When I first arrived in Taiwan, I dropped huge, HUGE amounts of weight. But I wasn’t eating that much…it was Kaohsiung 1997 so Western food was only avail. in certain districts, and I only liked certain local dishes. I remember the very first meal I ever had in Kaohsiung was fried shrimp with garlic and I hated it; couldn’t even finish the meal…slowly…gradually…I started getting onto more and more local foods until I was craving all the local delicacies, esp. chou tofu, 7 spices corn, etc. and a lot of the weight came back.
Now I’m back in Canada and I’m a fat bastard. Too many carbs.
"1) Taiwanese food is generally alot healther than UK food (but then again - what isn’t?)
2) Fruit and veg can be found anywhere, and again, is alot cheaper than in the UK. "
These statements are just so far of the mark I just lept out of my seat and yelled NO!
The first one is way too general and sweeping- What is Taiwanese food? Is it Chicken steaks that have been deep fried several times before you get them? Is it vegetarian buddhist stuff (soaked in oil)?
The same goes for the food in the uk…Greasy English breakfast…or a healthy meat and several veg?
I need to go and take a dump now so I’ll be quick.
fruit and veg are WAY MORE EXPENSIVE here than in the uk- Jesus! It is ridiculous what you will pay for an apple or a few cherries or even the local produce. The UK still benefits from its colonial history and get really cheap imports from africa and lord knows where else- a log of vegetables are domestically grown and as such are fairly cheap.
i’m not saying a word…i’ve gained a kilo a year over 13 years…67 when i came 80 now tho’ i’m trying hard to get that down to 78. was 79 today…my downfall is simple; paigu fan, jitwiefan, sanbao fan… :help:
I think I did pretty good considering that while I was in university, I had four months of very intensive exercise outdoors during the hot Ohio summers and autumns guaranteed every year and then lighter exercise the rest of the year with my phys ed filler courses like figure skating, bowling, and swimming. My senior year was when I put on weight because I was a manager in the dining halls 28 hours a week and didn’t have space to squeeze in phys ed courses because I was taking 21 credit hours to finish both my majors on time. I have lost a lot of that weight, but not nearly enough. I was just looking at my pictures from France in 1999 and have set my goal so that I look like that again by this time next year, minus the facial piercing . It’ll involve losing another 20 kilos.
The next Happy Hour that you and I can both make it to, I’ll show you photos of what I looked like when I first came to Taiwan in 2001 and we’ll see if you think I’m being honest. Besides, 20 kg in 3 years is only 1-1/4 pounds a month. Just moving to Taiwan changed two factors that contributed greatly to my weight gain: being inert and being around food for 5+ hours a day.
Eighty-eight pounds for a grown, healthy woman is not normal no matter what her body build or ethnicity.
…sigh…
I said almost half .
20 kg is almost half of, say, 50 kg.
My point was that for an average person, losing 20 kg would be a huge amount. If I were to lose that amount, and I have my little beer belly (worth every inch), I would look like someone just freed from a concentration camp.
The people that dropped these large amounts of weigh must have been whales to begin with.
Wolf - good point. I suppose I was asking if moving to Taiwan affected your weight, for whatever reason.
[quote]Only some fruit, such as apples, is expensive here. Stuff like bananas, watermelons and guavas is incredibly cheap[/quote].
Southpaw - I still think this statement is mostly true. basiclaly I agree with what Brian said - I think watermelons, and other such ‘non-UK-exotic’ fruit is so much cheaper and widespread here than in the UK. I suppose when I made this point, or reason why i would not put weight on, is that I would try lots of different fruit and veg that I would not normally buy, or be able to buy, back in the UK. I cannot see myself moving to Taiwan and buying Granny Smiths apples, when I could get cheaper guavas or watermelons…
Is this statement not true then? When I made this statement I was thinking along the lines of stodgy complex-carbs (UK) Vs meat/rice/noodles (Taiwan).
I’ve lost weight since i’ve been here but then the only reason I put weight on in the first place (and the reason I came to Taiwan) is I was fairly seriously injured during training (I wanted to compete in the Olympics) and all the medication they gave to decrease the swelling etc in my lower back and shoulder caused me to swell up like a balloon!! When I first got here I was eating more local foods and couldn’t exercise. I have cut out the local foods (ie the carbs) and have been cooking at home all healthy food and then added some exercise. Although i’m not doing any where near the amount of exercise as at home (it’s also too expensive to go to the gym where you have then join all the other classes like yoga and dance class) but I was a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach for a basketball team, athlete and a model, hence the high levels of exercise, so i’m none of those things here.
In my opinion a lot of local cusine is high in oil and fat, it’s carb based and it doesn’t balance protein with the carbs. Whenever you get an imbalance your body is bound to put on weight unless you can burn all of those sugars, but even thats not good for you.
Hi Surfbunny - are you just talking about the food cooked in restaurants and stalls, or do you mean all Taiwanese food in general? How about the stuff you buy in shops and supermarkets - am assuming this is OK as long as you cook it in the ‘appropriate’ way?
The food that you buy at resturants etc. As for food that you buy in the supermarket if it’s prepackaged, follow the label and it’s cooked than it’s no different than the food at home, high in fat and oil. You can buy raw ingredients at the supermarket and cook food yourself, the receipes call for a lot of oil and the cuts of meat tend to be fatty, but you can adjust the receipe, it may not still be traditional and your Taiwanese friends will complain it doesn’t have enough flavour but at least it isn’t going to make you fat!!!
that would be down from 70-68kg to 60-63kg - I don’t check regularly. I think it went straight down to 60kg in a year or two, only loosing muscles. After some time I gained around 3kg. So now I am a 178cm middle aged, skinny man with a 6 pint beer belly. Sexy, huh…!
Reason? I don’t like the food in general, too tired after work to cook my/our own food, a lot of cig and coffee - loosing the appetite, too hot/difficult/inconvenient to do any fun exersice/sports that I like.
Well who ever said that the Taiwan experience is “all the good food and exersice”? -Not me, there are other things…
I’d like to lose 10 to 15 kgs, but I’m not obsessing. I’m pretty sure my expanded waistline has multiple causes: I quit my pack-a-day smoking habit four years ago cold turkey; I don’t drink as much as I used to (hard to get fat when you’re drinking scotch all the time), I live far away from my gym, I suntan at the pool when I should be swimming, I already got my girl, so I don’t try so hard to be svelte anymore, and I’m not a spring chicken any longer. I also eat for pleasure, instead of just to satisfy my hunger, my better half keeps giving me the food she can’t finish, and she loves to feed me. Life is rough!
My weight before coming to Taiwan and now has remained pretty constant, fluctuating within a 2 kg range. But my body fat content fluctuates in a much wider range–between 14% and 20%. Anybody know what causes that exactly? Is it the amount of my exercise, the vigorousness of my exercise, or my diet?
It has to do with a shift in your lean muscle mass. If you’re not doing enough or as much weight bearing exercise as before your muscle mass to fat ratio will change. Because I used to exercise about 6 hours a day before I was injured and a lot of that was weight bearing, I weighed slightly more but had low skin folds, I now do no where near that (still recovering) I weigh the same as before but my skin folds are not good.
If you increase your weight bearing exercise, keeping in mind you’ll then have to strip fat through cardio. You will find a shift will take place.
i’m not saying a word…i’ve gained a kilo a year over 13 years…67 when i came 80 now tho’ i’m trying hard to get that down to 78. was 79 today…my downfall is simple; paigu fan, jitwiefan, sanbao fan… :help:
. It’ll involve losing another 20 kilos.
