‘The Dubai stone’ – a catchy expression that we’ve all long accepted to apply to the rest of the Emirates as well, and that we’ve also accepted as medical fact. Put simply, it is borne of the theory that living in the UAE will result in your regular weight increasing by somewhere in the region of 6.35029318kg – for those of us raised with the metric system – after a matter of weeks spent Friday brunching and walking nowhere. It is as inevitable as death and taxes (and yes, clever clogs, you do pay taxes here – indirectly, but still).
The Dubai stone happened to you (probably), and yes, it happened to me, even after I swore it wouldn’t. About a year ago, I refused to accept this in-built excuse for added girth. People whining about their favourite jeans feeling a little more snug would hear from friends: ‘Don’t worry, it’s just the Dubai stone. Everyone gets it’. Hogwash, I would think. There’s no magic spell that causes one’s midriff to expand as soon as one lands in the UAE. Gravity is the same here as it is in any other place in the world. It comes down to simple maths: if you eat more calories than you burn off, you put on weight.
So I carried on playing plenty of sport and eating (reasonably) well, and felt as spry as I had for some time.
And then it happened.
The clouds vanished, cool breezes disappeared, bars and restaurants slammed their doors shut. Summer had struck. Suddenly, popping to the shops to pick up some lean meat and fresh vegetables seemed akin
to a trek across the Sahara. So what did I do? I did what we all do – I reached for my phone and ordered a takeaway.
In a region where a simple phone call can summon every delicious fatty delight your brain can possibly imagine – cheeseburgers, pizza, cheeseburger pizza – it’s not easy to maintain a healthy diet. Before I knew it, I had become just another statistic – and in my case, that statistic weighed 97kg.
Summer disappeared, but soon it was Christmas. Having never been one for new year’s resolutions, it was February before I forced myself to swap the bread for broccoli and the chips for cauliflower. After weeks of relative abstinence, I returned to my regular fighting weight of about 91kg, and I’m determined not to fall back into the takeaway trap.
Summer is once again upon us, and this year I’m stocking up on vegetables. My fridge will be so green and leafy it’ll resemble an Amazon rainforest. My fruit bowl will runneth over. My jeans need worry not about being stretched to their fibrous limits. Although I never did try that cheeseburger pizza…
Jamie Goodwin is our assistant online editor. We have confiscated his mobile phone until after summer.
