Speaking of Supplements

So, let's talk about my digestive system today. It will be great practice for when I'm 85 and that's all I will ever want to talk about.

I have been having this issue with exercise. I'm lazy. Wait, no, that's not the issue we are going to discuss today. For several years, whenever I start exercising, I start out fine. I get tired and achey, but I keep going. When I get to the point where I start pushing harder, I get sick. It's like a cold or flu type thing, and it lasts from a day to a week or more. Every time. I thought that maybe I could exercise while unemployed and not have this problem. So I tried it, and I was sick for a few days. When I felt better, I went out for a couple drinks. The next day I had a relapse and felt even worse for about four days!

So, here's what I've been doing. I go for a jog with my husband, The Food Pimp, or TFP. This is great for him because it's his warmup before he goes running for 10 or 15 miles. So we go through our neighborhood and down the hill towards Balboa Park. When we get to the bottom of the hill with the gnarly intersection, I turn around and jog back home. I go faster, but I'm still jogging. I try to make it all the way to two or three blocks before home, and then I walk. When I get home I do a few push ups, maybe crunches or not, some simple free weight stuff with my little green 5 pounders. That's about it. I just kind of increase little by little.

I started researching online. What I usually found was that it was allergies, asthma, weak lungs, bronchitis, stuff like that. I do have allergies, and sometimes I would take allergy pills daily, but that never worked. I tried a couple of times to use an inhaler before jogging, because there's this exercise induced asthma. That didn't work.

I generally would get weak and dizzy at work if I had been pushing myself hard or not eating or sleeping right, or whatever. Of course, it would be worse if I had been exercising. I started taking vitamins a couple years ago and that seemed to help somewhat with the dizziness. It didn't help with the exercise flu thing, though.

So, the last time I looked this thing up online, I found whole thread about probiotics. It was a revelation. Yogurt. Like the Jamie Lee Curtis commercials. There was comment after comment from people being so excited that they were not the only one and that there was a solution to the problem!

So, the deal is, without the proper flora in your system (because I have tons of fauna pass through - going south, that is, not north, thank you) when starting exercise or stepping it up, more fat needs to be metabolized, which is one of the main objectives of exercising. So if you have a shitty lifestyle or diet with junk food, preservatives a lot of alcohol, etc, or you don't have the right bacteria in your gut, then you may have a lot of toxins stored in your fat. So, with increased exercise, there is increased kidney and liver function, and some toxins get "backed up" into your blood stream.

So, I went to the stores looking for probiotic tablets, which they are not widely available yet, and some can be pretty expensive. I ended up going to Jamie Lee Curtis route. Activia. It was not too pricey, and it had that 14 day guarantee and all. So, I got blueberry and peach, I think. So, I went home and ate one. It tasted fine. I sat back to see what would happen. Terrible bloating and gas. Horrible gas. I mean, it probably could be used in a gas chamber to at least knock someone unconscious, and then when they threw up they would choke to death. I felt terrible, and I felt especially bad for the FP, who had to inhale these noxious fumes. It lasted for like 12 hours.

The next day, when the FP saw the tub of Activia come out of the fridge, he said, "Oh no!" and ran for cover. I didn't get anything this time, except for a slight gurgling.

I ate this Activia for four days. In these four days, I did not take one shit. I think I tried, maybe squoze a rabbit pellet or two out, but no relieving dumps. Something happened after the fourth day, and I didn't have Activia for one or two days. But then I started again, and ate it for another week. Nothing. I was quite plugged up. I finally stopped eating it, and switched to greek yogurt, which is way more delicious anyway, and after a couple more days I took a glorious shit. I mean a rainbow came out of my ass, and it glowed gold from the pot and a leprechaun tried to claim it.

I just don't get it though. The SNL skit about Activia is that it makes you diarrhea your pants. I'm always weird and backwards, though, so I guess that makes sense. I tried to google "Activia and constipation", and all I could find was that it alleviated normal people's constipation within a day or two of starting the Activia regimen.

So, I've been eating greek yogurt, that pourable yogurt drink or regular old Yoplait when there's nothing else. The other day I also bought these probiotic tablets that were on sale so that if we run out of yogurt I have something.

I started exercising again this week. This is fourth day of some kind of exercise. I haven't gotten sick so far. I'm going to see how far I can push this, since I don't really need to be well for any reason in particular, besides writing this blog every day and the other two blogs every few days. So, I'll keep you posted.