Let's pretend kilos are the same as pounds

The Surgeon General did a great job about making it clear that cigarettes were bad. Gold star, Surgeon General. Yet nobody has felt the need to send out a mass warning about the effects of a Spanish diet on an American. I made the horrible mistake of getting on a scale the other day. I tend to avoid them at all costs, since they never lead to happiness. For me, in the past, I was either freaking out about not weighing enough to give blood, or I was secretly rejoicing over having a valid excuse to not have to get stuck with a massive needle, thus excusing me from a moral dilemma. But, for the sake of trying to prove the Swedish scale wrong, I used our scale here to see if I was, in fact, above a weight that should be letting me squish into my jeans. Thus the beginning of my distaste for the kilo to pounds conversion. Not that I was entirely surprised, seeing as my only form of activity is walking home from schools/bars/eating and my main food intake is, to my horror and pride, 3,300 calories a day when I let my mother feed me her desired amount. Thus my warning: unless you wish to consume a thousand extra calories a day, prepare for a battle of wills against your host mother, her cooking, and your thighs.

You need to come to Spain with a knowledge that the diet is absolutely impossible to hate, love or avoid. Because if I let you come here to study abroad and you don't know that you will gain weight, well that's just rude of me. Maybe you won't get fat but that adorable dress from H&M four months ago? Not gonna happen. Here's the main issue: salt and second helpings. Those are the religiously followed rules of a Spanish house. Luckily my Spanish mother's worst nightmare is gaining two kilo, so when I told her I gained six (plus.......) she about had a heart attack and told me that she was so sorry, that I must be depressed, and that we would eat cauliflour ever day for a month. That's the new plan. Which is heart breaking because that means that all the salty garbanzo beans, all the late night flan and all of the wine drinking is probably coming to an end. Instead, as a reward for my new "heath" kick, aka the removal of taking second, third and fourth helpings, I am going to go every Sunday and have something famously fabulous like my favorite patatas bravas or manchego cheese. I figure if I stop eating as if it the Passover, then perhaps I shall be able to appreciate the really awesome food that much more. And if I stop consuming 8,000mg more than the recommended amount perhaps I shall stop feeling like a beached whale. Those things would be nice.