Day 11

Kyle 280.4 day +3.0 total -14.2

Jenny 161.2 day +1.8 total -5.8

Ugh. I just shook my head each of the five times I weighed myself this morning. I had to do it multiple times, hoping that it was an error, hoping it wasn't really that bad. But it was. And it was a bad start to a bad day.

Since it's a holiday, I knew I wouldn't be seeing any clients. So when my buddy Trent asked me yesterday if I was interested in helping him finish up a demolition job, I signed on. Another friend of ours bought a house in Newport, and Trent's job was to get it "drywall ready." He had done most of the work. All I had to help him do was get all of the attic insulation, which was covering the upstairs rooms two feet deep, down onto the ground floor. Then we had to get all of that, and a ton of other garbage, and the piles of the wood slats they use under plaster, into a dumpster outside.

It was hot today, and even hotter upstairs, but it wasn't stifling. And the work was tough, but not killer. The majority of it was throwing the wood strips down through holes in the floor, and then push-brooming all of the insulation. Around 10 AM, we started by making manageable piles of wood strips down stairs, which we couldn't take to the dumpster because it was full and a new one had not been delivered as promised. So we went upstairs to start "moving" stuff down. There was one room left to tear out, so I started swinging at the walls with a pickaxe. And that was when I started to tank.

Since I've been on this diet, I've noticed little things concerning muscle fatigue, but didn't think it was a big deal. For example, I have a healthy nine month-old son who weighs 24 lbs. Recently, I've found that my shoulders and arms about give out after just a few minutes of holding him over my head and tossing him around a little. They are rapidly fatigued, and I just have to stop. After four or fiveswings of the pickaxe, I could barely lift it, and my entire body felt zapped of energy, like I was running on fumes. For the remainder of the day, I was miserable. I couldn't work for more than five or so minutes without stopping to catch my breath and let my body rest. The masks we had to wear sure didn't help. A few times I had to sit down, and even lie out on my back, when the room started to spin. I was lightheaded most of the day, and by late afternoon I developed a horrible pounding headache. I kept apologizing to Trent. Here he was willing to pay me to help, and I wasn't being much help.

My saving grace was that the empty dumpster never came. As frustrating as it was for Trent to lose almost half a day of progress, a big, silent part of me was relieved. Loading and carrying all of that junk to the dumpster would have killed me. If I already felt like dead weight, it would have been ten times worse.

Trent dropped me off at home a little after 4 PM. I headed straight to the hose in the backyard. I was covered in black dust and insulation, and I washed off as much as I could. I took my good ol' time sitting in the tub. I had no energy. I was spent.

I fell into a heavy sleep on the couch for a couple of hours. I got up for dinner, then I went to bed early.

TMI Alert - On a side note, throughout the course of the day I drank nearly two gallons of water. At 4:30, I peed for the first time since morning. And it wasn't clear at all! I had sweat out every bit.

I've read about people becoming fatigued quickly on this diet, and how most people don't do anything more than light aerobic activity. I figured that I'm an active enough person that it would not hit me too hard. Wow, I was wrong. But I'm hoping that today I somehow paid penance for yesterday's transgressions. I'm praying that the Holy Scale shows me new mercy in the morning with just as drastic a drop as the increase I had today.