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anonymous
Q: How much weight have you lost?
The food in the States is some of the least nutritious and most fattening on Earth, so I've been told. How much weight have those of you lost who have relocated from the USA to China?
Hey, that's not necessarily true. My family ate fairly healthy. We limited oil and salt, had whole grain noodles, steamed vegetables, lean meats (usually baked) and didn't eat any fried food (unless you count stiry fry). If anything I gained a little weight after coming to China. The only reason I'm losing some now is because I'm eating fruits instead of snacks and I eat a little bit less during meals. I think it's easy to gain weight here if you don't cook for yourself. Most of the food options are swimming in oil and salt.
People in the west care too much about calories and carbohydrates etc that they forget to just eat and enjoy the good natural foods around them.
Sure eating a lot of snacks of junk food anywhere in the world will make you gain weight but if you eat Chinese food before you're hungry and eat until full then there's no issue of excessive weight.
you probably are one of brainwashed nitwits that seriously thinks all foreigners (all foreigners are american) eat burgers , pizza and hot dogs every single day for every single meal. because that is all western food is. try to download food wars or anthony boudains no reservations. learn something.
i have actually gained weight here and gotten very sick salts spices oil poor quality control does not equate to more nutritious.
Dagobah:
sorry dude, all you ever do is bash people on these forums. The question is perfectly legit and in my experience people who ask me if i eat burgers and hotdogs everyday only ask this because they dont know what our eating habits are because they have no exposure. It is not their fault, before i can here i thought Chinese food was the garbage we get in takeaways. Anyway that is what all you teachers are here for, and how so many under qualified westerners can get teaching jobs. You are experienced in cultures, you should be educating them, not calling them nitwits. Stop ripping people apart on these forums, the OP has a right to ask questions about foreign customs and ways, surely that is what these forums are for??
Oh and if you are going to rip people and call them fake foreigners for bad spelling and grammar, then you should make sure to employ correct grammar yourself, try using some commas in your last sentence.
crimochina:
if i'm sitting in america (never been to china) and i think all chinese people eat is rice. that would make me a moron. you cant assume you you know something for absolute certainty especially when you have never seen it for yourself. and i hold all human beings to those same standards. actually this particular forum is to ask questions about china if you want to get all technical.
anyone that tries to reduce other cultures, races, nationalities to just "hamburgers and hot dogs" is a moron. because they are doing it out of a belief that they are some way superior. i apply that to americans, brits, cancucks aussies and chinese ! because everyone has a brain and there should be no excuse for not using it. in china i do understand that the govt is responsible for creating ignorant morons but an ignorant moron is still an ignorant moron.
my job is an english teacher that means my job is to teach them english not to tinker or alter their brainwashing. it is not my job to impose my opinions about what i think they have wrong about americans. the classroom is not the setting for that!
and yes i call out impostors when they try to act as foreigners for the purpose of spreading lies. if you dont know the difference between common chinese mistakes with english versus lazy internet forum typing then you are a moron as well.
Dagobah:
informing someone of there mistake is different to imposing your opinions. Ive never come across a chinese person that asked whether i eat burgers and hotdogs everyday that then refused to believe that i didnt once i had informed them otherwise. They are not morons for believing a stereotype that is imposed upon them.
And dont even start on superiority complex, of course a society that has been closed for so long will think they are superior, its natural, anyway all countries think they are superior to someone or everyone else.
And as for bad grammar, well its the principle of it, if you are going to rip on people then its always better to have the higher ground. If a new poster had used a sentence such as yours.... you would've pounced.
Dude... you spend alot of time on these forums, you seem to hate a hell of alot about chinese people and it sounds like you do your job only to the letter and nothing more. Doesnt sound like you are having fun here....
crimochina:
"i'm a native new yorker from the bronx district" do you see anything wrong with that?
calling him a phony based on how he uses langauge is not the same as ripping someone for their grammar. can you figure that out???
every country has a superiority complex. next you are going to tell me that every country hires people to go online and post nice things about their govt. some Scandinavian countries pride themselves on being average. so according to you they feel supior becoz their average some logic. in america i was taught to think of people as equals. where are you from? and were you taught to see yourself as superior to other races, nationalities, religions or genders?
and damn right i do my job, after my job is done i live my life. and your reading comprehension needs work. i hate bad behavior i hate ignorant moronic people.
With all the oil the food is cooked in, I really don't think the food here is all that healthy. The OP seems a little delusional.
This question actually reminds me of a comment made to me last week when I was the only westerner at a table of Chinese people last week. One of the girls started talking about Chinese food and westerners:
"I think our food is so healthy," (everyone but me had noodles swimming in oil in front of them) ... "I think westerners like eating meat? (to which I agreed) ... "but we Chinese like eating vegetables, because we are very healthy"... (I was the only one at a table of eight who had any bloody veggies on the plate) ... 'and I think foreigners do not like eating vegetables so much." WTF?
crimochina:
damn straight when a foreigner buys a beer "all foreigners drink so much" but when locals are drunk and pissing themselves in the street it is nothing.
