Thursday 31 March 2005

Pic of the day: Not quite godlike looking character. (For those who didn't get the joke, one of the regular members of Legion of Superheroes was called "Matter-Eater Lad".) Screenshot from City of Heroes, Issue 4.

Potato chips day

It has been 2 1/2 weeks since last I ate, if you don't count yogurt and such. I have been losing weight ever since. While this is hardly a problem in the short run, it is not exactly a good sign either. So starting yesterday, I have tried adding a little solid to my diet. I bought a bag of potato chips, and ate more than a dozen of them. More than a dozen chips, of course, not bags! Even so, I'm not sure it was a success. I did the same today, but before lunch today my digestion started to act up again. It is not as bad as it was two weeks ago; the feeling is somewhat different. Most notably, the shaking and shivering is mercifully absent. On the other hand, there are bouts of queasiness and my guts are rebelling.

Both yesterday and today I have been drinking a tiny bottle -- a deciliter each -- of milk with LGG bacteria, which are supposedly very good and helpful bacteria who take up residence in the intestines and normalize the digestion there. Well, perhaps this is normal for most people. But if so, I would rather go back to the kind of abnormal I was before. Perhaps I should try something else. Most notably, perhaps I should not introduce two different foods at the same time. I still have two of those tiny bottles left. Tomorrow I should try drinking one of them but not eat chips. If I feel better after that, the chips are suspect. If not, the probiotic milk is suspect. The placebo effect is not exactly on my side this time -- I mean, if God wanted us to eat gut bacteria, he would have made shit smell good, right?

Of course, I won't have the answer to my experiment until Saturday at best, if it is a problem in the gut. The food usually takes one to two days to get through. Actually even more in most people, but I am not most people right now. Still, it is like running slalom with a supertanker.