My Life Stays With Me
Charlene Circele
I recently returned home from a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was an exciting and exotic trip – it’s the first time I have ever visited South America (which is very different from our close neighbor, Mexico), and I wasn’t sure how my diet would hold up against the temptations of all the grass-fed beef, the empanadas, and the whole assortment of different types and tastes of side dishes and desserts. Forget the wine! Malbec is their specialty; and I’d heard that no other country makes a better Malbec. Not to mention airplane food – doesn’t everyone gobble it up when you’re bored on the 10 hour flight? What else is there to do after you’ve watched two movies?
But, like everyone else, I was working hard to stay on course as we head into the summer. I had already lost a few pounds and was feeling pretty good about it. So I was a little worried, and even considered forgetting the diet when I was away, because I was on vacation, right? And when was the next time I would be in Buenos Aires?
However, the thought of starting all over again when I got back home was starting to haunt me. How could I undo all of the good work I had done just because I was on vacation? But also, how was I going to keep on track in a foreign country with foreign food and a whole different attitude towards eating?
Easy. As Nike says, just do it. No matter where you are in the world, the food is the same. They have eggs, oatmeal, broccoli, chicken, rice, etc. The trick is finding out how it is prepared and then to ask them to do it your way, or as close to your way as you can explain in a foreign language. Every country in the world has people who are on a diet and need to keep on a healthy eating plan. Restaurants understand this. I never once had a problem getting what I needed, except occasionally in the really rural areas, but even then, I just did the best I could with what they had. In those cases it became “the lesser of two evils”, but it was never a disaster. Fortunately, we stayed in a rental apartment, so we were able to make our own breakfasts, but even hotel dining rooms serve oatmeal, egg whites, and fruit. On the airplane, since I had to eat at least one meal or else go hungry the rest of the day, I managed to put together the salad (it was meager, but it was lettuce and tomato) with the chicken breast stripped clean of the sauce and the rice. I didn’t eat the cold mushy thing they called a roll, and I didn’t touch the candy bar they called dessert. It filled up the “gas tank”, as I like to say, and it didn’t kill my diet. Perfect.
Just so you don’t start thinking that I’m TOO perfect, I gave myself one night to splurge. There was a restaurant we kept reading and hearing about, and it was so hard to get a reservation that we knew it had to be good. When we finally did get the reservation, it was for 10:00 pm (not bad for them, since life doesn’t even start until 9 in Buenos Aires, but bad for me, since that is usually my bedtime). I moved up my eating schedule during the day so that I didn’t eat an extra meal, and didn’t go to dinner starving…and I went to the restaurant. I had the grass-fed beef (which was incredible, and so different from beef here it doesn’t even seem like the same food), I tasted all of the side dishes, and I tried the Malbec. And it definitely lived up to its reputation. If you’re ever in Buenos Aires, and you want to try a great restaurant, go to La Cabrera in the Palermo section. You won’t be disappointed!!
The next day I went right back to my regular eating habits, and I was happy I did. When I got home, my weight was exactly the same as when I left, so although I didn’t lose any more weight while I was away, I didn’t do anything that had to be “undone”. I had a great time, learned a little bit of a new language, got to watch a lot of tango (no, I wouldn’t dare try to do it down there – I would have been arrested for impersonating a dancer!) and my life stayed with me even though I was 5000 miles away from home. Perfect.