I just lost eleven pounds in less than four days! How, you ask? What is my wondrous, revolutionary, all-natural secret? Yes, it’s a completely organic, non-artificial, surefire guaranteed method of losing weight!
It’s called Stomach Flu™. And, oh lord, is it miserable. I came down with it on Friday, and it first hit me, as all good sicknesses do, in the middle of the night. That’s when the damned bugs know you’re weak. Now, yes, it would be bad to be hit very suddenly with crippling nausea while in the office, but you generally get a bit more warning while you’re awake. But when you’re asleep, it’s just WHAM! Get up NOW! And that’s it. Three-A-Effing-M (after a bit of a warning shot of nausea at 2 am).
After that, my body decided that it was going to try something new. It was tired of the whole “Eat-Break Down-Absorb” method of digestion; that’s awfully old hat, and been done. So, you know, let’s just skip one of the steps. On Saturday, it became clear that eating was out of the question. My damned, virus-infested internals even quibbled at sipping water.
On Sunday, I got to nibble on a cracker. A quarter for breakfast, a quarter for lunch, and half for dinner. Mm-mmm! Plus a glass of water. Oddly, I wasn’t feeling too terrible, as long as I didn’t eat anything more than that. Oh, sure, I didn’t feel great, but I wasn’t woozy, or too weak to move, or hallucinating. My body was probably sustaining itself by consuming my liver or something. And draining its existing water reserves. That body is, what, 70-odd-percent water? That’s plenty!
And, of course, some friends were in the area, up from LA for a visit. But since they had just gotten over their own bout with the stomach flu, I didn’t get to see them. Fair enough, really, because I damn well wouldn’t risk getting it again.
On Monday, I decided to stay home from work. I mean, obviously. For one thing, I was able to eat a bit more. For another, the weakness was starting to hit me. I had lost most of the eleven pounds by then. So I stayed home. I rested. I did very, very little. But, hey, my body let me eat some yogurt for breakfast, a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and some minestrone soup for dinner. Although my stomach did clench for about an hour over the soup. Maybe it was the vegetables or something. Or maybe it was something along the lines of, “Hey! All that food today almost constituted an entire meal! Better watch it, buddy.” Because, of course, I was at that point convinced that my bodily organs hated me. Treacherous, scheming organs.
Tuesday, I stayed home from work again. Compared to Monday, I did a lot. Oh, I got a haircut, and went to the hardware store for a few things, and deposited a check at the bank, and ran a few more extremely minor errands. My body, at this point, had decided that maybe it needed food, after all. Or “fought off the virus,” although I still have my suspicions. Gall bladder, I’m looking at you.