The Fat Life in Xiamen

So I wrote about the fit life in Xiamen and how my days are filled with sports and active things. And the logical conclusion to all of this is that I would be super skinny and fit. But that is not at all true because of the other half of my life.

I am fortunate enough to call some amazing people my friends. One is head pastry chef at a French patisserie. Another is a manager at a French bakery. A third imports fancy goods from Spain. Even my friends who aren’t working directly for food companies are foodies. (The benefits of having a mostly European and Chinese friend group.) In fact every week we have a homemade dinner at someone’s house where we eat like kings.

I guess you could say we play hard and eat harder. (Not a lot of working hard, which is okay by me.) Birthdays are celebrated by 30 people for dinner, and frisbee practice is followed by a European sandwich with ham, Dijon mustard on a fresh baguette. Even my neighbor Will regularly makes homemade pizza and invites me over for a piece or two (or three or four or five.)

Also, we go out to eat a lot. Xiamen has a much better foreign food scene than Hangzhou with dozens of foreign restaurants owned and operated by foreigners. Not the usual “foreign style” food but legit amazing foreign food at very reasonable prices.

Add that with the fact I still write 3 days a week, at cafe’s, where I have some food or snacks, and you’ll see why I’m not losing weight at all despite being so active. But you won’t hear me complaining! Not while there are baguettes, sausages and cakes to be eaten!