The traveller's diet

I started this journey decidedly over my ideal weight. 180 pounds on a 5-10/11 frame was, in my estimation, about 10-15 pounds too heavy. I blame my former job -- full-time reporter.

As a reporter you spend and enormous amount of time on your rear-end. Sitting in front of the computer, sitting at meetings, sitting down to eat lunch, sitting in the car, sitting down for an interview. The majority of your day is in fact spent sitting in one place or another.

It has a terrible effect on your physique as well as your back, legs and body in general.
My left leg, lower back and butt area would constantly ache due to all the sitting I was doing. Sometimes I feel like a Zen master of sitting due to my years as a reporter.

But that’s the price you pay for being a writer -- sore ass muscles.

“It’s all about butt power,” I remember one author saying during a interview on Tom Ashbrook’s WBUR show “On Point.” How true.

But alas! After about six weeks of traveling I believe I’ve lost between five and 10 pounds. (I haven’t weighed myself yet, I’ll do that at the end of this trip.)

So in the hope of becoming wealthy, with whitened teeth ready for infomercial prime-time, I’ll lay out my formula here for the ultimate travel diet.

It’s simple really, the key is to walk between five and 10 miles a day. Then, you have to starve yourself. Eat maybe a croissant for breakfast with a cup of tea or coffee. For lunch, split a sandwich -- I’m talking a plain old ham sandwich with cheese, not a triple cheeseburger with bacon -- or better yet, just don‘t eat at all. Clutch your stomach with your fingers curled into claws if the gnawing emptiness gets to be unbearable.

For dinner, focus on your budget -- try not to spend more than $20 on your meal (assuming you’re eating out, because that’s usually what’s easiest when you’re traveling.) That's it really.

But seriously, I didn’t plan on loosing any weight, and really I didn’t think I needed to lose much when we left Boston, but it seems like one of those inevitable things that happen on long trips.

I remember when my sister Amanda came back from a summer trip to Peru, she seemed to have shed about a third of her previous body weight -- which is really saying something because she was already thin. (I heard later that she had the clawed hands thing down to perfection.)

There's also the possibility she lost so much weight because she was hiking out in the wilderness on Machu Picchu with lamas and dead horses. I’ll have to ask her.