TIA Tuesday - Success Story

Ask any ex-pat in a developing country: will I lose weight while I'm living here? I bet you N$140 that they will tell you that all men lose weight while all women gain weight. While I did not find any scholarly articles on the topic in the five minutes that I tried, a simple search showed me that this is nearly a fact. At the very least, it's 100% observable. At our mid-service country, our guys had lost weight and many of our girls had gained. A friend in Kenya further confirmed this fact when in an email, he was woeful about how much weight he was losing, admitting that all the women were mad at him because they were gaining weight.

Hey, we get it. Guys win. 

Not only am I a woman, but I also easily succumb to stress eating. Namibia was...um...stressful. My diet was all over the place and pretty much on "survival mode."

It was challenging to return to America and officially see that I had gained 20 real pounds in only six months. Thus began the Summer of Loose Sundresses and Nike Shorts - no real pants or shorts for me, please. Fall turned into me admitting my problem and investing in jean that actually fit.

I'm proud to announce that today is the first day of the rest of my life: I busted out the pre-Nam jean and they fit! Glory hallelujah.

I probably could have lost it more quickly. I probably definitely could have exercised more ever. But it's on its way out. TIA(merica) - where you strangely lose weight while eating things like Kraft Mac & Cheese and Oreos.