Losing Weight?

Am I losing weight or I just look like I have lost weight because I am skinny?  You can look at the photo albums at www.andiskaulins.spaces.live.com and decide for yourself.  I have been told for the last twenty years that I look like I have been losing weight.  You would think that at one time I weighed 250 pounds: so much weight I have been losing through the years.  But I weigh about 170 pounds (I am 6'2") and have done so for as long as I remember.  I also work my ass off so I have that overworked look...

This entry is being written on account of the maid of the King of Wuxi telling me that I looked as though I had lost weight.  I immediately thought that work, marriage and the Toner were getting me.  But life is as good as it has ever been for me.  Life is just Life.  I know I can't let it get to me.

I did weigh 200 lbs for about a month back in 1983 or 1984.  What I did to gain weight was to force myself to eat more than I could normally handle for about a period of two months.  I found a good tactic to swallow the food was by drinking a glass of water to get the food down my throat.  I did this three or four times at some meals.  Six weeks of doing this and I gained about 20 pounds.  But then a hot Manitoba summer caused me to sweat if all off.  My time as a fat pig did not last long.

It may also be that living in China for three years, I just have eaten less.  There is good food here.  But most days, I only have time to go to McDonald's.  The good Chinese food I have maybe once or twice a week.  Around school, there isn't a Chinese restaurant that satisfies my need for convenience, tasty food and cleanliness.

The only exercise I get is walking to and from work, and walking four flights of stairs to get to the classrooms and other offices at the school.  One person at work has suggested that my office being four floors from a printer has caused me to lost weight.

Can I blame the wife's cooking?  Maybe.  But her monopolizing the kitchen and my inability to understand her strange cleanliness standards (for anyone Chinese to have cleanliness standards is shocking and if they do they are strange) has seen me cook rarely.    The fact of the matter is, I am the best cook, next to my mom, who has ever cooked for me.  My wife's cooking is fine but I have to teach her how I like to cook. 

That is why I insist that our kitchen in the new apartment have a western style oven in it.  (Most of the details of the decorating the new apartment I will leave to the wife.  I only insist on there being a stove and book shelves.)