Monday 17 October 2005

Pic of the day: "Don't feed the alien please." Hey, it's not the easiest topic to illustrate.

Stomach pain

When I come to work, I usually start my day by eating a light breakfast with plenty of carbohydrates. So also today: I drank a cup of chocolate milk and ate a cup of chocolate pudding. What was unusual was what happened next: My stomach started to hurt as if someone had punched me in it a few hours ago. They hadn't, of course, but that is the best way I can describe it. Needless to say, this destroyed my appetite. The pain continued for the rest of the day. It didn't completely stop me from doing my work, but it was distracting. And worrying, of course.

During the afternoon I sipped a little water from time to time without the pain getting much worse, but I didn't even consider eating anything. In the evening I remembered a quote from the Bible (1 Timothy 5:23): "Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses." Luckily I do have a bottle of port wine in my kitchen, where it has lasted for some years now. (I tend to forget drinking alcohol, despite its supposed benefit to health in great moderation.) So I mixed some wine in the water, perhaps one part wine to three parts water, and sipped a deciliter or so of this during the late evening. It agreed better with my stomach than pure water had done, whether by some innate quality or because of the faith, I don't know.

Even so, the pain lasted until the next breakfast, at which point it disappeared utterly.

***

Even though it only lasted for a day, I think this episode highlights why you shouldn't exercize away all body fat. What if I was unable to eat for, say, a week? What if I got a serious flu? A fever will not just ruin your appetite, it will also burn more energy to maintain the higher temperature. What if, God forbid both now and later, I would have to undergo chemotherapy? A moderate buffer of fat is not just harmless, it is a good thing. I can make do with a little less than now, but I am not going to do anything to actually speed up the process. And if I remain at my current weight for the rest of my natural lifespan, that would probably not be a problem either.

Well, probably. I did one more thing just before eating breakfast the next day. I measured my blood sugar. Still 4.8 (that's 75 in American values). Hmm. I do seem to have that ability to retain normal blood sugar for quite some while with minimal input. 24 hours in this case. Of course, if I knew it would only last one day, I might have taken a long walk to test the limits. I actually may, some day. It's not like I need to be sick to skip food for a day. In theory, that is.