Healthy?

I really can't tell if India has been remarkably good or remarkably bad for my health. I'm clearly either the healthiest I've ever been or the least healthy I've ever been and I swing daily between thinking I'm in peak physical fitness or knocking on death's door.

On the healthy side of things my personal habits have become annoyingly, sublimely good. I wake up every day before work and either do yoga or high intensity training. I've replaced my sugary breakfast cereals with some healthy homemade granola and mashed banana and yes, I've even replaced my beloved chai with green tea, which I now drink twice a day. For lunch I usually eat a small vegetable and whole grain-based meal and my afternoon snack consists of another banana, an orange and a big glass of fresh pomegranate juice from the only juicewallah in India that I'm feel hygienically confident in. Dinner is usually the brown rice and stewed veggie that my maid serves up every day. 

Sounds pretty good, right? You're all thinking "OMG, Kate. When did you get so effing annoying in your eating and working out habits?" Well, don't hate on me yet, y'all, because you'll soon understand that I have been forced into a life of relentless healthy habits due to the horrid underlying determinants of health all pushing me towards an early grave.

I'm living in the most polluted city on earth where commentators joked(?) that President Obama's short trip here in January may have reduced his life expectancy by 6 hours. I have no air filters in my house and spent about an hour a day in an open air vehicle just inhaling all of the luscious exhaust India's clogged roads have to offer. I get sick pretty reliably every 6 weeks or so--not majorly sick, but a bit of a common cold which is becoming a bit too common for my liking. I am covered for about 18 hours a day in what I assume must be highly toxic anti-mosquito lotion (dengue fever don't play around, y'all).

And, I think my hair is falling out. Actually, I'm pretty sure it is--but fortunately I have so much hair that it doesn't make so much of a difference...yet. My expat friends have all reported that they're all slowly balding too, I've also read at least one non-fiction book where the Delhi-transplant's hair also falls out and the shelves are pharmacies here are stocked with "Anti Hair Fall" shampoo. So, I think I'm in pretty good company, really. Yes, as it turns out, Delhi is a city full of slowly balding men and women.

 

But, I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that green tea has miraculous curing properties--which must include hair regrowth, right? So, maybe I'll just up my green tea game to three cups a day, and we'll call this whole health thing a wash.