"Wakey, wakey ... eggs and bakey!" sang our favorite Rudi Rivera, a wild Rico Suave water aerobics instructor down in the Dominican Republic. "Time for some happy snacky snacky, in the sunny sunny ... welcome to Puerto PlatAAAAAAA!" Latin music drum roll please ... and we're off.
Spring break day one starts the fun. Sixteen college kids on the run. They eat and eat and drink all day. Stuff their faces at the all-you-can-eat-buffet. Evening comes, what do they do? They dance, smoke, drink, and eat fondue.
Day two: buffet is still novel. Created in their stomachs quite the hovel. Five to nine servings of fruits and veggies become 20. Little did they know this was more than plenty! When is enough enough, I pondered. In our all-inclusive deal, how many calories we squandered!
Your three-ounce chicken breast becomes an eight, because buffet-style meals pack it on the plate. And the blocks of cheese you access freely? Just to give the tongue and throat a feely, four Las Vegas dice are the size of one serving of cheese. Oh so small, such a tease!
Cr??pes, plantains, Sancocho, duck. The average bagel is the size of a hockey puck. Pork, beef, guava juice, calamari. Three ounces of meat - the size of a deck of cards, sorry. Daiquiris, Pi?±a Coladas, Sea Breezes galore. One to two drinks you get, no more.
These rhymes are terrible, but I cannot resist, when a single serving of vegetables or fruit is about the size of your fist. I know, this seems so small. Particularly when one half-cup of ice cream is the size of a tennis ball, a teaspoon of peanut butter is one of your thumb tips, and a cupped handful's a serving of pretzels or chips.
Steamed rice is the size of a cupcake wrapper; the size of a checkbook is three ounces of snapper. These portion control guidelines should work for a buffet; I wish I were making this up, but it's according to the USDA.
A baseball's the size of a serving of pasta; any more might really cost ya. A potato serving's the size of a computer mouse - not the size of a small brick house. Those salad bowls, ahem troughs, in Carmie and Dewick; make sure to bring your measuring stick. A serving of pancakes is the size of a CD; top it off with a cup of strawberries for a good source of vitamin C.
All vices are magnified during "Semana Santa." You're the bad child of the week, singing "Fanta, Fanta, don't you wanta..." And still in the Garden of Eden you do enjoy the local fruits, smells on the street - and college boys. In fact you jumped right into Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, but now you're paying for those last nights and bites.
Sixteen students turn kids in a candy shop, frolicking about with no mom or pop. Gluttons for a week and they didn't have to hide it. It's all-included, you're entitled, eating your way through the week unbridled.
But woe unto these "invincible" kids, drinking and eating double. Nausea and cramps began the trouble. It was time to pull back the reins come day five - that is, if they wanted to remain alive. Thank goodness for Imodium AD; otherwise, nothing in that alimentary-tract-gone-wild would agree.
That salivating comida was all the less seductive, when a life on the ba?±o became destructive. Buffet-style took its toll; pretty soon, heads began to roll. Sixteen kids jumped down to three, since Vesuvius erupted in the tummy. And those remaining few know not to go back for seconds, even when el postre beckons.
But it's spring break, for Jumbo's sake - it's time to indulge! Yes, yes, it is ... but what of the battle of the bulge? It often can be a distress, once everything happens in excess. And so we must learn to know the body's max, and must know when the time comes to sit down and relax. That's not to say your body is not deserving of a first, second or even a third serving. You can't stand too much rigidity for too long, and with a little indulgence, may you come out strong.
And thus goes the story of a fun spring breakey. Back to reality. Wakey, wakey!
Senior Marissa Beck, an English and art history major, works with the Strong Women program as an assistant manager and personal trainer for the Tufts Personalized Performance Program. She can be reached at Marissa.Beck@tufts.edu. This column is written in conjunction with Emily Bergeron, R.D., the editor of the Daily's Balance section.
