Crazy ideas about diet and exercise

So ... Writing this in March, natch. (Still in town--hopefully I will return to site on March 21st. My original return date was the 10th, but then Cyclone Lusi happened, so that's that.)

I want to talk about working out. And eating local food.

So I eat lots of local food. In fact, I would basically describe my diet as local food + ramen + peanut butter crackers + snacks my mom sends me. 

Frankly, my diet is both awesome and terrible. On the awesome side: I eat all organic super fresh foods. It's good for the environment. Generally speaking, no animals were harmed in the making of my dinner. But ... so many root crops. Coconut milk on everything. I have basically no self-control around tasty food, so in that sense, it's great that I'm not in PC Thailand, you know? 

I try to watch what I eat here when I'm on the island. It's not too hard because I've never been tempted to overeat breadfruit. When I'm in Vila, though, I just eat everything. Tonight (March 13th) I made beef stroganoff for dinner. Delicious. But I also had cheap takeaway beef curry for lunch. And bread and peanut butter. And a pop tart. And a carrot. And a naus. Even though I'm in Vila, I still live on a largely carbohydrate diet. What does that say about me ...

For the record, here are some unflattering pictures of me making island food. (Emphasis on the unflattering. Man I look enormous/sweaty.)

I was in the nakamal when I took this photo. We had roasted breadfruit over the fire. I'm holding it on the bottom with a coconut shell and whacking it with a stick, to make ....

My favorite kind of breadfruit!!! I actually made this all by myself (cutting off the burned skin, beating it, mushing it, and milking it.) This is called sala and it's by far the most edible type of breadfruit. You cut off little pieces with a knife and eat it. Alternatively, you can make it look like a huge breadbowl and put all of the milk in the middle, and cut off pieces into the milk -- sort of like fondue.

Now that I've digressed ... I go running all the time on the island to try and deal with what I eat. The rainy season is starting soon, though, which means it's going to be only mud, all the time, constantly. I try to work out in my house when it's rainy, but yoga is hell on my mats. They get ripped and torn pretty quick anyway, but I don't want them to look so bad, you know? So my new idea -- work out in the mama's house! There's a big cement house in my village that's normally empty in the mornings. Yeah, it'd be less private than my house, but there'd be more than enough space (and that itself is a nice change.) Thinking that if I can charge my laptop up one night, I can do yoga or insanity or something in the morning. Just a thought!

I can't rely on kava for weight management always. Hahaha.