Louisa Simmonds

What is it about holidays that your body decides that it can suddenly eat whatever the fuck it likes without gaining any weight?

That it can devour the kind of fast food (and in massive quantities) that you haven’t dared even sniff since your twenties, without any detrimental effect to your muffin top?

This week, my body seems to believe that a few pathetic snowplough turns in the morning and a huge siesta recovery in the afternoon counts as exercise, and entitles me to a full daily breakfast, a tradie-sized lunch, massive dinner and however many drinks I can consume in the après-ski without falling over in the snow.

Because I’m on holiday.

The rules are different here, you see. It’s cold and when it’s cold the carbs call to your body through the mountain breezes to force you to stock up, to be prepared. You don’t want to end up THAT PERSON who had to eat the rest of their ski group in an avalanche, do you?

It’s a dog eat dog world in the mountains, even on holiday.

Anyway, when you’re on holiday those extra calories go away too and don’t make a bee-line straight to your thighs. They chill out a bit, with a, ‘hey, let’s give the bitch a rest – she’s on holiday’ attitude.

WRONG!

Deep down I know of course that the calories from those sumptious $8.50 Lindt hot chocolates with spray cream, Maltesers and marshmallows are heading straight to my collection of chins, and that although their voyage will only take them a few minutes of ecstasy, it will take 6 months of brutal exercise to get rid of them.

And I should also have known that the giant-sized bowl of Nachos I devoured at lunchtime yesterday wasn’t going to be burned off during my three hour nana nap in the afternoon. The same goes for the biscuits, crisps and donuts my body tells me I need to stay alive and alert in this cold and vicious terrain.

Because it’s only day 4 and already my Aldi ‘skins’ make my legs look like overstuffed sausages about to combust with the next bowl of hot chips my body now demands for morning tea to keep me alive.

Thanks Darwin. Holiday eating is obviously just about survival of the fittest.