Too Much of a Good Thing
There are two habits I frequently turn to when I’m stressed at work:
I stop breathing.
I binge eat.
I may have resolved the first one by posting up a note on my monitor reminding me to breathe. It reads,
Breathe.
Every time I see it, I take a deep breath. Problem solved.
The second habit of binge eating is an issue when I have snacks and candy near me. I could smash through a whole carton of Whoppers or a whole bag of cookies in no time. To resolve this crisis, I have been buying healthy snacks like cottage cheese, apples, celery, and carrots. Those options are definitely not as tasty as chocolate but if I was binge-craving, it might as well be healthy. However, it turns out that too much a good thing can turn out bad.
I ate almost an entire bag of baby carrots in one sitting today. At first, I felt great and even proud of putting that much nutrition in my body. Then things started to feel weird.
It was an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, but eventually it morphed into intense cramps. First thought:
Oh my god, I have food poisoning.
But from what? All I had that day was yogurt, coffee, and a green smoothie. I have these things every day because it’s easy and that makes me happy. As you may have guessed by now, it was the carrots. Naturally, I googled my symptoms:
Why does my stomach cramp carrots
This is what I learned:
Carrots are all fiber.
Your gut can not digest fiber.
The natural sugars and enzymes cause gas buildup.
So basically, I had to fart and I’ve never wanted to fart so bad in my life.
These cramps felt like stomach-flu cramps - like I needed to vomit. But I’m terrified of expelling my insides out, so that was 100% not going to happen. Since the pain was preventing me from concentrating at work, I curled up into a ball and retreated to my savior, Google, once again:
How to relieve stomach cramping by carrots
and
How to fart
Some advised techniques included walking around. I walked back and forth throughout my apartment but found myself clenching at my stomach and bending over in pain. I needed a quicker remedy. The next method was “massaging the affected area”.
How do I massage my gut???
Nonetheless, I tried.
At one point, probably when these cramps were at their worst, I contemplated calling 9-1-1 in case my stomach decided to explode. I was imagining gas building up uncontrollably inside me, and that I had somehow made the Pop Rocks and 7Up myth come true (but with raw, baby carrots). Then I thought,
Death by overeating baby carrots would be so mortifying. I can’t go this way.
That is when I tried the next home remedy: yoga poses.
Moving my body like that sounded terrible with how I was feeling, but it was either that or exploding. I immediately cat/cowed and stretch into downward dog. Hope started to seep in when I heard gurgling in my stomach.
IS IT HAPPENING?
Nothing. Still in pain, I somehow went back to work to jump on a call and finished up some tasks. I barely moved, terrified any small movement would cause a nuclear explosion.
When work was finally over, I decided to take a hot shower. The consistent pain was draining the life out of me and I now had a chill running throughout my entire body. I couldn’t decide if these cramps were worse than menstrual cramps as they felt so different. But usually a hot shower helped with those, so why not try.
The problem with my shower is not that the hot water runs out - that will stay hot forever. But that the hotter you make it, the less pressure you get. I was freezing. So I huddled under my small stream of hot water attempting to warm up and relieve the cramps. However, the half of my bathtub that wasn’t getting water was still freezing, so I had to turn around every few minutes to warm up one half of my body.
To no one’s surprise, it wasn’t working and I resorted to turning my shower into a bath. I plugged up the drain with a small cup and pushed down the nozzle - the trickling stream of water now running through the faucet.
I sat down on the cold tub floor and waited. When the water was an inch deep, I stretched out my legs and tried wading the hot water towards my toes. What felt like an hour later, the water came up another inch. I felt bad about wasting so much water so I decided this would have to do. I turned off the bath and, knees bent, lied down in 2-inch deep, somewhat hot bathwater.
This may sound like torture to you, but by the time I was dealing with my shower-to-bath fiasco, my stomach cramps had subsided a bit (unbelievably, no farting involved). I was exhausted enough from the past few hours of constant pain and worry, that even this uncomfortable position in the bath felt like a luxurious sauna. I lied there, cupping hot water to pour over my mostly exposed body. Finally, the chill was gone.
As I lied in the tub, I looked down realizing how cramped I was. Although, while the water was running, I had wished it were half the size so it could fill up quicker. Seeing myself this way reminded me of a memory back when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old and taking a bath. To be honest, I have a lot of memories of bath time as a kid. From swimming with Barbies to bathing with my little brothers - the latter always ending with a floating turd and me screaming,
Moooommm - he did it agaaainnnnn!!!
But the memory I was thinking of in that moment was when I used to try to touch my toes to the other side of the tub. Every time I had my bath, I’d stretch my legs as far as they could go - ecstatic for the day they would reach the other side. I remember my Mom coming in one day, with me exclaiming,
Look Mom!
I’d point my toes so hard for her to see my progress.
Oh, it looks like you’re getting taller Kayla.
Now look at me. I can hardly fit in this tub, but smiled at the fact that little Kayla would be so proud. Then I fell asleep. Thankfully, I was at no risk of drowning in 2 inches of water. That would also be a mortifying way to die. I woke up when a drop of cold water fell on my face from the showerhead. Whether I was insanely tired or just delirious, the sound of the water hitting my face,
PLOP.
made me laugh.
I skipped dinner that night, and guess what? I never farted.