PC Paunch AKA Bread Belly

Despite my best efforts to “maintain my figure,” as someone recently put it, I am growing a bread belly. Moroccans eat a lot of bread. Breakfast is bread with olive oil, butter, jam or honey. Lunch and dinners are usually eaten without utensils with bread serving as the means to getting food in your mouth. I've devised ways to eat less bread – stopping when I am nowhere near full because someone always insists that I eat more and puts another piece of bread in front of me or finishing my first piece of bread and then eating the potatoes and carrots in the tagine with my fingers or using as small a piece of bread as I can to scoop the largest chunk of vegetables. My family is catching on because they offer me utensils for some meals like the salad (chopped tomatoes, onions and garlic) usually eaten with bread, but I get to use a spoon. Other meals are simply delicious, but not at all healthy like fried zuchini or eggplant and french fries. Yummy, but not helping my waistline.

My attempts to exercise have been counteracted by the invites to tea and breakfast that I receive while out on my daily walk/run. I usually go out early to beat the heat and most people are at home still sleeping. When I return, my host mom has tea and breakfast waiting for me. Even if I've stopped for tea or breakfast on my way back, she still insists that I eat again and I have a hard time refusing her.

It would reflect poorly on Fatima if I lost weight while under her care. Many of the women tell me I need to gain weight so I can have a larger chest and a nicer belly. I try to explain wanting to be healthy, but it doesn't really translate, so I stick my belly out a far as I can to demonstrate that I have one. The chest is more difficult to prove because I wear looser fitting clothes to detract any attention from the men in my village. One women told me to keep eating because I don't have a chest and men like women with large chests. She demonstrated this last part by holding her hands out well beyond a reasonable size!

Despite what I eat, someone always tells me that I don't eat enough. I honestly think I could eat a whole tagine, and they would still tell me I didn't eat enough. I think part of it is that I don't eat meat, so they want to make sure I eat more than my share of vegetables and bread. Part of it is cultural, they tell everyone to eat. Except that they are much more persistent with me. If someone else says they are full, the pressure to eat is off. But when I say I'm full, I am faced with “a little more, please?” Sometimes its a nice request and other times its a sharp directive to “EAT!”

Thankfully, my pants still fit and I'll be cooking for myself in a month. I have visions of stir fry and eggs over easy dancing in my head.