The Southern Hemisphere
As I detail elsewhere, this month I’m in New Zealand.
I’m also carrying around the effects of a semester of MIT classes. Call it the “First Year Fifteen”, although it wasn’t actually fifteen: more like five to eight, depending on where one measures. Put the 160 mark out of easy reach, though. Good behavior during the holidays kept the situation from careening out of control.
One of the surprising things a year ago when I was spending 80% of my time in England was that I actually lost weight, despite travel, eating in airports, drinking at pubs and being 3,000 miles from the gym. Basically, I just didn’t eat as much, and that was mostly because the food just wasn’t all that good. It’s easy to eat less when there’s very little, outside the Indian restaurants, worth eating. New Zealand definitely shares a culinary heritage with the home islands, and never attracted large numbers of Indian immigrants, either. On the other hand, the general quality of the restaurants is better, and I’ve gotten plenty of exercise so far this weekend, including a hike up Mt. Victoria and some extended walking tours of museums and interesting neighborhoods.
No scale in my hotel room, so we’ll have to wait a bit to see how it all turns out.