Yes, Stomach, I hear you

Score one point for getting through things that I didn’t want to do. My tally must be pretty high right now but this time I think I will count double points for the added factor of having to do it 2 days in a row. These back to back trials of perseverance that I refer to are the long-awaited research meal days. I was too anxiety-ridden to write about it while in the midst of the experiment but, now that I can breathe with the assuredness of it being over, hindsight has again set my thoughts in motion. part of me, the forgiving part, wants to shrug and chalk it up to just having been an experience. The other part, however, would love to riddle the telling of the last 2 days with some very colorful language. I think I’ll try to find a happy medium.

The anticipation on Tuesday, the morning of reasearch meal #1, was quickly dropping like a fog over my world. When I sat down to breakfast I knew what to expect on my measly tray – two 4 oz. apple juices, a yogurt and an apple. Everyone else got the pancakes we had been asking for fervently through the last two months. Balls. I missed out on that one. I was told that they were really good though. After that I was okay until about 9:30 or so…until the hunger started to claw its way into my consciousness. Then it was all over. I couldn’t think about anything else except the pending lunch. The others did their best to help distract me but the anxiety grew to an all-consuming high. Its strange to think that I used to eat so little when my body craves so desperately now. At this point there is no denying what it wants. No confusion.

Finally, just before noon, one of the research assistants came up to get me. I followed her, in her white lab coat, downstairs and back to the same tiny room I had done both the exercise study and the sweetener test in. Everything was the same except this time there was a little round table with a plastic tablecloth ala “Lady and the Tramp” in the middle of the room. She sat on the bed while I sat at the table and in front of me was placed a sheet with a 1-10 scale and varying degrees of anxiety provoking situations listed throughout as a guide. We sat in silence for a full 3 minutes while I was instructed to think about the upcoming meal. At every one minute interval she asked me to rate my anxiety level on the scale.

Before the meal came I was repeatedly scoring quite high. I was anxious because I just wanted to eat. There were no guidelines as to how much had to be eaten. It was just whatever I wanted to do while the video camera in the corner taped my actions and her voice buzzed in over the monitor to periodically rate my levels. The tray that was finally placed in front of me had only a few items on it but they were large. I was suddenly staring at a large bowl of regular potato chips, an 8 oz. bottle of water, a family-size tube of real mayo, and a footlong turkey and swiss Subway sandwich on wheat. Other than the meat and cheese there was only lettuce and tomato on the sandwich.

That was it. Once I got the go-ahead I dug in. That first day it was excellent but I think I would have eaten just about anything they had put in front of me. I only ate 2 or 3 chips but I got through almost all of the sub, eating all of it’s insides and leaving about 1/3 of the bread; all the while my anxiety slowly decreasing. It felt great to just get some substance. After that they had some paperwork for me to fill out, some questions to answer, and then I could go about the rest of my afternoon as usual. That didn’t stop me, though, from dreading to have to do it all again the next day.

When I awoke the next morning I was calmer. The exact same test two days in a row so I knew what to expect. I was armed with knowledge. Then they threw a wrench in my gears. I was hungry going into breakfast and actually looking forward to the small amount of bulk I would get from the meal. Something, anything, to fill me up just a little. When I got in the dining room and saw my tray my jaw dropped. Apparently all I was to consume today was one lowly toasted English muffin and a 4 oz. container of apple juice. I grudgingly ate, trying to make it last as long as possible, and then spent the remaining time at the table not only hungry and anxious but pissed off as well. No one else who had done the same study before had gotten the English muffin version of research breakfast.

I got through it though. Lunch and a twin meal to the previous day was placed in front of me. I ate, with less anxiety this second go-round. I’m going to have to ask at research group next week what exactly they are looking for in this study but, for now, I’m okay. For now I can go back to enjoying my normal size expected meals.

At least until I have the third research meal day just before I head home.

The sweetness (part II)

Flaw number 1 in my coffee sweetener test was that, ever since the caffeine detox I have been trying to keep the intake down to one small cup in the morning. Number 2 was that, not only had I already had the early cup but Fridays, because of Coffee Klatch, I wind up having a little bit more than usual. So, I didn’t really want coffee to begin with when they came to get me for the study at 4 pm. 3 was that they didn’t specify what cup size they would be presenting me with and I was surprised at the large drink placed in front of me when I had expected the smaller size I normally get. Coffee, for me at the small size, is complete with 3 Equals, so thats what I worked to earn even though I didn’t want the coffee to begin with.

