It was our dear friend and travel companion Ram who told one of his friends after our trip to Uttaranchal in northern India last year: I have never seen anybody eating so many bananas…. Anybody was Asbjørn and me, on the road from Delhi to Gethia and return. Ram and driver Rana were in the front seats, whereas we were stuck in the back, squeezed in on each side of a suitcase that never would fit in the trunk, two rucksacks, my handbag, a camera bag, water bottles… it’s amazing how you NOT travel light when you have a car at hand. Yes, and bananas. One plastic bag for the fruit itself. Another one for the peel. This eating obsession had its obvious reasons; Asbjørn is always, when in India, fearing the Delhi-belly. Whereas I always fear starvation, – because can you trust finding a Pizza Hut in the countryside of Uttar Pradesh? Anyway, Ram was hunting bananas. Not that they are hard to come by. And we were eating them in between all other meals, who turned out pretty decent! But it’s always good to be on the safe side!
Ram has been shopping bananas…We’re on the road again!
Bananas work instantly when you’re hungry. Praise the banana! Recently, I decided to test myself and my willpower, the idea was to lose enough kilos to NOT have to buy new clothes (environmental initiative). Insted I wanted to make use of those clothes who had shrunk in the cupboard. Easy? no. Possible? surely. But now we’re talking starvation!
Breafast has been meagre for a while. 40 grams of Kellogg’s AllBran. 1 decilitre of skimmed (!) milk. 1,5 dl of orange juice. One (!) walnut. End of story. And well yes, a cup of tea. What a treat! Next, bike for 5,5 km. And then my new obsession; the treadmill in the gym at work.
AllBran looks like cardboard, but taste quite yummy – and has all the right words written on the package – fibre coming out as king….
I peel off the outer layer of clothes, fill my water bottle, connect my iPod to the stereo. Of course I have a playlist designed for the task, and after 12 minutes I have put wonderful “Keep on Walking” by Salem al Fakir. Maybe more appropriate when I was walking-stumbling away at a speed of 7,5 km/hour. Now I’m running, but the song is still my main energy boost when the going gets tough. Some days I bring a CD with Bollywood music, but I have a slight feeling that other people who work out simultanuously suffer by the sound of it…. (although no one utters a word!)
As I haste away, I hear all my cycling colleagues click-clack on their biker’s shoes enter the gym, walking from the locker room to the wardrobes. And I know some of them are thinking, what’s she up to…. (because some have asked).
After 20 minutes, sometimes a little more because I like my own selection of music so much, I enter the wardrobe, remove the inner layer of clothes, take a quick, proud look at my tomato red face and enter the shower.
But – what has all this got to do with bananas? Thing is, when I enter my office, after pulling life into my computer, after getting coffee and water, I suddenly realise I’m totally starving. The 40 grams of AllBran has been burnt away, every bit of fibre and God-only-knows-all-the-healthy-stuff has disappeared. And lunch is at least three hours away. I imagine that the coffe is a healthy filling syrup and that the water contains some anti-starvation bubbles. And you can really make your imagination work for two hours! At 10 am I grab my banana, eat it, comes completely to life once more and top it with another coffee and look forward to 200 grams of salad for lunch. Life can be tough at times…. but the banana makes it work!
My energy booster…..
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