Tepid Trivia

One unanticipated benefit of my recent trip to the Indian subcontinent was that I lost weight. Yay! Last summer I had noticed that my poundage was increasing and I finally broke down and bought a new electronic scale after catching a depressing glimpse of myself in the mirror while helping a friend pick out a wedding gown. Let's just say the number that appeared on the scale was not reader-friendly.

I quickly ramped up plans to "seriously" lose weight, which included a subscription to Weight Watchers online where you have to list everything you eat during the day so you can track the points value. Not fun, but it did seem to work. After three months of being on the plan, I decided that I had memorized the point value of the foods that I eat most frequently and no longer needed to follow the plan so religously (not a good idea), but I seemed to be able to keep my weight from fluctuating wildly during the months running up to my India trip.

When I stopped eating in India, it was primarily because I a)didn't like eating with my hands and didn't have the guts to ask for silverware when noone else was using silverware at the ashram and b) I didn't like their (the ashram's) version of vegetarian food. Once I left the ashram, I was trying not to spend a lot of money by eating one meal out a day and trying to survive on crackers and pineapple for the rest of the time, which had its good and bad moments that I won't elaborate on here.

Anyway, I realized upon returning to my home country that I had lost 14 lbs, but since I was dealing with reverse culture shock (I discussed this in a previous post), it didn't really sink in for a few weeks. Today, eight months later, I am sad to say that I have slowly gained at least ten lbs back. I weighed myself today after a week of not wanting to face reality and was shocked senseless. I told my mother recently that if I gain any more weight, Sarah Palin might just mistake me for a moose and well I don't want to go there...but my mom didn't seem to find that so amusing, "But you don't have horns," she said. Well I guess that about sums things up for now.