Had i known the coffee would be a bigger size the outcome would have definitely been different since that size I will usually put 7 or 8 Equals in. I don’t know if it would have been different in that I wouldn’t have worked for any Equals because, to get 7, was a lot of button pushing for something I didn’t care for at the moment anyways. Or maybe the outcome would have been different in the way that I would have stuck it out and worked for all 7 knowing thats what I would normally put in a cup that size.

I told the lab techs about these contributing factors and sort of felt like I maybe hadn’t provided them with a good enough result template. I guess, though, that there is really no correct or incorrect way to provide our information. I suppose thats the reason behind it being an ongoing study. Well, I did what I could. Hopefully they’ll get some of those result-altering kinks worked out in the future. Who knows. I did my part, it way definitely interesting to say the least, and now thats that.

The sweetness

I sat, feeling goofy in my disposable plastic apron, ready for the scheduled research study to commence. The table in front of me in the small lab room had been laid out systematically with 10 clear plastic cups filled with a set amount of cherry Koolaid and accesorized with large red straws. The cups themselves were marked 0-10 in black Sharpie and in front of each was a line of Equal packets corresponding to the cup’s number. With a set of rating sheets in front of me, a call buzzer to my right, a rinse cup, spit bucket, and short stack of napkins to my left, I was primed and ready to take the sweetener test.

The object of this little exercise was to start with a sip of the “o” marked unsweetened Koolaid, roll it in my mouth to taste and rate its sweetness, how much i liked it, and weather or not I wanted more on the corresponding sheet. Then spit, rinse, and repeat with the next cup after first adding the required number of Equal packets. The rule was to do this until i got up to the cup I didn’t like due to too much sweetener and then do one beyond it.

Alone in the small stark room through this I took my time and tried to rate each one as accurately as I could. Having gotten to 10 and still not finding the drink to be more than moderately sweet I wiped my mouth and rang the call button for the lab tech. That was the first part of the study.

Next, after the table had been swept clean of anything having to do with the Koolaid testing, a small laptop was brought in and placed in front of me. This part was titled “work for Equal”. It involved sitting, staring at a screen with an Equal packet pictured on the left and an empty column on the right. With the promise of actually receiving a cup of coffee containing the number of Equal packets you were willing to work for, the button pushing began.

Basically I was asked to just sit and continuously press a key on the computer repeatedly until an Equal packet appeared in the column on the right. Each time a packet appeared it would take almost double the amount of key taps to earn the next packet. If you really wanted all 10 available packets for your coffee it would take up to 40 minutes of continuous button pushing to earn them. All of this was to observe and track just how much a person with an eating disorder relied on artificial sweetener for taste. How long we were willing to sit and do this tedious work just to have that one last packet of Equal. The study, though, was still in its very early pilot phases and was hindered for what I could see as accurate results by some definite flaws.

(to be continued…)

Plugged in

This morning brought with it wires and monitors. I have been hooked up, taped down, and activated in order to participate in the first comparative phase of one of the many studies. The device they have me tethered to really isn’t all that obtrusive. Mildly annoying and slightly awkward at best what it does is monitor movement and activity. The study, which consists of two parts, is one that is exploring the expenditure of energy in a person who is underweight versus a person at at least 90% of their natural body weight. The little tabs and wires I’ve got on will only be with me for 48 hours this time and then again for another 48 much farther into my stay here, once weight stabilization has been reached.

Although the findings from this haven’t begun to get analyzed, being only a year running so far it is still in its baby phases, there are some interesting theories that come from nature behind it. In a natural basic environment history has shown that a person or animal of a low body weight, despite lack of energy, actually moves quite bit more than they do at a higher weight. It would make sense that their lack of food would give their bodies the drive they need to actively seek nourishment. The question is: Is there such a compulsion in eating disordered patients? How do we move and when?

If bulimic the drive to find food would presumably be there due to the binge aspect of the illness, but what about anorexic patients? There is no conscious desire or need to go forage because of anorexia’s defining restrictive nature.

The hope is that, through this, we may find out if there is any excess movement when underweight due to the subconscious need to satisfy hunger. If so it would lead to theories having to do with the excessive exercising that so many eating disordered patients partake in under the possibly superficial guise that they are trying to burn off extra calories. Could the many long hours spent at the gym and walking the streets be actually due to the body’s misplaced need to seek nourishment? Only time will tell. This study still has years left to it but I’m already intrigued to learn what the findings from it are. In the meantime, though, I can definitely say that I won’t miss the device I am wearing once they take it off Wednesday morning. So far 8 hours down – 40 to go.