Living Below the Line - Day 3
This year, I decided to take part in the Living Below the Line fundraising campaign. Living Below the Line aims to raise awareness about poverty by challenging people to live off of $1.50(USD) a day (the U.S. equivalent of the extreme poverty line). If you’d like, you can donate to my campaign or donate to the cause in general.
As you might have read in Day 1 or Day 2, my strategy is to live exclusively off beans and rice for the next 5 days as that was all my $7.50 could afford.
My run today was sub par. I finished it (only 8K), but I felt horrible. I am getting enough calories to function, but without fruits, vegetables, flaxseed, etc I don’t feel like I am getting any proper nutrition. As I said, my run today was completely forced and not my usual energy. I am finding it hard to concentrate at my usual level.
I don’t want to be over dramatic mind you. I could keep on going this way, it’s not the most horrible thing I’ve been through, but it is by no means comfortable or optimal in any way.
I am half way done. I’ll be happy when I can dig back into my fruit and veggies, and luckily there is a big vegan and beer festival on Saturday… I am going to gorge myself silly. Lucky for me, this way of life will end (at least for now).
I’ve always figured if I got lost in the woods on one of my backpacking trips, I could live off bits and bobs that I know are edible. In my estimation, I would be “just fine”. Doing this has opened my eyes to how that probably wouldn’t be as comfortable as I thought.
It’s also been a long time since I’ve gone hungry for days at a time (I am looking at you twenties and early thirties). It has given me some fresh insight (and some memories) into what it is like to be hungry when there is tons of food around that you just can’t eat.
I often complain that the rich in America are insanely out of touch with the reality of most people; this week has shown me that I am a bit out of touch as well.