do this again, though. It's a new experience and feels as if it clarifies your thinking. I've just taken an IQ test on facebook and scored 130, which is about right for me.
I met a former Playboy Playmate who is now a dietician and fasts most of the time. She said that you don't need food, it's just a habit. I don't think I could give it up entirely - I am certainly looking forward to a tasty lunch tomorrow - but I think she had a point. We are conditioned into eating, whether it is one or five meals a day, and sometimes it is good to just say no. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway, and the experience hasn't been unpleasant.
It's now 3pm, and I have just started taking phospho soda, a saline solution to empty the bowels so the colon camera gets a clear view tomorrow. Apparently everyone reacts differently to this part of the preparation, so I'll just have to see how I get on.
4.45pm Not bad so far. The visits to the loo have started, feel like Kings Cross station (London version) with the amount of traffic going through me, don't worry I'll spare you the details gory and otherwise. It's not the best day I've ever spent, can think of more pleasant ways of passing the time, but it's not the worst. OK, can't resist it, I thought the bottom was going to fall out of my world but instead it feels like the world is falling out of my bottom...
Went to meet our regular bunch of friends at Conrad's diner on Monday night - I stuck to 7Up and coffee, and had several trips to the loo throughout the evening. Got home at 9, in time for my second and last dose of Phosph-soda. This time it really took hold and I couldn't get to sleep until 1 am.
Tuesday: Woke at 5.15 feeling like a limp rag.
Managed to push a few emails around before going back to bed. Got up feeling slightly better at 7 am, drove off at 7.40 and walked into the clinic at 8.
I was punished for turning up early, because after a few minutes I was called and prepped by 8.35. I then spent 85 minutes staring at the clock opposite until I was wheeled in.
That was the only glitch, though. Dr Isaac Bartley, a genial black doctor I was given a mixture of pentathol (correct me if I've got that wrong) and what the nurse described as a hypnotism drug. They knocked me out - no question of watching the TV - and I came round an hour later without feeling a thing and no discomfort. Quite amazing. I wouldn't believe they had stuck anything up me without being given photos - and they could have been faked! And no, I'm not posting them on youtube...
After a brief recovery spell I was told to put my clothes on and I was being led out to the car park by Lynne and our friends Pat and Elaine, who drove us off to Chandra, our favourite Thai restaurant, for a celebratory lunch. I am of course not allowed to drive until tomorrow. It's nearly 5pm and I am suffering no ill-effects whatsoever, no soreness, no internal pains. All that remains are the results, but nothing was removed so no polyps to worry about, just some haemorrhoids - those friendly blobs that tell you you are over 50.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment