June | 2015 | Annie Bee ~The Buzz Of A Like-Minded Woman

Hello from Sri Lanka !

I am in an odd situation whereby I am away from home for the best part of six weeks. This is due to a once-only opportunity to visit my family in Australia, nip across to NZ where I was born and brought up (but left for the UK in 1977), pick up one of the Baby Bees after her year abroad and then meet up with the rest of the Bees for our 2 week annual summer holiday.

Having started The Side- Plate Diet on January 6th, I had slimmed down considerably during the 6 months before my travels began. Would it be easy to stick to it while away? Well, it has been a mixed bag.

Eating with my family while abroad has been easy: they understood I was watching portion-sizes. Self-catering motels were also simple and when eating out, I would just have a starter – sometimes with a treat of a side of fries. I have not wanted to be massively strict on the odd occasion when a lovely meal out with family and friends was on the cards. Not feeling guilty and getting back on track is the best plan.

The biggest problem has been the buffet meals at the 2 hotels we have stayed at here in Sri Lanka. You would have to have an iron will not to want to try lots of the wonderful foods on offer, particularly when they are in a new cuisine (Sri Lankan cuisine has influences from colonial powers, foreign traders and Southern India. Key ingredients are rice, coconut and spices, reflecting the island’s history as a spice producer and trading post over several centuries) and you are here for the total holiday experience ~ food included. The hotel we are in now has a superb chef who, knowing I have Coeliac Disease, keeps making me special plates of the most amazing concoctions. For breakfast this morning, for example, he presented me with rice flour pancakes with a filling of chopped banana and desiccated coconut + honey paste. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. My intention to just have a small plate of fresh pineapple with a small serving of yoghurt was nowhere to be seen.

Buffets are essentially tables laden with food, most of which one wants to try, and there can’t be many people who don’t find themselves over-doing it, given the self-service nature of the beast. The term buffet originally referred to the French sideboard furniture where the food was served, but eventually became applied to the serving format. It also used to be an opportunity to show off one’s wealth (both with the food and the vessels in which it was presented) and it is, at this hotel anyway, a chance for the chef and his kitchen staff to really show off their considerable skills.

The Buffet (Jean-Louis Forain) 1884

I am not proud to admit as well that there is also an element of “all you can eat for the set price”…. let’s pig out while we have the chance and we aren’t eating/paying a la carte. Sad, I know.

So there is no doubt that for at least 2 of the 6 weeks I am away from home, I will be eating more calories than I had been doing. I guess the trick is to try and compensate (tomorrow is another day), love the freedom of being on holiday, not worry about a few pounds going on, and know that when back home, this morning’s breakfast will be the stuff of dreams.

Annie Bee x

Mr Bee and I are currently watching “Better Call Saul” on Netflix, and in a recent episode, Saul mentioned mall walkers, complaining that they are hard to chase (he is selling them his will-making services) as they are all walking so damned fast.

In the UK, this is a relatively little-known phenomenon; there are pockets of it (hello Bluewater, Kent), but in the US and in Australia it seems a much bigger deal. And what an amazing idea it is.

I believe it all started in America when the first fully enclosed U.S. mall, the Stockdale, opened in Minnesota in 1956 and local doctors suggested patients recovering from heart attacks should exercise there, away from the snow and ice of Minnesota’s harsh winters. The 1980s saw a boom in the construction of malls and by 2001, some 2.5 million people were walking in 1,800 malls in the United States.

“You always have a bathroom, and most malls have security. Even if you have a heart issue, they have defibrillators.”

So if you live near one, what are the benefits? They are under-cover so weather proof. My Mum used to mall walk in Brisbane Australia, mainly because during their summers, it is way too hot to exercise outside if you are elderly, so an early morning brisk hour of walking in the air-conditioned mall was the perfect solution. If the mall allows, you can get the walk done before the shoppers arrive, but then grab a coffee or breakfast with your fellow exercisers. Water fountains are often available, as is seating if you over-do it. From my Mum’s point of view, it was sociable as well as being a good form of exercise. You go at your own pace and there is certainly plenty to look at. The mall owners/managers can benefit from this extra business at an otherwise very slow time of day, and the canny shop owners can work it to their benefit (Senior Citizen specials on offer).

Some years ago I emailed the British Heart Foundation asking whether they had thought of launching a programme of Mall Walking in the UK, but I never heard back. Maybe it is time for the UK to start to promote it. I think a couple of the bigger UK malls do it (the Bullring in Birmingham, The Trafford Centre in Manchester and the White Rose in Leeds as well as Bluewater); the NHS mention it on their website under ‘Get Fit For Free’ which is good, but maybe if the BHF got behind it, it could help us all.

At present I am happiest walking and running outside, but I can imagine in my dotage, I would love to join this merry band of mall walkers. And I will walk super fast if I am being pursued by anyone flogging me their will-writing services.

Annie Bee x