a question of weight

one thing that i don't think that i really discussed on this blog during my travels was my weight. i think that part of it was that i was completely freaked out by it and that i was also completely freaked out by what i use to weigh.

see, i moved to vancouver and i got lazy. which is incredible, considering the marvelous natural beauty that sits outside my door. but i did. and i put on weight. back then, i used to think that i carried it well and that it didn't look like that much. i played the "tall and proportionate" card which i guess was, in truth, denial.

when spring got around in 2005 i started to bike to work, hiking on the weekends and walking the sea wall. i was not doing it to lose weight, i thought, but to get in shape so that i wouldn't die or fall over when i'd have to carry a huge back on my back for 7.5 months. but i did lose a bit of weight, nothing that i actually noticed. but people did notice. i got comments about it and it made me realize that maybe i did look "bad" before. i guess i had been in real denial because i was truly clueless.

i left for asia weighting i'm not sure what. the last time i had stepped on a scale it pointed to 165 lb and i wasn't too happy about it and so i avoided further scales. so i will only guess that i left at somewhere around 155-160 lb.

japan was my first country. it was hot, ridiculously hot there. i spent all day out walking and i was really careful about how much money i was spending on food. food is expensive in japan, and so i couldn't afford all of the good japanese food one expects to eat when you visit japan. i stuck with cheap stuff such as 7/11 pastries, 7/11 rice balls (they are yummy though), fruits, plenty of liquids (about 4L a day) and the cheapest dinner i could find, which was usually curry or shaved pork on rice. by the half point of my time in japan, i had lost a lot of weight. i started to freak out because one should never lose weight that fast. so i started to do my own grocery shopping and fed myself dinners with enough food for two. i didn't want to lose weight. i ate a lot of balanced food. and a week later, i was even more freaked out. i was now at 124 lb. i had lost well over 30 pounds in 3 weeks, or so it seemed. it was scary. i felt skinny. i felt gross. i was 1 lb underweight. i looked at myself in the mirror and i wondered where my breast had gone. but on the upside, i now had a great stomach!

i was happy to get to china. there, i put back on a little bit of weight and i felt better. i didn't really think about my weight during the rest of my stay in asia. there, the food was cheap, as was everything else, and so i went wild. i used to say that i was doing a gastronomic tour or south east asia. i'd even have days where i'd have 5 meals. i was constantly searching for the perfect french pastry in indochina. i was happy.

when i got to perth, i was faced with a scale again. i was at 127 lb. but i felt good. i wasn't depriving myself of anything, on the contrary. so i felt that it was just how i was supposed to be with all of the activities and the constant sweating.

but then i hit new zealand and the east coast of oz. all i did for that 2 month was pretty much sit on my ass. speed tourism on guided tours or by driving means that i wasn't walking anywhere. i wasn't dying in the heat. i wasn't burning up the calories. but i still felt alright, but i started to worry. how much weight would i put on? would i love my slender self, return to the old, unhappy bigger me?

i left oz at 132+ lb. i'm not very sure anymore. but part of me was disappointed. and i found that to be disturbing.

being back home, i guess that i have been lazy still. i got excited about foods that i couldn't have while on my trip, like goat's cheese and god knows what. i haven't been walking much. i haven't been doing much. so i've started to feel fat. i know that i am not fat, i know that it's silly, but by doing nothing i'm just feeling like i'm getting bigger. i feel like my brain is completely warped and my perspective is distorted. and i hate it. but i don't know how much i weight, since i don't have a scale. so i worry.

when i first got home i tried on my old clothing. i had been wearing the same damn outfits for the past months and i was happy to see my good old clothes. but pretty much no pants fit me anymore and i filled two garbage bags full of clothes for the salvation army. that was nearly two months ago. and now, with the new "feeling fat" issues, i thought maybe i got rid of too many things...

but i wanted to wear a suit for an interview and my beautiful, new pants are way too big for me. a belt won't do the job, it's just silly. and today i wanted to wear a skirt that i bought while i was in university in montreal. and you know what? even that is way too big for me. so i don't know what's going on. it's like my brain and my clothes are not getting along...

but what's interesting, now looking back at pictures, is that i now see that i was bigger before. and i look at other pictures during the trip and i feel that i was too skinny then. so how does one find the perfect compromise between the two? i just don't know.

but it's pretty outside. and i'm gonna go for a walk. because as much as i'd like to stay skinny, i'd be more upset to lose the vitality, energy and muscles i gained while traveling.