Why bananas are not so good.

Being a fit and health-conscious individual I often find myself at the gym. Or running. And most of the time watching what I eat (this sometimes includes watching all those trans-fats and sugary love treats make their way to my mouth). But I make sure to get a physical every year and check that all my insides are working properly. I have never had a major health issue. So when I found myself waking up in the middle of the gym floor after fainting IN FRONT OF EVERYONE I was a little concerned.

Let me back up.

This past summer was the first summer the husband and I were married. Being so, I had to get on his health insurance and quit my other health plan. Because we are both teachers, it was easier to get my yearly physical in the summer. So it was summer and I was getting all checked out to confirm that I didn't have any bad diseases or high cholestoral and blah blah blah.

With physicals comes blood work. Which let me tell you is not so fun for me. I have small veins that roll, yay me, and whenever I tell the nurse who is hovering over me, wrapping that rubber thingy around my bicep and telling me to pump my fist that I have small veins that roll, they almost always roll their eyes and say "ok" completely uninterested. Then they spend the next three minutes or so poking my arm, digging it around under the skin trying to prick some part of the vein. When that doesn't work they start in on the other arm only to repeat the process. Needless to say, I always bruise and I always have multiple prick marks. Blood work also means fasting for at least 12 hours. Because of this, I choose to get my blood taken in the morning so I don't have to neglect food any longer than necessary. On this particular day, the plan was to go down to the office at 8am with the husband, get my blood work done, and eat a banana on the car ride to the gym.

Upon arriving at the gym I did my normal 30 minutes of cardio and then went into the weight room to do some circuit training while the husband finished his workout. Once I started lifting the weights I got light-headed. Let me preface this by saying I am not a sissy at the gym. I am one of those chicks who lifts more than a lot of the guys I see in there. (Let me also say that I am definitely not manly, so stop thinking it!)  So when I started getting light-headed I rested and made sure to drink a lot of water. This went away quickly and I continued on with my workout. Then I got nauseous. It came on so suddenly I thought I was going to puke up my stupid banana right there in the middle of the weight room. I immediately sat down and tried to breathe away the swirling acid I could feel engulfing my stomach.

At this point I knew something was not right. I told the husband that I needed to go to the bathroom because I was sure that I was going to vomit. As I started walking away though I starting seeing black spots (imagine a movie scene where a cirlce is formed surrounded by black zeroing in on the middle of the screen until all you see is black). Not only was I seeing black, but my knees starting buckling. The husband had to help me to the nearest bench so I would not fall. The queasiness was still eminent in the pit of my stomach. All I could think was that I HAD to get to the bathroom because there was no way I was going to be spewing banana chunks all over the weight room floor. I told the husband I had to get to the bathroom and starting moving again.

I was about 10 steps from the bathroom.

Then I woke up to pounding footsteps running toward me. I was looking up at the husband who was looking back and forth at me and the other people that were coming to my rescue. His eyes looked like googley-eyes, the kind that you would see on a stuffed puppy. No, like Puss in Boots from Shrek, most definitely Puss in Boots eyes. You might think this translated to concern, but all I could see in those eyes was embarrassment. He was utterly horrified that his wife fainted in the middle of the gym that we frequented a few times a week. And not only was the husband staring at me with those eyes, but I just happend to have passed out right by the stretching mats. (If you have ever been to the gym, the stretching mats are generally only used by a few people: old women, old men, and young hot chicks who don't really need to work out but go to the gym anyway to stretch and get hit on.) All the old ladies were staring at me with their mouths gaping wide open.

The pounding steps I heard were from the front desk staff. They sat me in a worokout chair and got me gatorade to drink thinking my sugar level was low and/or I was dehydrated. Which I knew I was neither of those things because I had about a liter of water prior to working out and I had a banana which is full of sugar. I got out of there as soon as I could convince everyone that I was fine. The husband helped by blaming it on the blood work. (He actually told them I had given blood that morning, as in donated blood, and I probably was just weak because I had less blood.)

Because this had never happened before, the husband thought it would be a good idea to make a doctor's appointment and get everything checked out. They actually gave me an EKG to check my heart. They said it was all good, I even had a resting heart rate in the low 50's. And, since I had just had blood work done, they analyzed all my levels.

It turns out I had too much potassium in my system. Do you know what too much potassium does to your body? No? I didn't either. It makes your heart beat slower. Coupled with me already having a slow heart-rate and me working out hard and having eaten a banana packed with potassium my brain: didn't have enough blood and oxygen. So my body simply shut down. In the middle of the gym.

It took me months to go back to that gym. I would instead travel an extra 5 miles out of my way to go to the other gym.

Also, since this episode, I have eaten 1 banana, and I quickly puked it up. Bananas and I are no longer on speaking terms.