Thinner

A few months ago I began to realise that under the constant onslaught of Korean food and Korean Mother's insistence that I ate a lot of it that my weight was beginning to creep up at an alarming rate. But my plans to get back into shape proved to be doomed. Our local fitness club turned out to be closing down, and then a niggling foot injury got worse and I ended up in physiotherapy for the best part of a month. Since then I haven't got back to exercising regularly and now that the heat is uncomfortable twenty-four hours a day I haven't felt a great deal of incentive to.

Back home even when the temperatures went well above thirty degrees Celsius I'd hardly sweat at all, but it's all I seem to do these days in Korea, in a phenomenon I've taken to calling - with a nod towards permafrost - calling 'permasweat'. And there seems little to be done about it - regular showers provide little relief since I'm just sweating again two minutes afterwards whatever the best efforts of our air conditioning. At least the Koreans seem to be suffering as much as me - I suppose you never really get used to it.

But there turns out to be a silver lining to this, because I happened to weigh myself over at Korean Mother's apartment the other day and I'm back to my pre-Korea weight - an 8% decline since I last stood on the scales a couple of months ago - and it feels like it's all been lost in perspiration. I've heard this isn't that uncommon, so Koreans think this time of year is the best time to diet. I still need to do something about my fitness level, but at least I've found one positive aspect of a typical Korean summer.

Korean tags: 건강, 땀, 여름, 날씨