International Diet 101

I've not been on-line due to the hottest new trend!

So - picture, if you will, travelling Europe, enjoying haute cuisine and local delicacies such as chicken paprika and pinched noodles with a rich sauce, sour cherry streudel loaded with butter and topped with sugar crystals, amazingly deep mochas topped with tons of real cream, weinerschnitzels and bread dumplings, boiled potatos and beef, palachintas stuffed with nutella and sprinkled with powdered sugar..... Yay - delicious, hearty, creamy and - perhaps just a little fattening???  Even with the running for trams and walking blocks to get to your destination, the waist bands still get a little snug and you're thankful for the new, classy stretch jeans.

So - with all that, it imperative that when you return home you begin back with your work out regime; however, sometimes drastic measures are needed.  Albeit, sometimes, the drastic measures are not necessarily elected, but given as a gift.... The gift of weight loss.

Here's the plan.  Take two regional flights (vise a vie EU) and one 9 hour 30 minute long international flight on everyone's favorite German airline - LUFTHANSA!  Courteous, orderly, timely.... They roll those wonderful little in-flight carts through the cabin and ask "Vhat vood you like to dink?" and then "Chicken or beef?" (its hard to put a German accent on those...).

You look across the aisle and eye the little tin dishes sitting on other tray tables.  You make your decision and confidently say "beef".  You'll never be able to take that decision back.

Two hours after the delicious little pan of gravy soaked something with those two tiny squishy baby carrots and the chamboard cheese square, your stomach begins to make a few little declarations of thanks.  Up your throat crawls a noise that you can't stop.  The kind, 90 year old gentleman in the bulkhead row in front of you with plenty of leg room and a new squeeze snuggled up next to him under a flight blanket suddenly throws his seat back to relax a little more, wedging you firmly between the back of your seat and the back of his seat.  Suddenly things get a little clausterphobic and you fight some more rumblings in your innards.  Quickly you get an urge, loosen your seatbelt and make a break for the luxurious airplane bathroom.  Throughout the remaining 6 hours, you make the same trip 6, 7, or 8 times. 

Ooops - time to buckle up.  Grab those wax coated baggies and prepare for landing!  Wheels hit the ground, the gate rolls up, the little light goes off and you find the strength of lions as you push little old ladies and pregnant woman out of the way to reach your new favorite plane place.

The drive home you're stocked with the wax airplane baggies.  You reach home, kick your shoes off and fall into your bed with your handy wastebasket by your side.  For the next day you wear a path in the carpet between bed and bath - no sales or coupons here... You begin praying for sweet death.

You think you're doing better the next day - it returns.  The next day - returns again.

Towards the end of the third day, you're feeling a little more normal and you realize - your pants are fitting great again, your thighs have slimmed down.  What an amazing way to end a fatty, delicious vacation.  Once you get through the death part - the results are fabulous!

Okay - I wouldn't recommend to repeat or market this International Diet - but its the story of my dumpling, steudel-laced, pant-expanded journey home.