I’ve been away visiting family for a long weekend. On Sunday we all went to a craft fair. There was of course all of the obligatory fair-type food vendors. However, my hubby and I opted to stop instead at a little coffee shop to avoid any iffy food service practices and barely-tasty but hyper expensive fair-foods. We were trying to be kind to our tummies. Monday morning, at 3 am, we both woke in agony to the most intense bout of food poisoning I’ve had in years. And we had to spend the day traveling back home from VA to MA. Trains, Planes and Automobiles made up a large part of our day of digestion agony. I would not recommend the experience to anyone.
Today we spent the day trying to choke down bread and lettuce. This has, if nothing else, been an oddly affirming lesson in intuitive eating. The method I’ve taken for determining what exactly my body craves most for nourishment is to hold a sort of mental picture in front of my mental stomach. This was REALLY tough yesterday and today, when a weak and sad stomach didn’t want anything! Kinda like trying to convince a 3-year old to eat their most-hated veggie. Only I was trying to convince my stomach that after almost 2 days of water that it needed SOMETHING inside for nourishment.
Me, holding up mental pictures: “How about an apple?”
Tummy, contemplating the pictures by anticipating the taste and post-eating feeling: “Oh barf, too sweet!”
Me: “Okaaay. How about some saltines?”
Tummy: “Blech, no way. Salty, stick to the roof of my mouth, make me feel nauseous later.”
Me: “Lettuce?”
Tummy: “Nope.”
Me: “Is there ANYTHING??!!? How can you crave NOTHING?!?!? Aren’t you supposed to TELL me what I need??!?!”
Tummy: “Water.”
Me: “It has been two days tummy. You NEED sustenance, nourishment. I’m getting a headache and a fever. We NEED nutrients!”
Tummy: “Pffft. Fine. YOU think of something!”
Me: “Gah. Fine then. We’ll start with nibbles of plain multi-grain bread. At least the thought of that isn’t making you give me the “instant oncoming nausea” signal!”
So, fighting to get my stomach to tell me what it needs: not always so easy. Anyone else have these frustrating (if not necessarily so filled with actual food poisoning sickness) moments of indecision when trying to learn to listen to their finicky body? When taking decisions into your own hands due to a lack of actual availability of what you want or just lack of strong cravings/needs just leaves you floundering and needing to settle for whatever is around that is reasonably tasty and filling to your dietary needs?
September 30, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Happens to me all the time… not the food poisoning part (and I hope you get better!!) but more looking around my kitchen and my tummy saying “meh”. I feel hungry, and I know it’s been 4-8 hours since I last ate, but nothing around really strikes my fancy. So I just stare into my fridge and cabinets blankly for twenty minutes, going “Strawberries? Not substantial enough. French fries? Nah, too plain. Alfredo with broccoli? Meh, not in the mood for something so heavy.” Etc. I usually end up eating whatever is the easiest thing to make.
Get well soon!
October 1, 2008 at 12:17 am
Foods that are nearly always okay in my book are Honey Bunches of Oats cereal, oatmeal, and plain pumpkin (not pie mix).
Food poisoning BLOWS, sometimes quite literally. The BRAT diet – bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast – isn’t just for babies.
October 1, 2008 at 6:26 am
I do –often also when I’m sick or having a medication side effect of nausea. But also sometimes when my body just goes ‘meh’ or ‘eh’ to every idea. The latter situation is when I let my husband pick whatever he wants for our dinner
October 1, 2008 at 11:03 am
I think we all have moments when our bodies just don’t ’speak’ to us the way we’d like them to. When that happens, I try to make sure that what I eat is still reasonably balanced.
It may be that your stomach wasn’t telling you what it wanted because it was a bit scared of everything. Two days of severe intestinal distress can do that to a tummy.
I hope you’re feeling better, BTW. Take care of yourself.
October 1, 2008 at 11:04 am
Unbuttered toast and soda, usually ginger-ale or coke, is what I eat on a very upset stomach, along with crackers. Sometimes I will eat plain chicken soup ( just noodles and broth) or jello. Basically, the clear liquid diet the doctor tells you to do when recovering from any gastrointestinal nightmare.
Sometimes when I stand around in the kitchen wondering what I want, I usually pop some fish sticks in the oven, or eat smoked turkey with some bread.
October 1, 2008 at 11:06 am
Thanks for the well wishes folks. It is neat to see the variety of foods people eat when they feel queasy too. I wouldn’t have thought about trying pumpkin.
October 1, 2008 at 11:10 am
In college my queasy hangover food was lemonade and Doritos. Saltine and ramen also work.
October 1, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I don’t know that Lemonande and Doritos would have helped out and the Ramen was one of the foods that my poor hubby got to..uh…let’s just say we were neither one of us eager to try the ramen again O.o
October 1, 2008 at 2:03 pm
My mom used to make us have a little chicken broth and dry toast. Though, I have also read a little about fasting, and sometimes when your tummy says it wants nothing… it means it. Hope you feel better soon!
October 1, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I can relate to the whole mental image of food and your belly agreeing/disagreeing!
Although I can usually come up with the solution of Jatz, they’re just a salty biscuit really and my belly always agrees.
When I would be sick as a child, just as I would get my appetite back first it would be Jatz and watered down lemonade. Then mum would make me some chicken noodle soup with toast. Then it would be mashed banana and some sliced apple. Literally that order as I would get better!
October 1, 2008 at 4:08 pm
While I’ve never spoken to my stomach, I think I would enjoy the experience of being able to communicate with it.
When I feeling nauseated, I eat solely saltines and drink Gatorade/Powerade. That stuff never comes back up on me!
October 1, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I’m surprised no one assumed the body knows what it’s doing–when you have food poisoning, the worst thing you can do is put more food in for your system to deal with and best thing is just water and rest. Your body was very clear–it didn’t want food! All animals fast in those circumstances, so I think it’s a very normal, natural, healthy thing to go through in that case. You won’t get malnourished, you’ll heal
But if I really wanted to eat–veggie broth or fresh veggie juice probably wouldn’t gum up the system.
October 1, 2008 at 6:06 pm
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October 2, 2008 at 12:46 am
I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome and I frequently don’t quite understand what my stomach is telling me. A lot of the time hunger equals pain and nausea, except of course when it’s real pain/nausea. You never know which it is until you’ve wither thrown up or tried eating something, which sometimes tells you it was hunger all along and sometimes makes you throw up or writhe in pain for a while. Much fun let me tell you. Truthfully I wish I could give up food except for when I have time, feel good, and actually want to eat something.
October 2, 2008 at 12:51 am
Oh, I thought I’d share my queasy foods since everyone else is. When I was a kid it was saltines and flat watered down ginger ale. Now it’s grapefruit juice and candied ginger. I can go through a container of candied ginger in a week when it’s bad.
October 17, 2008 at 5:32 am
hi hope when you read this you will be feeling better, because at this moment of time i have food poisioning! i feel like crap i’ve had it from 4am this morning after a ham sandwich last night!
what doesn’t help is my 3 son’s who are of school due to being ill themselfs, so not only am i tending to 3 sick kids but have the worse stomach cramps possible. I need to eat as i’m starving but my tummy is telling me not to but i know i need something as water will not stay down aswell.
can anyone suggest anything pls.
October 17, 2008 at 6:42 am
Hey Victoria, sorry you’re feeling awful! If none of the suggestions given above help with getting a bit of nutrients into your body without it coming back up I’d suggest trying to give a call to the adult medicine section of your doctor’s office to ask if a nurse could get back to you. Especially if you can’t keep even water down to try and fight the dehydration! Sending prayers that you find quick recovery!!