Tonight at Bulgarian Folk dance, I was trying my best to keep up with the dance steps.  It was hard.  So then I started watching the other women at the dance class.  There were about 20 people today and most of them are moms of our high school students.

I was jealous about how good they are at Bulgarian Folk dance.   Maybe that shouldn't make me jealous seeing as they are actually Bulgarian.  But then I realized that these moms who have children who are between 14 and 18 years old and they look so good.  They look young still and most of them are very thin.

Standing at the back of the dance room I was really caught off guard by the fact that most of these moms are a good 15-20 years old than most of the international teachers who are dancing with them and from the back, with my American eye, I'd never know it.  Yep, I'd never know that these women are 15 or more years old than most of us.

How did this happen?

What is it about these women that they look so good? Or alternately, what is it about us--the American Girls--that makes us, um, not?  <!--more-->Is it diet, lifestyle or some other unknown Balken-thing? And could I get it, learn it or adopt it?

Then I began to think about a self-help book that got a lot of coverage in the states a few years ago "French Women Don't Get Fat." I know, I know.  I should really be focusing on the dancing but after the first 45 minutes of my hour dance class I have a really hard time focusing for the last 15 minutes.  And I started thinking about what a book like this would be for Bulgaria. So I kept dancing around, off beat, leading with the wrong feet, hoping that class will be over sooner than later.

After class I was still thinking about the question why don't Bulgarian women get fat? It really got to me: what is it?

It's strange--this seems to be a culture where women smoke, eat plenty of meat and cheese and I've almost never seen anything "low fat" in Bulgaria.  I also rarely see women out exercising in public.  Yet somehow they are thin and look young for their ages.

I know that being thin isn't the only marker of healthy but really? How can there be a whole country of thin older women? I don't really know women who appear as young or thin as these Bulgarian women in the States.  So there's a part of me that wonders: what is it that I am doing differently? (Am I doing something wrong?) What's up with these women?

What's up with these women? What's their secret?