5 Reasons You’re Gaining Weight While Traveling
1: The food is too damn good
Cheap, not cheap, wherever you happen to be traveling, the food is bound to be much different than what your used to. Presumably a big part of the reason you made your way there is because you were excited to try the local cuisine – I have been to a few countries where I wasn’t thrilled with the food – those trips didn’t last long. If you go in thinking “well Parisians don’t get fat – think again. Not only are the French expanding, there’s a growing sentiment that what we think of as “junk food” is really more of a class issue – junk food being code for “lowbrow” food. No one considers the calorie count of a serving of foi gras, though it’s calorie found would make a big mac envious. Couple that with the subconcius desire to treat new trips as holidays (most are just that, after all) and good food gets over-eaten constantly.
2: The beer flows like water
See also: booze of any sort really, but I am a beer nerd. Every country I travel to gets the requisite “Beersploration” wherein I sample as many beers I can find, choose a favorite or two and imbibe.
More than one month into 2012 without having a single beer, an my waistline can attest to how much the removal of the stuff has helped me trim down. Alcohol can also removes inhibitions towards say, a midnight snack, or other impulse eating that takes place Well after dinner. Who doesn’t want the foreign equivalent of a Denny’s big slam breakfast to help soak up your future hangover?
3: You chose a spot too close to everything
You want to be where all te action is.I get it. I do it all the time, any traveler who doesn’t like punishing themselves needlessly will find the best spot in any new town or city to start their trip. It’s te best way to immerse yourself quickly in the sights, smells and culture of a new place. The only problem with being close to everything is that you won’t have to work at all to get there.
While I am not about to tell anyone that staying somewhere far from everything is the way to go, there is something inviorating about a 2k walk to a local supermarket for supplies, or living on the fifth floor of a building with no lift.
4: “There’s no gym!”
Well, there often is, but I don’t blame you for not joining it. I have never personally joined a foreign gym, (again, ask my poor waistline) and they can be prohibitively expensive/run down, etc. there are ways around this, but this article is not telling you how to get fit, it’s telling you why you’re getting pudgy:)
5: Different cultures eat differently
In Guatemala, you may run into an neighbor who insists you eat a meal with their family where you are endlessly plied with plate after plate of whatever amazing dish they made that night. Here in China, it took a full two weeks to realize ordering four items is rediculous, as the portion sizes for each dish is clearly meant to be eaten family-style. In Thailand the locals seemingly eat all day, several small meals. If you kept up with them. It ate your usual meal portions… Well, it would get a little uncomfortable. People around the world have different ustinov around eating, and it’s easy to overlook that you may be way over-eating when the food is so good.
The world is amazing, as is the food you will find along your travels. Will this article help you keep trim? Not at all. But that was never the point, really. Think of me as your passive aggressive annoying uncle, disguising his critique of your waistline as “straight talk”.
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photos from ~MVI~ (too late for the dinagyang), preetamrai, and cherrylet