I gained about 25 lbs over the years and only now am I losing that weight. Chinese food is loaded with oil and salt. Healthy eating is not a topic here. I learned that the hard way. I guess the beer didn't help either.
Single man, living alone working 70+ hours a week, my diet in the US was terrible. Fast food, no exercise, Domino's just round the corner, etc. I was weighing 73 Kg when I moved to China. I have now brought it down to 62 Kg.
So, in answer to your question, I have lost 11 Kg and feel GREAT!
I love it when people think all food in the US is Burger King and Hot Pockets.
It is FAR easier to keep a nutritional balanced diet in the US. EVERYTHING has the contents, caloric intake, and nutritional information listed on the package. Most chain restaurants also have this information available. Here, you have no idea what exactly you are consuming.
Yes, foreigners like meat. Why? Because where we come from it is affordable and readily available. Let's face it, for a long time here in China, meat was a luxury that was only served during special occasions or holidays. In Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, there is even a story about a guy named Liu Bei who so wants to impress someone visiting him that he kills his wife for meat because he was unsuccessful at obtaining any (oh face...) Even in a lot of traditional dishes, meat is simply an ingredient, not the focus of the dish. This is also why there are a lot of dishes that use odds and ends and have bones in everything. Use it all because you might not get more for a while. Of course, this is not the case today, as meat is readily available now and fairly cheap, but people are accustomed to their diets. Radically shifting to a meat heavy diet after years of eating rice and vegetables will make your body go crazy for a bit. And vice versa (the same things happen to expats who come here and shift their diets).
As for weight loss, I am from the US and have gained weight while being in China. So much oil, salt, and sugar in the food. Plus, while vegetables are good for you, boiling the crap out of them and/or cooking them into oblivion makes them lose a majority of their vitamins. You need to eat MORE to get the nutritional intake - this is why there is the joke about eating Chinese food and feeling hungry an hour later. Full stomach does NOT equal excellent nutritional value. I would not be surprised and I feel confident to say that there are even more nutrients in vegetables in the US. Ever eat a tomato here? The blandest, most flavorless things ever. Plants get nutrients from the soil, and the soil here is often poor at best where crops are grown.
I can only lose weight/maintain a healthy diet if I cook my own food and avoid eating at restaurants.
GuilinRaf:
In my case it was BK, Dennys and Dominos. Sorry for being the stereotype....
GuilinRaf:
ESPECIALLY the lean one.
My borther in law has type 2 diabetes and the doc told him to eat more meat to keep his blood sugar controlled. Well, along with exercise, etc, he is looking slimmer now.
i gained 20lbs the 1st 6 months because i had been vegetarian for 15 years and jumped head first into china "eating" (scary oils, msg, fast food...and a lot of other things i never ate in the states) i quickly lost 30lbs from eating said foods and eventually getting deathly ill. i think cooking at home is the best solution and limiting the street foods with the heavy msg and god knows whatever "special minerals" (san hygiene) you get.
Grinder rule #88: "keep a delicate balance when you have a delicate tummy"
I am probably the exception to the stated rule here. While I visited China for years, every time I came, I returned to USA from 5 to 8 kilos more than when I came. So, this was a concern of mine in my decision to move here, because I did not wanted any extra weight on me.
When I arrived in China I was 92.5 kilos. On purpose, I did two things to keep my weight or even start loosing some. First was when cooking, no oil and no salt what so ever. And that helped a bit, since I was used to that type of cooking from back home. And second, I really started to walk as much as possible, and bought a bicycle and pedaled every day on my rounds. I do not cook the vegetables, I eat them raw (conserve vitamins) and my GF calls me a horse, but she eats them their way and I eat them my way. Rice has no salt (my GF adds salt before eating her portion). I love soups, so we do eat lots of roots, and I add potatoes, carrots, gallic, onions, green peppers and meat or pork to it, and pressure cooked it for 20 or 30 minutes, no salt.
Well, the net result is that today I weight 83.5 kilos, feel great, and slowly loosing weight each passing day. I would like to be around 75 kilos for my 180 cms frame.
I lost weight when I ffirst arrived cause of the heat and all the walking and screwing I did, but put lots back on the last year
I lost 8kg in my first month here...went from 80 to 72. Mainly due to lots of walking and lack of appetite for the food, plus the food I did eat seemed low in calories and protein. Finally got adapted to the food, and also brought over some protein powder. Also joined the local gym to help add back some lost muscle...so now I'm back to my usual 80kg. Of course, that can fluctuate pretty rapidly whenever the laduzi decides to come on strong...
I gained about 6 kgs the first few months....but after settling down and eating local food for a while now I have shed what I gained.....even while drinking enormous amounts of beer every day.
Veggies, rice and tofu...can't go wrong.
Also walking everywhere helps.
when i came here i gained 12 kg and then after some time i strted to lose weight and i lost 14 kg again and now i came to normal again
Pishaw... I plan on prolly gaining. Not that I want to, but don't think I'm going to be able to run, and I'm not going to avoid anything I want to try. I'm there for 6 mos, I'm going to enjoy it and not sweat it.
oink oink baby
