Fat Bottomed Girls

22 April 2009 - Larnaca, Cyprus

I don’t even want to tell you how many doughnuts we ate in Lebanon….and Snickers and shawarmas and cokes. It is disgraceful. Obviously, I’m still fat. The plan was to use my time off to get healthy and hopefully a little leaner (remember the month long yoga retreat I cancelled in November?), but travel eating is impossible and now the objective is to not gain any more weight. Alyssa and I went running this morning, our first morning in Larnaca, and it gave me time to reflect on our downward spiral into gluttony. The 14 day sea passage to the Maldives left us starved for fresh fruits and vegetables, but as soon as we stepped foot on Gan (with our marshmallowy sea legs that hadn’t walked in two weeks), we discovered a land of chocolate milkshakes, iced Milos, and late night Snickers binges where we hatched our plan to hop on a new boat. We committed to morning runs and more fruits and vegetables just as soon as we arrived on Sybaris in Hurghada, Egypt (you can’t diet at the airport, right?). Elly’s gourmet cooking has helped us get some much needed nutrition, but we still plowed through the chaos of Egypt fueled by Snickers, Cokes and Egyptian pizza. Still, we weren’t eating doughnuts. I don’t know, there’s something just so gluttonous about doughnuts that it seems like once I’m eating them on an almost daily basis, I have most assuredly hit rock bottom. The problem in Lebanon was that the icafe was right next door to a Dunkin’ Donuts…the rest is history.

So the weight thing is just one of the millions of puzzle pieces that comes together and then gets lost again on this hiatus-travel journey. I don’t think much about it most of the time because we’re too busy having fun. At the same time, the nearly non-stop adventure tends to throw reality checks that hit like those sopping wet toilet paper balls kids throw at the ceiling of the bathrooms in school – they hit hard (glop), they stick, then are forgotten about until eventually they fall smack dab down on the floor (glop part II). I know this lifestyle isn’t healthy and I’m at an age now where health really starts to matter…and I need to get a grip on the eating-exercise-health thing. Soon…I promise myself…soon. Just not now. But one of the many things that is nice about traveling, is that things move too quickly to feel inadequate about anything…and people are interested in us and our crazy adventure…and I never cross paths with those people who silently judge me and take inventory of my status in life based on silly things like career, wealth, marriage, children, and most annoying of all…weight, which has always been a struggle for me. So for now, Alyssa and I are trying to turn a new leaf and do more yoga, run in the mornings, eat fruit instead of Snickers, etc, but we reserve the right eat whatever we want, whenever we want, and have a blast no matter what the size of our knickers.

“Ohhhhh…and you give it all you’ve got,

fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round”

-Queen