Hi there,
As you know, I have always taken care of myself and have always been very busy with my appearance. Not worried but busy. Even now, with an age, I have started to do treatments like Botox and fillers.
Also, now I’m vegan and I’m even thinking of totally cutting alcohol out of my life. I have never been a friend of alcohol; in fact, I have always disowned those people who love to drink. But sometimes when we meet up with friends, I might have a glass of wine.
The damage that alcohol does to you is evident when you see people who drink and people who don’t.
With certain people, being and wanting to be healthy is seen as satanic. In Spain, where I lived for several years, you are a weirdo. It is better seen to be obese and with high cholesterol, denotes that you are happy, free and do not deprive yourself of anything.
When I met Diego’s triathlon friends I was horrified because almost all of them had a belly, there was only one who was as strong as I imagined they would all be. I went with them for lunch once and the amount of alcohol they drank before, during and after eating was incredible.
When I worked as a teacher in gyms in Valencia, I was shocked because almost all the instructors smoked.
In Venezuela, healthy and sporty people have always been the object of admiration, to put it in some way. Nobody is going to say anything negative to you because you take care of yourself, quite the opposite.
But in Spain the majority attack you, if you don’t drink it’s because you’re boring.
If you are an ex-smoker, do not leave your house, because your own friends, instead of being happy for you and supporting you, will do everything possible to make you relapse.
A friend of my ex-boyfriend always told me that I had bigorexia because I was obsessed with my figure and sports.
I have heard countless phrases from Diego’s friends: “How boring to eat only vegetables”, “You are obsessed”, “How annoying to do so much sport” …
When Diego said he was going to try being vegan at work, a couple of people told him good for him, but most got defensive. Because it seems that the fact that one wants to take care of oneself and lead a healthy life is an attack on most people in Spain.
In the end, Diego was told by a co-worker not to say he was vegan because people from their ignorance were going to get defensive, that he better say that “He was trying to reduce the consumption of meat” and it is true that this way people manage to understand it and are even empathetic with the subject.
A former co-worker even bullied him for his veganism; The funniest thing is that this man is obese, sweats, has trouble breathing, is unhygienic, etc. One day he even called him “little bean”, but when Diego responded by calling him “fatty”, he didn’t like it so much anymore.
The incredible thing in that country is that (or maybe it’s just the people that surrounded us), the majority of the unhealthy and with bad habits criticize healthy people because either you’re “obsessed”, you’re “bigorexic”, or because without greasy food and alcohol, life is meaningless.