July 26, 2006

I wonder how many people have seen the movie, “Lost in Translation”? While I did not love the movie, one scene, in particular, made me laugh out loud. In this scene, Bill Murray – whose character is a famous actor - is in Tokyo to film some commercials. While filming a commercial, Murray's character has trouble understanding the director, and his translator is of little help. In the commercial, he is sitting and slowly savoring the product, which is a whisky. He appears to be enjoying the product and doing a great job of conveying the feel. The director, meanwhile, is incessantly trying to tell him to do something different and is getting quite agitated, but Murray has no idea what the director wants from him. Nothing makes sense in the context of this particular commercial. For example at one point, after the director talks intensely for a long, long time, the translator tells him that the director said to "move quicker, and with great intensity”. This couldn’t possibly be what the director was saying or what he was trying to get Murray's charact to do. It doesn’t sound funny as I type it, but there was something about that scene that really got to me. It’s been on my mind this morning and let me tell you why.

I’ve have definitely had a couple of interesting days, diet-wise.

Although my goal is to be up an running with my “get back in shape and get this darn weight off” plan by mid-August, I am not just sitting around ruminating about the whole thing. I AM taking action as I can, and trying to really observe and “grok” the results.

For example, I have always – ALWAYS – worked to get protein into me first thing. Part of me, in fact, rebels against the thought that some other approach might work better than the “protein, protein, protein” first thing.

BUT

Actually the fruit/ nut combo seems to be working better than protein. So, go figure…

What I guess that I am saying is that I am taking this time to not only do the thinking and figuring part out, but I am also doing things to improve where I am. By taking these small steps, I have actually had 2 amazing days. I have been starch-free, fruit and veggie intense, bennie concentrated. And I have felt great eating this way, with absolutely no cravings. Why couldn’t I get to this point before? It seems so clear and easy.

That being said, I ate pizza last night. Pizza and an Italian sub.

As Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

As I sit here with dealing with the final remnants of my body’s SHOUTING overreaction, I can readily say, “no so good” Last night was an eye-opener, that’s for sure.

There is a pizza parlor here in San Antonio that is owned and operated by a family from New Jersey. Their pizza and Italian subs are the only ones in town that are the way that I remember them from growing up in New York. Everything that they make (and the only things on the menu are pizza and subs) is delicious. I hadn’t eaten there in nearly a year, and neither had a girlfriend of mine and we’ve both been talking about how we have been craving Florio’s pizza, so we decided to go last night. We ordered a medium pizza with sausage, green peppers, onions and mushrooms on it and the traditional Italian sub. The food came and it was YUMMY. I ate that delicious, delicious food until I could barely walk and it felt SOOOO good.

Until….

Until…

Well, really until right after I ate. I just didn’t feel so great. I went home and did some work and went to bed on the late side. I had eaten raw onions at lunch in a salad that I had made, and although the onions gave me a little onion breath, they hadn’t bothered me at all. Of course THOSE onions were a part of a healthy, BTD-compliant, bennie-filled salad. After I ate the pizza, though, all I could taste and feel were the onions. I couldn’t get rid of them. My stomach started to hurt and I started to get a terrible headache. I took some aspirin and headed to bed (I’m not aspirin sensitive, and it seems to work better for me than any other pain reliever). It was just after midnight.

By 3:30 AM, I was in misery. My stomach was killing me, all I could taste was the pizza and the onions, my head felt like someone was squeezing it with a vise and my heart was pounding. I got up, hoping that getting vertical would make me feel better.

Now, let me interject something here. I’ve only been clean and BTD compliant for 2 days. I have been eating wheat, here and there, for a while now, and whereas it might make my heart pound a little or make me feel a little funky, I have not had bad reactions to it. Ditto dairy and just about everything else that was in that meal. I have only been clean for 2 DAYS!

But my body’s reaction was clear as a bell. I cannot do that anymore. I simply can’t. I didn’t get back to sleep until 7 AM. It is now nearly 11 AM, and I just finished my fresh fruit and nut mixture, and I have to say that my stomach still hurts.

Me. The person with the cast-iron stomach. In stomach misery.

No more.

I want to feel, physically, like I did BEFORE the pizza yesterday. And this is probably why and how people like blogger Suzanne remain so complaint. Perhaps until getting my brain straightened out with the ADD medication, I simply couldn’t focus in on how I was feeling. I actually know that this was a part of it. I was delayed in taking one of my pills yesterday, and I immediately started to get disjointed. When this happened, I didn’t feel OK, in fact, I felt physically terrible.

Perhaps, now that I am being treated properly, my body can send me signals and I will understand and heed them. Perhaps it has been sending me signals, just as strong and clear as last night, all along, but I wasn’t able to process it.

The good news, overall, is that, regardless of the past, I am hearing them loud and clear now. Perhaps, now, my body’s signals to me will no longer be lost in translation.