It.Was.Bananas. - How to Lose SIX Pounds in One Night

It all started with a craving for a banana.

I don't eat a lot of fruit. When I do partake it's usually in the form of raspberries or blueberries because they are delicious lower on the glycemic index. I watch my blood sugar kind of closely and count the mess outta carbs, so bananas have been on my "not an everyday food" list for a while. This has not really impacted my life in any great way, since before I started training with Kemper my favorite way to eat a banana was baked in some quick bread and topped with Nutella. Because duh. But Friday found me craving a fresh, real banana in the worst way.

***Minor Tangent totally related to this story***

Pigeon pose with a fold.
Also, if I did yoga outside the chances of me
getting into pigeon pose and *not* getting pooped
on by an actual pigeon are slim. Because I am a
bird poop magnet. (You need to click that link.)

I've noticed lately that I've been having muscle cramps in my abdominals* whenever I try to forward fold during yoga or stretch after a workout. (*Confession = it happened at my last training session with Kemper. As I was contorting my body into a variety of delightful positions to try to loosen the cramp - picture me hula hooping without an actual hoop or any discernible rhythm - I was all (enter my "I'm totally trying not to freak out but this kinda sorta really hurts and I'm worried I might FREEZE UP LIKE THIS FOREVER" voice), "KEMPER WHAT IS THIS THAT IS CRAMPING?!" as I jabbed repeatedly at my abdomen. Kemper was all, "Your abdominals, Dummy." Have I mentioned how good I am at logic?) I've also noticed that my feet are cramping up when I do pigeon pose. (On a really fun day I get into a folded pigeon pose and then it's a giant party because everything cramps at once.) Since I used to get muscle cramps quite frequently during triathlon training, I assumed this meant one of two things: either I was dehydrated or I needed some potassium. With the dawn of the banana craving on Friday, I deduced potassium and decided to listen to my body, making plans to consume a banana sometime in the following day.

Big mistake. Huge. Because y'all? My body is a big fat liar. 

Mine was consumed at 72.5 hours.

It started out a very promising endeavor. Friday is my grocery shopping day, so I bought the most perfectly ripe banana with the plan to have it with my dinner. It was bright yellow, firm, and smelled so fresh. I entered it into MyFitnessPal and arranged all my other food around this one luscious piece of fruit. I counted down the hours until dinnertime when I could enjoy it. Then I received a phone call.

*lightning flashes and the lights dim dramatically because it's time to foreshadow the trauma of the night*

Brian was calling from work to let me know he was going to be home really late. He'd hurt his back again (this happens about once a year) and needed to go to the company clinic after his day ended. "No problem, Babe, you take care of you," I said naively, still unaware of the hellish nightmare in my future.

With the timetable of the night suddenly a bit different, I had to rework the timing of my original food plan. Now I would eat the banana as a snack around 5:00 p.m., take the older girlies to their Friday night teen group, and come home to eat dinner with the littles around 6:45 p.m. 

When 5:00 rolled around I savored the heck out of that banana. It was amazeballs. And I'm not even the type of person who said amazeballs even when it was still current. But that banana was worth every hour I waited for it ... until about 5:30 p.m. when it liquefied every hint of matter residing in my gastrointestinal tract and demanded immediate release from the captivity in my body.

There are no words to describe the next eight hours of my life. I drove the girlies to their event solely because I had no room for rational thought when my brain was just pleading for death for the horrible stomach pain to stop. By the time I got home with Esther and Ezra all I could do was stumble back and forth from the bathroom to the couch, whimpering incoherently all the while.

Esther was a complete rock star during this time. She made sure Ezra had everything he needed as he ate his dinner, and then challenged him to a pajama contest. Which was a genius way for her to get his pajamas on. I hovered in and out of consciousness, but did hear Brian walk in the door around 8:00.

"Oh, Babe, what can I do for you?" he wondered in concern.

"Don't make me talk," I croaked from under a blanket.

Kevin Smith, you gave us Clerks so Imma extend
you a little bit of trust here...don't do me wrong.

The next few hours were a blur. There was a lot of Drama Queen moaning while The Horrible Sickness controlled my body. Finally, around 11:30 p.m., just in time for Jimmy Fallon, I started to feel some relief. I rolled over onto my side without feeling as if I were reclining on broken glass. I smiled at some of Jimmy's antics. I started sipping water, and, because Jimmy Fallon, I even laughed out loud at the ridiculousness that is Justin Long's new movie Tusk. (A man kidnaps another man and turns him into a walrus?! Whut.)

"Say Yes to the Best"
It's like I had no choice.

By 12:30 I felt well enough to try some cereal because I was suddenly hungry as all get out. (Yes, Kemper, the bad cereal on top of my fridge that I feed my children.)(But it was organic cocoa crispies, so it was healthy sugar.)(#hownutritionworks) It must have been healthy because I kept it down (#proof) and I went to bed at 1:00 a.m. because Seth Myers is a terrible late night host.


Saturday morning I woke up at 8:30 and felt completely fine. But when I stepped on the scale later that day I discovered I had lost six pounds in one night. (And yes, of course I gained it back by the next day once I was rehydrated, but can we take a moment to celebrate the only upside (albeit a short lived one) to the misery I endured on Friday night?)

So friends, that is how you lose six pounds in one night.