7 kg

Thats right, 15.4 lbs is how much weight a Luke can gain in a 3 week holiday visit to his good old US of A.

Is it sad?
Is it impressive?

I leave that to your own judgement. But I will state this fact. The diversity of food available in almost any American City has to be my favorite aspect of America itself.

You can have your "right to bear arms". Yall enjoy that "freedom of speech". I am just happy with the luxury of eating 7 different types of food, one for each day of the week. Sure, I admit for the most part, my country might have skewed the original recipe of that italian pizza, mexican chorizo or chinese eggroll...but it doesn't make it any less tasty.

In my 21 day stay in Lubbock and parts of New Mexico I ate at almost all my favorite restaurants. Some places I got to eat at several times. (I love you Taco Bell, and I don't care what chemicals you use to make that nacho cheese sauce) Each and every time I was given more food than I needed, but in no way more than I could eat.

Its a well known fact that we Americans (and at least you british too) eat far more than we should. Anyone visiting an asian nation for any length of time, would come back to my home country and drop their jaw in shock. Those hungry, small African children seen on the evening news are not the rarity in this world, we are. Our American glutenous nature is. And we (and I'm speaking on behalf of Americans in general) are not bad for enjoying the food we have. We are bad for being wasteful with the food we do not eat. The edible food we discard daily.

Anyone who has worked in a restaurant can attest that for the most part, plenty of good food is thrown away at the end of a day. Grocery stores toss way to many day old baked goods out. Taking home food as leftovers is a noble idea, but how often is that styrofoam container and its contents thrown out away days later. The "take out box" or "doggie bag" is not a world wide concept. Folks here in Japan thought I was crazy when I first arrived back in '06. Why would someone order more food than they can eat? And by the way, styrofoam is still horrible in terms of landfill biodegradability.


So yeah, I'm heavier. My pants are a little more snug and I'm quite lethargic these days. But that'll change soon (part of my plan). Fortunately for me, I'm in the land of sticky rice, fish and lots o vegetables. You really have to go out of your way to eat poorly. At least I do. Of course if I lived in Tokyo, or a bigger city, you can be sure I'd be frequently calling the best pizza joint or even making regular stops at the gyoza hut (think "potstickers")

Sometimes I think this Japanese diet has a devious intention. Something along the lines of:
"What if we made this really gross concoction, called it "healthy", convinced enough people it was and then pass it off as lunch for the schools."

Today, as the main protein course, I ate 4, finger long fish (head, eyes and all) that were deep friend and slathered in some kind of slightly sweet sauce. If it weren't for the rice and soup to wash it down, there isn't a doubt in my mind I wouldn't have spent the first fifteen minutes of my lunch gagging at the table where all the teachers eat lunch. That would have most definitely increased my popularity.

My point is, with all this, healthy and creative japanese food to eat, combined with my ongoing workout routine designed to fine tune my body's peak physical fitness (catch any sarcasm there). I'm sure I'll be back to my weight of a month ago in less time than it took me to put on said 7kg.

And until I'm back, or Tokyo gets a Taco Bell.....I'll just keep on dreaming of that beautiful concoction known as,

The "Nacho Bell Grande" (sigh)