<- Back Question: What immediate effect does consumption have on the weight and appearance of your body? Method: The simplest example of consumption is drinking water. While it has no long-term impact on weight, it does have a temporary effect on it, known as “water weight”. Water weight is a simple equation. 500 ml, or 2 cups, weighs approximately 1 pound. This is the size of a small water bottle. For my experiment I decided to drink 4 pounds of water, about the most I felt my stomach could hold. Then I would pee it back out. I set up a video camera so I could make a time lapse video of my stomach and the water cups. Expectations: That my stomach would expand as it filled with water, and shrink as it emptied. It probably would not immediately shrink all the way back, because the four pounds of water would stretch it out a bit. Results: Drinking four gallons of water hurts. It also makes you feel a little drunk. But it is possible. My stomach did not show as much visual expansion as I had expected. Sucking in my stomach seemed to have a greater impact than peeing did. Also, despite waiting for a good hour after drinking the water, I never managed to pee it back out. Perhaps my cells absorbed the rest of it, or I sweated it out. I also was peeing out things that weren’t in the water I drank- waste from my kidneys. My pee slowly turned from yellow to clear as my body cleaned itself out. What I learned: I can pee in a cup even if I’m not in the bathroom. Yes, I knew I could do this theoretically, but to actually do it was a whole other thing. Peeing in my bedroom made me feel perverse, even though it’s no more disgusting than anything else that people do in their bedrooms. This experiment also made me feel like I have a better sense of my body. Bodily functions are generally not discussed. Where your food goes after you eat it can be somewhat mysterious. At what point does food stop being food, and start being part of you? |