86 and Counting - II

No second part can be complete without the first. You are highly advisable to read the first part before dwelling into this.

Its been 25 days in Paris so far. The most prominent thing that I would want to point out is that I haven't been able to shed not a single gram of weight so far. I am telling this even though I haven't checked my weight. I feel so confident about it I am willing to be 100 Euros on it.

Its the conversion syndrome that ticks of for anyone who goes overseas I guess. This happened with me and the first week we were quite attentive of every detail. Everything looked darn expensive outside and so we stuck with noodles at night for all the days till we moved out from the hotel. Back at office, I relished every dish I could get hands on for lunch. We have a cafeteria downstairs at the office which specializes mostly in steak, bacon and sometimes fish (fillet). It's an absurd assortment of food - Fillings- french fries, palak paste, shoufle (some mashed vegetables), rataoutielle (yes, i had it, it wasn't as great as it sounded in the film), boiled potatoes, mixed boiled vegetables, Main dish - fried steak, fish, chicken, turkey. The actual rate of the food is around 4 to 5 euros. Since we aren't the main stay employees we are charged 4.9Euros as tax. So lunch always comes around 10 Euros. Frankly I am enjoying the food and have no qualms to continue and taste different varieties. There was this one time where the whole dish contained some fish gravy and boiled potatoes in it. My friend is having difficult time. He is a guy who doesn't eat anything other than chicken or sea food.

On the weekends we satisfied oursleves with McD or KFC. After the first week, we moved into the new apartments and have brought some groceries and have started cooking. I made upma, dal, noodles, alu fry, bendi fry, mixed vegetable curry, dal again. We have decided on the first day of our cooking that we are going to cook on the alternative days and we have been very good at maintaining it so far. Nothing much happened in the first two weeks of our stay with regard to food. Though we cut down on the intake from the office, it was only to be compensated by McD -1 Big Cantal, 1 Huge bag of French Fries, 1 500ml Coke guaranteed to fill the stomach.

I swear I have never eaten so much junk food in my life. Its scarily funny how we keep cribbing out this very fact and then went out the next day to eat the same junk as we were left with no edible choice at the office. Common, who can eat big boiled potatoes or boiled cabbage or spinach with steak, bacon or fish?

It is now the third week of our stay and finally we have managed to break the jinx and started carrying our lunch boxes. Though I am happy we are having our own ghar ka khana, the amount of rice we have been eating is just too much carbs. If I don't take some steps now my dreams of cutting down on weight would never be fulfilled and I will forever remain etched in guilt. The only other viable alternate choices that I see are fruits for the night and cereals/flakes in the morning. Of course I gotta do that damned exercises.

Apart from many other things I had dreamed of doing once I have come here, it is surya namaskaras and jogging in the morning. As temperatures here hover around 3-4 degrees, forget jogging, I couldn't even move myself out of that nice cozy warm bed. In the next few days let me see if I can do the former.

I have been promising Anu that I will jog for the last three weeks and I haven't been able to fulfil the wish though.