The Cairo effect...

On the date of my departure for Egypt, January 22, 2010, I am fairly confident that I weighed the most I have ever in my life, at about 207 pounds. I entered college back in '07 weighing 187 pounds, and had been adding on a few pounds here and there throughout my freshman and sophomore year, cracking the 200 lb. mark on occasion. But I was always capable of bringing it back down into the 190's with a little bit of exercising.

The first semester of this, my junior year, was a different story, as a combination of factors aligned to create the perfect storm of weight-gain: I was no longer involved with rugby, didn't play basketball nearly as much as I had in the past, and worked an entire month at Culver's over my extended Christmas break (read: stuffed my face with Butter Burgers). The unthinkable had occurred: the breadth of my hips was comparable to that of my shoulders. The truth set in, and there was no way of escaping it: I was fat.

However, this past week, less than a month after leaving Minnesota in the most cellulite-ridden state of my life, I stepped on a scale to find myself weighing 195 pounds. That's right, 195 pounds. In only 4 weeks, I've managed to lose 10+ pounds.

But before you rush to praise me for my compelling demonstration of will power and discipline, or request info on whatever workout regiment and dietary practices I've been following, let me simply say that I really shouldn't be receiving any of the credit. The fact that I am 10 pounds lighter is by know means the result of a concerted effort on my part to get healthier. Instead, it can be attributed to the realities of being a penniless student in a foreign country.

If you know me, you know I tend to be a pretty frugal person (ok, I'm flat out cheap). Although my family members may dispute this claim, this is simply due to the fact that they are even stingier than me (although trends  in the motorcycle-buying and vacation-every-month categories have led me to conclude that two of them are anything but).

At Notre Dame and at home, my penny-pinching ways have never been an issue when concerned with feeding myself. At school, we have a pre-paid meal plan that allows us 14 all-you-can-eat gorge fests a week at some of the best dining facilities in the nation. Back in Minnesota, food is never in short supply, whether it come from the stockpile of Malt-O-Meal we keep in the garage or from the Culver's binging I'm afforded free of charge.

However, with these sources of "free," or at least already paid for food gone, I find myself eating far less. Even though the favorable exchange rate makes eating in Cairo very cheap, the concept of paying for food out of my own pocket is a significant mental block. As a result, my meals are less in both frequency and portion. On a typical school day, I'll limit myself to felafel at lunch and koshari at dinner, spending no more than 15 pounds (3 dollars). On days where I don't have school, I sometimes eat even less, maybe only having a single meal in the afternoon.

Perhaps the most interesting development isn't how little I'm eating, but how easily I'm doing it. I don't feel like I'm starving myself, because I honestly don't feel excessively hungry, which is truly bizarre. If I were back home or at school, and I hadn't eaten in 3 or 4 hours, my stomach would be threatening to consume me from inside out. But out here in Cairo, in the real world, without a hot meal the swipe of a card away, my stomach is forcibly held in check by my desire to conserve money. If anything, this strange change in behavior provides some powerful insight into the psychology of hunger.

Additionally, this change in behavior and the subsequent loss of weight has rendered the two pairs of jeans I bought right before coming to Cairo (which were sized according to my waistline at the time) baggy, loose, and unsightly. Oh well. A small price to pay for saving money and not being fat anymore.