We went over to Atkins shakes for breakfast because our standard was just a bit heavy on the fat; and a trip to Walmart after some necessaries (I hate shopping at Walmart, partly for ethical reasons) produced some chocolate mocha shakes that haven’t been available elsewhere.
I’m suspecting I’m allergic to something in them. Due to a mixup, Jane had opened one (she’s allergic to coffee) and set it aside. I drank it for lunch as well as breakfast, [being cheap] and shortly after, began to feel sick at my stomach.
This transited to ‘sleepy and non functional’ and after losing the entire afternoon abed, to ‘drunk as a skunk,’ dropped things multiple times, generally felt awful, couldn’t think straight, had the mind skewing off down improbable and silly tracks, things like ‘I wonder if this [object] could [do something totally irrational]…’ and generally not feeling awake. To, finally, being short-fused and with the skin on the insides of my elbows feeling as if it had been sandpapered raw, which is, with my allergies, the signal usually of having eaten something I’m allergic to.
Well, I’m suspecting two doses of mocha shake were the culprit.
This morning I was supposed to have sausage and eggs as breakfast…to stay away from the shakes. But I decided to try the vanilla version, which I have had no trouble with. And if I repeat yesterday, I’ll know the shakes are off limits for me.
So if I start posting about alien invasions or the swimming ability of coffee cups, it was something basic in the shakes, not just the mocha.
I hate that state. I really hate it. I hate being sleepy and unable to work, and I really hate being stupid. And I’m not fond of the sore skin-feeling, either.
So we’ll see. I hope it’s just the one flavor, not the shakes in general. It’s so much more convenient when Jane and I can be on the same menu…and it’s easier to lose this last little bit of weight if I can take those shakes instead of sausage and eggs for breakfast.
YUCK!!
Some of those reactions sound like what eggs do to me. Be careful, all to easy to misjudge distances and slam an elbow into something or trip over a small protrusion. I’ve broken bones in those circumstances.
The good news is that I had a vanilla shake for breakfast and still know what planet I’m on. 😉
Made in China? The quality control there leaves a lot to be desired.
Shows us what happens when the profit motive trumps regulation. 😉
It’s actually Denver CO.
I think there’s just some substance in the chocolate mocha that either doesn’t exist in the other flavors, or that combines badly for me. I have food allergies, well known; just haven’t been allergic to chocolate since I was 7.
Which, for a science fiction writer, could be one of several. :biggrin: … Though visiting a new one, or not knowing, could be, in one sense, also productive. …Oh, help, I’ve come down with a case of over-comma-iris….
You might’ve done OK with the one shake, but not the next for lunch. I’d bet too, that despite being on the diet, those tend toward “empty calories,” probably of the natural or artificial sweetener kind.
I’m borderline hypoglycemic, have been since at least college age; my mother was diabetic. I generally do fine, but once in a while, I can have an energy drop. As long as I’m sensible and take care of it, not a biggie. I’m generally better at avoiding it altogether these days. Very rarely, I’ll have a bigger energy drop. This is a sudden feeling of weakness, almost faintness, and can involve feeling sweaty too. It can come from too little food or not enough of the right foods, even if someone’s had breakfast or lunch. Heavy work or heavy stress seem to contribute. That’s happened once or twice in the past three months, minor or not so minor, which means I’ve let myself get off balance somehow and need to be more careful.
One important thing I’ve found is that I need a certain amount of protein with each meal or at least each day. I do better if there’s some beef or red meat every few days. But as long as there’s protein, either animal-based (poultry, beef, pork, fish) and/or good vegetable proteins (beans, legumes, nuts, etc.) I do better.
If I don’t have enough protein, I get irritable, tired, don’t think well. About like the symptoms you just described. Lethargy, not thinking well, though generally not off in la-la land, thankfully. … Just not alert and awake and thinking. Not processing. — I can do well with cereal and milk, when I eat breakfast, but I do better if I have a little protein of some kind. It doesn’t have to be bacon (yum!) and eggs, it can be any protein extra, but it helps to be regular, protein with every meal. — For a while, I had gone to primarily chicken and pork, and I’d cut down on beef. Then I had a steak. The difference in energy and thinking and attitude were so noticeable, I realized what I was doing. I needed more protein and occasionally more beef, in my diet. I felt better that way. I could tell a difference in how well I did.
I also need a certain amount of carbs, probably to provide enough blood sugar.
Another thing that surprised me was that I’d tried to cut out salt, while my dad and then my grandmother were on special diets, and this became a habit of low salt. — Months after my grandmother was gone, I had a craving for seasonings, and in one dish, I (oops) got in a little too much salt. (I think it was vegetable salt, sea salt, or seasoned salt, not straight table salt.) — Imagine my surprise when this made a difference again in energy, behavior, thinking, emotional levels. But I’d never tried to cut out salt entirely from my diet, so this surprised me. Yet the difference is one I can tell. I don’t think I overdo the salt now, but I let myself use salt (typically not straight table salt) and I don’t worry about seasonings. (I’m not a chili-head, I go mild on hot spices, but I’ve developed slightly more tolerance for hot spices.)
Hmm, having odd thoughts about wacky potential properties of, say, coffee cups? Although the degree of wackiness might want some adjustment, at least you know your imagination’s still going strong, and you see that it’s funny and goofy, and you know what to avoid to keep it from getting over-the-top goofy. — This is quite differerent from the person who fails to recognize it’s so.
Hey, it worked for Dr. Seuss, apparently. Seems to work for comedians and some designers, so…. :shrugs:
Uh-oh. My keyboard is having issues with F and J and lagging otherwise. Think this is beyond the batteries. (I promise I will never go with a wireless keyboard again.) — Think it’s time to find where I put the USB hub and plug extras into that, then put a new keyboard in.
Blue Cat Ship, perhaps the salt messed with your fluid balance. You may not have been “habituated” to that much salt. A fairly sudden shift of fluid from blood to cells, or from blood to kidneys, etc., lowering blood pressure can take the wind out of your sails.
Sound rather like my edge of sleep/edge of passing out thinking. Sometimes it gives me just enough time to prop myself safely before I faint.
I’m curious, CJ. With the combined allergies that you and Jane share, and the fact that you have several common ancestors, is there some pattern to the allergies that might be traced back to your ancestry? In other words, why are you both allergic to onions, or at least, have an intolerance for them? I’d never heard of anyone being allergic to coffee, but then, I’m allergic to mornings….
do you have any reaction around lilies, for example, since onions and garlic are related to lilies?
I think anyone who found that they were allergic to chocolate would be a candidate for some serious help…..I can understand allergies to onions, and coffee is a bit of a stretch but also understandable, but chocolate? Say it ain’t so!!!!
THere is an area of France common to us both in which the residents, pottery painters, I believe for Quimper, were accused of having ‘dirty fingers’, because their fingerprints showed up black once the pottery was fired. Turns out garlic figures in the local cuisine, and a lot of people there don’t assimilate it well.
Many kids don’t tolerate chocolate well. Or eggs. Giving a small kid peanut butter is a very bad idea. There’s something about our immune systems that doesn’t ‘set up’ properly until later. And the peanut thing can be life threatening.
I didn’t have much sugar, for one thing, because I was a war baby. Sugar and butter were scarce. I grew up to love butter…but my tolerance for sugary stuff is much lower than normal, and to me, both salt and sugar in excess can taste the way rocks do in geology class. Kind of dusty and rock-like.
I don’t taste vinegar very keenly. I could drink it…had to be prevented from drinking it, as a baby, if it had had olives. Not for the salt, but for the vinegar. A very little sour or bitter goes a long way with Jane, and she likes sweet better than I do.