I've read multiple articles where they tell you not to eat dinner/heavy foods less three hours before you go to bed. Makes sense, but never would I have thought the repercussions were deadly. Am I sick? Maybe. Am I crazy? Probably. I'm just stating the facts, so it's up to you to believe me when I say my stomach needs a bed time.
Pancake House. Spring semester 2011. (side note: pancake house is something my InterVarsity chapter does for the college where we make thousands of pancakes for the entire campus on the last day of classes. Some of the people are very, very drunk.) We were cleaning up, but there were extra pancakes. I hadn't eaten any all night, so of course I had to have some. Three. Three measly chocolate chip pancakes at 12:45 a.m. were what did me in. They were delicious, but they were absolutely NOT worth throwing up my guts the next morning. Heaving in a trash can in the ceramics studio at 10 in the morning is not a pleasant situation to be in, especially if someone walks in while the near-death experience is happening. Luckily for me, she was nice and got me a cup of water and helped me put my things away. She probably assumed I was hungover out of my mind. I was too sick to explain that I ate pancakes after my stomach's bed time...hey, it's a believable story...no. I was bed-ridden the rest of the day (not to mention robbed from a whole day's worth of finals studying). As I laid in bed, nauseated at the thought of moving, I vowed to never eat food that close to bed time ever again. If only I stuck to that promise...
Summer. July 5-6, 2011. It was two-job-Tuesday, where I worked from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m.; my only break was driving from the pool to the gym. That meant I had to eat dinner when I returned home, around 8:30. This normally wouldn't have been a problem, but since I was out in the sun all day, working at the pool, and then playing with wild children at the gym for three and a half hours, I was beat. I crashed at 10, not even thinking that my food hadn't had time to digest (I haven't mastered the whole digest quickly thing yet) before I slipped off into a sea of wild dreams (my boss's 7th grade son in my college history class, baking gluten-free rocket ship cupcakes with my sister's friend, over cooking bacon so much that it turned into crackers that I used to make a bluish-colored gravy for omelets...hm). I woke up the next morning feeling fine, at least for the first 20 minutes of being awake. Then it hit me. My stomach turned for the worst, but I sucked it up and went to work. Long story short, I left at noon when I couldn't stand anymore. I was so nauseated I wanted to cry. I made it home, ate lunch, and took a 4 hour nap (for some reason, lunch has no effect on me). I got up to go to the gym, but I was still sick to my stomach, so I watched Iron Chef America instead. It is now11:54 p.m., 5 hours and 9 minutes after dinner. I should be good to go, but I might stay up for a few more minutes, just in case...
