Weigh-in Wednesday: Doctor's Orders

After being sick all weekend, I really thought I had turned a corner by Monday afternoon and I was coasting easily into being well again. I decided to get soup for dinner to mix up my diet of ginger ale and saltines a bit. Bad choice. I chose egg drop soup because it was easily attained at a nearby Chinese food place and it seems like a bland enough substance for a working-my-way-back-to-real-food meal. Ohhhh, was I wrong. Folks, when sick with a stomach virus, DO NOT eat egg drop soup — at least that's what I was told when I saw the doctor on Tuesday when I was, once again, not at school. The eggs are too rich and fatty for a healing stomach. Oh. Wish I had known that sooner. Live and learn, I guess.

After eating that cup of egg drop soup, my stomach began cramping within the hour and the rest of the night was all downhill from there. I did not sleep at all between 10:00pm and 3:51am and was up every 20 minutes or so. It was rough. Really, really rough. Around 4:00am, I fell asleep and awoke at 5:30am for some random reason and felt terrible. I knew I had to call in sick again for Tuesday. When I visited the doctor, they gave me some meds to take every few hours to help settle my stomach and gave me a strict diet to follow. All of the things on her list are the very things I routinely stay away from. I actually audibly laughed when she began listing off the food I was supposed to eat. She didn't find my "I eat low-carb" reasoning to be particularly hilarious.

This stomach virus, thanks to sleeping a lot and not eating or drinking much either, has lost me about 6 pounds. Oh hey, goal weight! Except that as soon as I start eating again, they will likely come right back. Bummer. And with my doctor imposed eating regimen for the next week (yeah, she said a whole WEEK), I'm a little worried they will come back with a vengeance. I am supposed to eat plain white toast, plain white rice, plain baked white potatoes and chicken with rice soup. Also, I can indulge with a jello if I'd like it. I must stay away from milk, yogurt, cheese and eggs and anything specifically fatty. Well, there goes my new eating plan. Ha!

I am going to follow what the doctor says because it really, really sucks to be this sick. It's absolutely miserable to be trapped inside in this wonderfully warm weather with a stomach virus. Not to mention the huge damper it's putting on my April running goal. I'm going to stay off the scale until after my week of white-carb eating is up and then just go back to doing what I know I should be doing. And besides, if I eat these foods in moderation (and truly, who is that hungry for plain toast, anyway? And I'm honestly not even hungry at all right now), it shouldn't be that bad. Or at least that's what I am hoping. My calorie count will be low naturally because there's not a lot of nutrients in what I am eating and the carbs are really all there is. I will not restrict these things but with my stomach the way it is, eating a lot is not an option.

I can't be worried about weight when I need to heal. I must remember this. Heath over weight. Health over weight. I know this rule but I seem to forget it pretty often.

 

~B