People think that because I am a nutritional therapist my body always runs like a finely tuned machine. Of course this is not always the case, as sometimes my digestion gets a little sluggish. This is my body’s way of telling me that I am not eating enough vegetables or drinking enough water.
Now let me tell you a little story. Get ready for some wonderful TMI 🙂
With a romantic dinner on the horizon with my sweetheart, I didn’t feel like waiting for my digestion to catch up by consuming copious amounts of veggies and water. However, I wanted to feel thin and light and energetic for my date, not constipated and weighed down. So I decided to try a time-honored tradition to speed things along: prune juice.
I drank about 8 ounces of prune juice at approximately 6am. Forty-five minutes later, bingo! Pardon my bluntness, but yes, the steak and chicken from the last two nights of my veggie neglect were cleansed out of me. Feeling satisfied, I did a little bit of work and decided to go back bed.
Next thing I knew, I had the urgent need to get to the bathroom. Was I awake? Or, was I dreaming? You know how sometimes you dream that you have to go to the bathroom, but you know you are dreaming and briefly contemplate whether you can pee in your dream or need to get up because you really have to go? This is where I was. Who would have thought going back to bed would have been such a gamble.
Unsure whether I was in reality or the 5th dimension, all I knew was that my body was going to blow soon. Next thing I know I am walking along this trail with two girls behind me. I bent over and let it go. To one of the girl’s horrific dismay, I released my pent up prune juice all over her. My eyes flew open and I lay frozen in my bed. “Did I just relieve myself in bed?” A little movement proved my pajamas were clean and I had not soiled myself, but if I didn’t get to the bathroom soon I certainly would.
I got the sweats for the next six hours as the gas from the fermenting prune juice grumbled through my digestive tract. The constipated, heavy feeling was replaced with gas and bloating. Several times throughout the day I felt uncertain if the bloated feeling was going to be released as a gas or more of the explosive diarrhea. I kept close to the bathroom for safety’s sake.
By the time I was ready for my romantic dinner, I still felt uncertain whether the gas moving through my intestines was really gas. I did not want to let it out for fear of soiling myself. I mean, who could think of anyone romantically again if such an event occurred? Ok, I would, but there aren’t very many people like me who could see the humor in a situation like this. The only problem was, I couldn’t really laugh about it without releasing pent up prune juice!
The moral of this story is…. next time, I think I will eat my veggies and drink my water. And I will follow my own advice that an apple a day really can keep constipation at bay. Because believe me, prune juice is not for the faint of heart!
Have you ever had a similar experience?
