When I was a kid, I went to a wild life preserve on a class field trip. It was one of those things where you work for a few weeks on classification of the animal kingdom and you finally get to the chapter on food chains and YES!!! You get a field trip to go see some animals.
That means no math. I was no good at math.
We piled into the vans allocated to us, I was lucky and got my friend Amy's mom (who on a completely different field trip got pulled over for speeding and then continued to unsuccessfully flirt with the officer, even as he handed her the ticket-- much to the entertainment of us girls in the back seat -- on the way to feeding the homeless at a soup kitchen.), and headed to the wildlife preserve. We were having a grand time rocking out to our favorite early 90s pop stars and eventually, we made it.
Some stuff happened then, I'm not sure what. I started staring at the stuffed displays in the visitor's center and started to imagine them coming to life and wreaking havoc all over my home city. This happened alot when I was 11. I didn't care about the safety procedures of the park the ranger was reciting to us, I didn't care about not littering - I wasn't going to, I didn't care about staying on the marked paths and trails - we were going around the park in a tram, I wasn't going to pay my awesome new yellow cd-man (now with anti-skip technology!) in the park. I sure as heck wasn't going to feed the animals. All I wanted was for the huge stuffed mountain lion in the corner to come to life and become my magical familiar, a hyper wild extension of myself, intent on taking over planet earth with its genetically altered death ray paws and robotic wings. In the middle of my musings, I was corralled by some parent or chaperone other and as we prepared to enter the park, the park ranger stopped us and told us that today was a starve day.
My mind reeled in a number of disturbing directions. Someone was going to get eaten! Of course, it wouldn't be me. I have a mountain lion familiar.
A starve day is when park officials don't feed the animals by hand to replicate how life would be in the wild. Sometimes mountain lions do not catch their prey. Monkeys need to search for new areas where fruit and bugs are abundant. There are days in the wild where animals don't get breakfast.
In fact, animals do not even have 3 solid meals a day. It's like they've never seen Leave It To Beaver.
And neither did our ancestors. 3 solid meals a day is a very very new idea. When cavemen went a-hunting, they didn't stop the hunt to return home for a sandwich and a nice, cold beer. And those hunts could last days. That's days of only chewing dried meat to keep the hunger at bay, and of course, any berries and things they'd find along the way.
So when I woke up yesterday and had $4 left in my bank account til payday, I decided a little intermittent fasting wouldn't go amiss. My ancestors did it for days, I could do it for a few hours. I could skip a meal or two. Historically, I knew that when I've subverted from the 3-square-meals-a-day paradigm, I feel naughty and edgy, like my inner 11 year old and Kevin, her flying genetically altered mountain lion, delightfully breaking one of the 10 Commandments. (I'm certain Moses never said, "Thou Shalt Eat 3 Solid Meals A Day.")
Anyway, I got to work, purchased a few strips of bacon and a shot of espresso for $3 and prepared to make my day happen. When I got hungry, I drank water, sipped mint tea, went for a very brisk-paced 1 mile walk on the waterfront at my lunch, which, surprisingly, I recovered from really really quickly (and it totally sated my hunger. New exercise motivation?). Except for the visions of greasy cheeseburgers and nachos and wine and milkshakes, it wasn't too bad.
Until I got home.
When I got home, I was so hungry, I was nauseous. I had to eat something. But I had no paleo food prepared. I didn't have the energy to cook. AHA!! I had a sweet potato sitting on the shelf. I punched some holes in it and stuck it in the microwave for ten minutes while I laid down and texted my gentleman. I slathered that sweet potato in coconut oil and tossed on a little salt and then
I ATE THE HELL OUT OF THAT SWEET POTATO.
It took a few minutes for the nausea to subside, but eventually, it did and by the time my gentleman called me for our phone date, I felt a little better. I was hungry for the rest of the evening, but it wasn't the desperation hunger I had felt before and totally manageable and I slept pretty well.
So, a few things learned from today's rather long winded, rambling post:
1. I, in fact, did NOT get eaten on the starve day at the wildlife refuge.
2. I will be much more prepared next time I do an intermittent fast.
3. Always have a sweet potato on hand.
4. I would have been a terrible cave person.
5. Kevin will be happening.
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