~ Nutrition ~

As of this writing, it has been exactly one week since I returned from San Francisco. Let it be known that in that week, I have been feeling badly. While I have a vested interest in not occupying this blog with complaining, allow me to briefly summarize my experience of feeling badly. I have not had any specific concrete symptoms, such as a sore throat, but I have been overwhelmed with exhaustion, fatigue, and lethargy (synonyms, though they might be). And while the general feeling of fatigue might not be considered a life-threatening disease, I felt as though I would die from it. I became amazed that my head continued to remain atop my neck, that it had not rolled onto the floor from its weight, and lifting my arms was a task so difficult that I was wrought with agony bearing the albatross. My hypothesis was that I had overworked my body to the extreme while on vacation and that I needed rest. Said "rest", however, was difficult for me to procure due to the need to attend my place of employment for the duration of the week. When the weekend came, I still failed to rest adequately. By yesterday, back at my place of employment, I began to convince myself that something must be wrong with my state of health. I then proceeded to diagnose myself with a variety of illnesses, including anemia. As I leafed through the many different types of anemia, I found myself thinking "Eureka!" over and over. My hypothesis then evolved into the following, "Going on vacation and physically exerting one's body in ways one is not used to and failing to compensate this with adequate nutritional sustenance, including the failure to take in the recommended daily measures of essential vitamins and minerals, can cause one's body to feel fatigue." This hypothesis was based on a number of variables, some of which I have already discussed, and others, including the fact that while on vacation I did not eat according to my normal diet and that there were no groceries in my apartment when I returned home and had not had the opportunity to resume aforementioned normal diet. From the hypothesis, I concluded that consuming some essential vitamins and minerals would do me well. Thus, on my lunch break, I walked home and drank a protein shake which I mixed with one and one half cups of skim milk. The protein shake mix that I use, incidentally, contains almost 100% of my daily vitamin and mineral needs. Less than one hour after drinking my protein shake, I was feeling much better. Since then, about 26 hours ago, I have made a concerted effort to maintain a healthy diet (which included my procurement of additional protein powder because I was out of it), and I am feeling in near-to tip-top form. This has led me to determine that there is something to this whole "nutrition" thing.

Posted by jennifer at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)