I felt like crap. I woke up tired and sluggish with no energy to do anything but watch “Up All Night” on Hulu.com. After that, I was able to get Dobbie out of her pen to play around the living room. The rabbit is never without energy and as I watched her romp from the couch, I felt a twinge of jealously.

“You never eat dairy. Why do you feel so damn good today?”

But the rabbit doesn’t have a cheese addition that she’s withdrawing from. So she continues playing with no digestive issues. I eventually got up to make myself breakfast.

• 1 fruit cup, red grapefruit
• 2 eggs, 1 toast
• 1 cup detox tea
• 2 glasses water

I took myself back to my bedroom and forced myself to dress for a workout. All the while, I told myself, aloud: The first step to working out is putting on your sports bra on, Charish.” This is not true, I will wear a sports bra when I’ve run out of regular underwear. I also said. “Look at you Charish, you’re putting on your socks and sneakers. You’re half way there, right?”

And then I had a cigarette. Half way there? Yeah, right. After I put Dobbie away, I was one step closer to completing a workout I didn’t want any part in.

I worked out for thirty minutes on a stair climber and it nearly killed me. I was exhausted from a work out that would normally invigorate me and then I had a headache on top of it. For lunch, I had:

• 1/2 cup of hummus, 8 or 9 pita triangles
• 1 bottle water

I went home and took a nap.

Noah got home from work to find me in bed. As he laid beside me, I said groggily: “I need cheese.” He laughed. He said that my headache was probably from the weather. It is getting colder here in Toledo. There was even talk of snow. It was probably a barometer headache. I think I just needed dairy.

I got up and had a snack:

• 4 slices summer sausage
• 8 Ritz Crackers
• 2 coconut ice cream sandwiches.

Noah was good enough to make dinner that night:

• turkey thighs in mole sauce
• spanish rice

for dessert I had:

• 1 cup mixed berry fruit cup

So is it withdrawal that I’m going through? Does dairy withdrawal exist? I had to search the Lactose Intolerance web forums to find such a thing. People claimed it was a real issue for them. Some also said that it would take 1 to 2 weeks for dairy to completely detox. 1 to 2 weeks?! What the hell, I only committed to 5 days. Are you saying I won’t feel different until a week from now? This is taking my experiment in a different direction. Perhaps this will have to be an actual lifestyle change.

This is giving me a headache. I need to take another nap.