3.13.2004 ||>
My new diet started with pants... and pizza.
I was sitting in Tashkent's best pizza place talking with Adam and Raymond and relating my recent horrific pants encounter. As we slurped down sodas and gobbles on calzones bigger than our heads, I explained that earlier that day I learned that one of my student's mom had managed to smuggle pants across the border of Kyrgyzstan and was selling them to interested parties out of her home. Pants from Kyrgyzstan are half the price of Uzbek pants, and intrigued, I tried some on during my break. Or rather all of them, since not one pair fit. The only pair that looked good turned out to be a mistake: her mother had taken those pants for herself and I hadn't known. So I fit perfectly into the mom's pants. The mom who had just given birth about 6 months ago. But that's not the punch line. I come breezing back into school with nothing to show for my tardiness, and my counterpart asks what's wrong. So I tell her, and she replies, "Well, they were all so big on me, I was sure there would be pants that fit you."
Adam snorts at this, but assures me I don't look like I've just given birth. Raymond hurriedly agrees, but I'm still bitter. I add that the size of the pants were 15 for emphasis, to which the boys just blow that off, given the variability of women's sizes. After all, Adam adds, what are the size of your current pants? I admit that they're an 8. To which the boys pffft me and complain that women's sizes make no sense. So then I tell them my size in men's pants.
"No way." Adam says, forgetting about the piece of calzone on the way to his mouth. "You can't be that." I assure him that I am, and he rejoins, "But that only makes me 6 inches bigger than you. You don't look that at all."
"Well," I reply, "now you see my dilemma."
"Just as long as you don't go crazy with any dieting." they warned. But I like food too much to go too far. But since my plan is just to cut down my oil intake and bread intake (and thus make me healthier), it was guy approved.
So for the last week or so I've been trying to go on a healthier, non-wintry diet. I really believe it's all due to the evil Tasty Russian Pastry. So bye bye to those and we'll see if there's a difference in a month or so. Hopefully in the pants arena. I need a little more success there.
Happy Women's Day!! As the people say in this country:
"I congratulate you with Women's Day."
Thank you. :)
Yesterday I had a salad, a real one! With lettuce and carrots and red wine vinegar! Sometimes, I can actually feel my body absorbing the vitamins it has missed and it's this wonderful feeling. Also, I successfully made breakfast cereal with oatmeal, nuts, raisins, and coconut. So now I can do the lazy thing int he mornings I teach instead of getting up at the crack of dawn to cook some eggs or make pancakes. Plus, I think my cereal is waaay healthier than most commercial brands.
It is:
4 cups oatmeal
3/4 cup assorted nuts (walnuts, almonds and pumpkin seed)
1/4 cup coconut
1/2 cup juicy raisins (assorted: golden and dark)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup peach juice
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
You just stir it all together (except the raisins), put it on a lightly oiled oven tray, and cook in a medium oven for 10 minutes, then add the raisins and bake for another 5.
This is great and lasts for 4 days if it's just one person eating it.
Anyway, again, happy holidays.
