Body Vs. Patience

February 26, 2015 by lilmissfitnessfreak 4 Comments

Guys I’m getting impatient.

I want to eat my favourite foods again.

Does my body care about this?

No.

You body will work on its own clock.

It doesn’t care that you want to get back to eating your old foods once again the day after illness.

It doesn’t care that you want to get back to the gym after one day of recuperation.

It believes it’s still in healing mode.

I need to live with the fact that I had food poisoning less then one week ago, had my whole system cleared out, was unable to eat for more then 24 hours and was knocked off my game.

I need to accept that my body went through a trauma.

I also need to accept that healing doesn’t happen in 24 hours even if I think it should.

But guys…

I’m needy.

I’m impatient.

I want my food back!

….

I also want my strength back dammit!

Sigh.

Linking up with the gang over at Peas And Crayons for this weeks What I Ate [during illness recovery] Wednesday. Thanks Jen for hosting!

Scratch that. No link up this week peeps due to some unfortunate links that just go with our WIAW flow, but a continued thanks to the hard working Jen for tweaking the moderating and being able to keep the party alive. To the bloggers who use this linkup for advertising or just for attention and views, shame on you.

When coming off the stomach flu or food poisoning, one is supposed to stick to the BRAT diet…

B: Bananas

R: Rice

A: Apple Sauce

T: Toast

…That lasted a whole one meal (the very first meal I ate in 24+ hours)

I’m a rule breaker mmmkay?

That also stands for I’m a **it starter with the very thing that wounded me in the first place. Smart? Probably not.

You need to eat bread they say…

I’m gluten free.

You need to eat plain white rice they say…

That’s boring, what about brown? (answer= no)

They say no fiber. No fat. No vegetables.

Well geesh what am I supposed to eat!?!?

So, for this post, let’s go through all of my mistakes and why they were not good so that you can hopefully avoid them if you go through the same thing.

Fail #1: Too Much Liquids.

So for my second meal the day after sicky day, I had a soup I made that was full of vegetables (easy to digest ones!), healing herbs and plain chicken. See plain chicken I was a good girl. Or so I thought.

Stomach didn’t like it. Bad girl.

I know in my heart that I don’t do well with liquids. I can’t drink shakes because I get nauseous when I drink too much too fast, so I have never taken to them. After basically only having a can of club soda the day I was sick, I was feeling a lil dehydrated the next day to say the least, so soup sounded like a splendid idea.

Unfortunately, this ONE BOWL OF SOUP led to my tummy being a lil pissed off with me and I then was uncomfortable and stuffed for the next 5-6 hours leading to me breaking another rule of the ‘healing after sickness’..

Fail #2: Eat small meals every 2-3 hours they say..

Because your stomach is sensitive during these first few days and you can only manage small meals, it’s important to eat more frequently to ensure that your body is getting at least a decent amount of calories. You are trying to heal after all and that requires fuel.

That night though, once my tummy calmed down, I did have a smaller dinner that consisted of beautiful massive scallops (I just couldn’t let those go bad!) and some roasted squash. My tummy tolerate this despite the squash having skin on it! Yeah, see I’m a rebel, you are supposed to take off any skin. Screw that, the skins the best part. 😉

After a few hours, I had 1/2 a Questbar as I normally do (no pudding though…crying) and despite being nervous about it (all that fiber and whey is a big no no), it actually made me a bit peckish, so I ate another scallop…at midnight…what?

Small win for me.

Day one of eats (or lack there of…) complete and I slept with my tummy settled.

Fail #4: Too Much Fat Too Fast.

One thing they say to do is to keep your meals low fat for a few days (take another peekie at the BRAT diet and notice that it’s all about them carbs) because fat is harder on the digestive system. Well, I decided Sunday Morning (Day 2 post sick day) that I wanted my zoats again, so I made them as I normally would, which includes 1/2 a tbsp of peanut butter, some crushed nuts, chia seeds and peanut flour. Stupid me.

Once again, my tummy rebelled against me and I couldn’t eat for like 6 hours. 😦 Was it the fats? Was is the zucchini? The chia? I dunno, but they do say zucchini is easy to digest and that fats are a problem too early on.

As far as the rest of my meals went, I was a good girl in terms of the fat content and stuck to zero fat fish or chicken for my protein sources (gawd I miss my fatty fish!) and only introduced avocado after a full day back at eating. Avocado was first because it’s supposed to be the easiest fat to take in (I googled it so it’s legit ;-)).

Zucchini, mushrooms and onion with garlic powder only (nothing spicy allowed..sadface), too small of a piece of squash and chicken breast with avocado.

One that I’m still struggling with…

Fail #4: Too Many Veggies Too Fast.

Baked haddock with avocado (with one random shrimpie), roasted squash and kale done in curry with garlic, onion and mushrooms.

On day 2, yeah see I’m impatient, I knew that I wanted to push a lil bit for more food because I was going back to the gym the next morning and wanted to feel like I gotten better with the whole calories thing. Well that backfired on me as the kale, despite being cooked, did not sit well at all..or maybe it was too much squash…and I blew up like a hot air balloon. Sorry if that is too much information, I’m just being real with you.

I just love my veggies, I’m sorry tummy. Stop hating on me!

So, I failed quite a few times and paid for it with some pain, bloating, gas (sorry TMI) pains and feeling overstuffed, but I did have some positives to this whole process…

Roasted acorn squash and purple sweet potato. Baked Basa with avocado + 2 Shrimp. More Zucchini, onion and mushrooms sauteed in Mrs. Dash Steak Seasoning <- makes it taste like The Keg’s veggies no joke.Tried purple sweet taters again because I needed a higher density carb source that is less volume. Thank you Whole Foods for bringing back my favourite kind of sweet tater. It looks so small on that big plate. This is why I love squash…you get so much of it for the same carbohydrates as that teensie piece of tater. Plus, squash is just soo goood.

Got to make use of my amazing find…

Yes. Dairy free, sugar free, cashew and almond yogurt! Tastes just like plain yogurt, just a lil gritter because its made from nuts. I still missed my pudding, but my attempt at pro-froyo helped to tide me over for my nightly snack aside my 1/2 a Questbar.

I found this at the lil grocery store inside The RichTree in the Eaton Centre for anyone near Toronto.

So after all of that, how am I doing now?

I’m still slowly incorporating foods back in. Tonight, I had salad for the first time for dinner and a medium fat fish (mahi mahi) PLUS I get to have my pudding tonight WEEOOOO so I hope it all sits well.

I adjusted my zoats to have a lil less zucchini and only working with half of the chia seeds that I normally have.

Tomorrow will be the first time I’m having veggies at both lunch and dinner (being back in the gym, I have been having zoats postworkout too), so hopefully that is okay.

Still haven’t brought my fish oils back in yet and I haven’t been able to hit my normal calories again yet, but they are getting higher and hopefully that helps me in the gym as I definitely have a case of the “I’m WEAK!” going on.

Still feeling some gas issues by the end of every day and into the morning, but hopefully that goes away soon. Bring on the fatty fish soon enough!

Sorry had to throw that in there as I’m complaining about not being able to eat..

HOW?!? Me no compute.

Sorry I just obsess over like food.

So yeah, I have learned that I can’t push my body to move too fast or it just pushes back…with vengeance. No bueno.

Happy Hump Day Peeps

Do you follow the BRAT diet when you’re sick?

Do you push your body when you should let it rest and heal?

-Chelsea