28 Days of Survival Food: Day 9
Aug 2, 2010, 12:19p - Life
Quite a few days have passed since I last wrote. Overall I'm doing OK, though I've been pretty spacey and slow with the thought processing recently. My energy level is pretty good though, and my limbs haven't ached since day 4.
Day 4 was the last day of the complete fast. I broke the fast with a ripe banana around 7pm, followed by a liter of honey tea. During survival school, my taste experience of the banana was amazing: I never thought a banana could taste that good. This time was different: the banana pretty much just tasted like a regular banana, and it didn't have what "wow" effect I felt on survival school. The honey tea was great, though.
I've also been dreaming a lot about food. On the night between days 3 and 4 I had a dream that I was eating fritos out of a small bowl. I knew I shouldn't as I was fasting, but somehow it seemed OK in the dream. The next night I had a dream that I was walking around holding a whole cooked chicken in my hands, gnawing on it rapidly. It was the kind of chicken you might pick up in a supermarket for $5. Again in the dream I started eating it and then quickly realized that I shouldn't, as my diet was now restricted to survival food.
My last food-related dream was perhaps the most interesting. Between days 5 and 6 I dreamed that I was at a construction site, and there was a piece of wood lying on the ground. A corner had chipped off, and for some reason I picked it up, put it in my mouth, and started eating it. After chewing on it for a few seconds I realized (1) that I was on survival food so this wasn't allowed and (2) that a lot of construction-grade wood is treated with all sorts of chemicals to enhance its life, so it probably is bad for me. I tried to spit it out, but it was really hard, because even after spitting out a bunch of shards I still had plenty left in my mouth, more than could have fit in there to begin with. Seems like survival food is driving my dream-self to pica.
The evening of day 5 saw my first real meal: survival stew with 2 handfulls of lentils, 1 handfull quinoa, quarter of a big brown potato, quarter of a carrot, and an eighth of an onion. Spices were meager, with half a cube of vegetable bullion, half a garlic clove and several shakes of the salt and pepper shakers. I made double this amount so that Becca could have some, as she's trying to be supportive without taking the full dive. It was damn bland, so I added more salt, but I still couldn't get it to have much flavor. Becca of course topped it off with a whole lot of tapatio, her favorite spice of all time. She is to tapatio as some are to ketchup, having to add it to almost every meal else the food has no flavor.
My weight's been fluctuating between 143 and 145 lbs, though it hasn't dropped any more than that since I started eating again.
Day 6 morning saw my first breakfast of salted oats with some dehydrated milk. Again it was pretty bland. Days 7 and 8 were more of the same, though day 7's breakfast consisted of "oatmeal jello", leftover oats congealed over a bed of wheat germ. Apparently Becca used to love this as a kid, but it has a pretty nasty texture and of course no real flavor. I couldn't even finish it.
Also I've been giving myself a ration of raisins and peanuts (unsalted) to snack on, one snack-sized ziploc bag to last 2 days.
I also ate a few blueberries that Nicky brought over yesterday. They were good, though not particularly sweet.
I haven't actually been that hungry, nor do I desire the bland foods I have on the menu. There is temptation all around (my lab just got a bread machine and is baking 2 loaves per day), but somehow I've just built a wall in my mind between my food desires and my actions. We all have some such wall in our heads, one that keeps a lot of our thoughts from being transformed into speech and other actions. I've just tacked food desires to my pre-existing no-act list, and it seems to be sticking despite all the food all around.
The food I've been thinking about the most is pizza, and that'll probably be the first thing I eat when I'm done with this experiment in 19 days.
The last week actually went by a lot faster than I expected, and I suspect the next 3 weeks will be similar.
One thing that happened starting yesterday is that my eyes don't seem to be coordinated the same way they used to. Everything's in focus, but when I look out into the distance the images from each eye don't seem to be properly aligned, sort of like I'm slighlty cross-eyed. My head is also very spacey, and I've been having trouble remembering words and thinking clearly overall. I have been remembering all sorts of memories that I haven't thought about in a long time, so maybe that has something to do with it. I'm not sure if this eye-effect happened on survival school, as I was wearing glasses instead of the contacts I'm wearing now, so I may not have noticed as much. Plus there was a lot more discomfort that could have been distracting me from it. Maybe it's due to some sort of vitamin deficiency, or maybe it's a sign that my brain's slowly changing.
In the midst of this little experiment I'm also installing hardwood floors into a room in our house. We picked up the wood yesterday, and next weekend I'll nail it down. We'll see how I feel about doing real manual labor while on this diet, though it will be more similar to survival school in that way.
Overall things are OK. I'm not excited about my food, nor the spacey mind I have with me now. I think I'll change the menu a bit to match survival school come day 12, when we slaughtered a sheep and later got an apple and some amaranth with honey to eat. I guess that's something to look forward to.
Read comments (2) - Comment
Kanika
- Aug 2, 2010, 5:18p
Last time I spoke to you - you were semi normal -- this time around you sound like a freak!! What up with u?? Why are u fasting when u have the priviledge of beautiful, juicy, tasty food that god gave us!!! Why!!!????
Although if I could build a wall in my mind for all the sugar I have I'd look like carmen--- bur no can do!!! So seriously why the weird experiment?? And the yucky food?
nikhil
- Aug 3, 2010, 7:03a
Hi Kanika,
I explain my reasons in this post: http://nikhil.superfacts.org/archives/2010/07/x.html
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