Those of you who have lived in more than one country, did it affect your weight?

gle8442

I was reading the thread about living in Australia and vacationing in US and it got me wondering. Those of you who have lived in more than one country, was one place easier or harder for you to lose weight or be healthy in than another, and why? I'm not trying to criticize any country here but thinking more about small differences in lifestyle that might make weight loss a little easier or harder.

Addiewe

I lived in Mexico for a few years, and boy do they enjoy their food (me too!). Soda, especially coke is BIG there, it is where I got hooked. They have so many sugary snack foods. Ice cream is big too. The meal foods are delish but high calorie. Street foods like tacos, carnitas, pizzas, burgers, etc. are on every corner. Very very little healthy options when eating out. They did have a lot of cheap fresh produce though. For the most part Mexicans seemed more active than Americans but the food is definitely no better, worse imo. I arrived back in the states with an obvious "tortilla belly".

Jmgkamp

I lost a ton of weight in Germany. No car, walking everywhere. Easy to do.

gle8442

Jmgkamp wrote: »

I lost a ton of weight in Germany. No car, walking everywhere. Easy to do.

I have a friend from Tirana and this is always what she says about Albania... people just walk everywhere, no one thinks much about it but she gained weight once she moved to the US because she became so much less active (she lives in suburbia and hates driving, bad luck there!)

jgnatca

When I moved to a small town 1,280 m above sea level I gained ten pounds. I was told this was typical. I was also sluggish for a few months until I adapted.

Liftng4Lis

You gain weight from eating too much. Doesn't matter where you eat it.

azulvioleta6

jgnatca wrote: »

When I moved to a small town 1,280 m above sea level I gained ten pounds. I was told this was typical. I was also sluggish for a few months until I adapted.

I've lived and traveled all over the world. I have lived in one country (Ecuador) three different times. I was mostly in Quito, which is at 10,000 feet altitude. The first time, I lost a bunch of weight very fast. There was a city bus strike and a taxi strike, so I was walking ridiculous distances every day at a high altitude. I was also regularly going up 13 flights of stairs when the power went out every afternoon in the dry season (no elevator) and living with a family that never had any food in the house. The second time I lived there, my weight stayed about the same. The third time, I think that I gained a bit--looking at pictures from that time, I think I weighed maybe 30 pounds more than I do now. I was living by myself then, and while I walked a lot, I wasn't nearly as active as I now know that I need to be.

Same country, but my lifestyle was different and my eating situation was different each time. I am a little afraid to go back there as the local diet tends to be VERY high in carbs and I don't do well with that. Just about every meal there is served with a huge plate of delicious white rice. The tropical fruits and juices are also VERY tempting for me.

I am lucky that I don't feel altitude much and don't tend to have any ill effects until about 17,000 feet. I have a huge lung capacity, which probably helps. I have not noticed that people tend to gain weight at altitudes, but I guess for the rare person who is too sick to exercise, that could be an issue...though generally that passes in a couple of days.

Jmgkamp

My husband, from Europe, was and is amazed at the number of buffet/all u can eat places here. Amazed and horrified.

tomatoey

I've lived a few places, and it's gone like this:

**Suburbia + driving = gain

Urban centre + walking = loss

European cities are more walkable than North American ones, and tend to have more stairs.

I felt the best in France - have never lived there, just had a long and pleasant holiday, spent swimming, playing tennis, walking, hiking, canoeing, riding horses, eating great food and seeing beautiful things everywhere (which I am convinced helped a bunch, with everything). Turns out spending most of the day doing active things feels better than working and sitting behind a computer all day, go figure. But ok that's not your question.

Most places in Europe > North America (because of **)

Jmgkamp

And I agree - it's city v. suburb. Walking/Cycling v. driving.

BWBTrish

well first of all gaining is because of too much eating

But yes my move to the US affected me.
All that new food to eat lol

And the portions are hugeeee

chatnel

I gained 10 kilos from moving from england to australia. I blame the car as now drive everywhere and in london I used to walk everywhere.

azulvioleta6

Jmgkamp wrote: »

My husband, from Europe, was and is amazed at the number of buffet/all u can eat places here. Amazed and horrified.

That's funny...I grew up in the US and have been to buffet/all-you-can-eat meals maybe 5 times in my entire life. All of these were at the urging of someone who was NOT from the US.

Maybe it is one of those things that people either tend to do a lot or not at all.

yirara

Yes, I've lived in various countries in Europe and Middle East. One thing I noticed is that I would gain a bit if weight after each move, which is the period I'm most active: lots of moving around, exploring, finding out how things work, wanting to see things. But that's probably offset by finding new food and especially snacks and trying things out too much.

In Europe I'd mostly do everything by bike but I don't think the calorie burn is that high. It's such a low impact way of getting around if there aren't any hills anyway. Put your foot on the paddle, let gravity to it's thing, and the bike rolls a few meters - unless it's an old heavy Dutch ladies bike anyway. Surprisingly my weight was always at it's lowest in the Middle East while it's a region not made for cycling and full of unhealthy food. Everything's done by car. Maybe it's just a bit less water weight in general due to the heat. No idea.

I did decide to lose weight in the ME though, and was really looking forward to the move. For some reason I feel that I could not have set that step in Europe. One reason might be lack of space to work out at home and too much of a hassle to do the detour to a gym. And while I know that a diet is done 80-90% in the kitchen I was looking forward to working out a lot after my move. And I do enjoy sports here! Hey, I even started running, currently at around 36 degrees C after sunset

iheartdinosaurs

I've lost weight nearly everytime I've been in a foreign country, but this is likely due to significantly increased daily activity (walking everywhere while on vacation compared to a more sedentary lifestyle at home). I've been living in a rural Ethiopian town for almost a year now and have been losing slowly but steadily - but this is intentional and takes a ton of hard work to stay on track.

The pros: generally walking more, super tasty national food heavily emphasises veggies , fewer temptations (cheese, chocolate, treats) in sight. Veggies are fresh from the field, doesn't get better than that!

The challenges: significantly smaller food variety. I eat cabbage, carrots, beets, onions, potatoes, rice, pasta most days of the week. I dream of broccoli.
Quality Protein sources are hard to find around here. I eat eggs pretty much daily.
Estimating prepared foods (which make up about 1/3 of what I eat) is extremely hard and salt and oil are heavily used. I try to account for that, but I'm sure I'm often off.
No gym/ability to go running, so intentional exercise is done in my small concrete house all alone. Doable, but sometimes gets old. (Also limited internet access so no YouTube steaming)
No local support system. I don't really have anyone to talk about my weight struggles here, because no one needs to lose weight. In fact many people are undernourished or malnourished. So thanks to my friends on MFP for that!

I leave Ethiopia in a week which is super sad, but I do look forward to having more control on my diet and revisiting all the foods I haven't seen in a year!

brrrycicle

I lived a year in Mexico studying abroad and I lost nearly 30 lbs! As mentioned earlier, I attribute the weight loss to a large increase in daily activity (walked and took the bus everywhere, and LOVED visiting/climbing the many pyramids there). I did find myself eating more "clean" there; the family I lived with cooked with a lot of fresh produce and small meat portions. Many of my friends were disappointed when I didn't return 50 lbs heavier as they had predicted. Haha.

Machka9

gle8442 wrote: »

I was reading the thread about living in Australia and vacationing in US and it got me wondering. Those of you who have lived in more than one country, was one place easier or harder for you to lose weight or be healthy in than another, and why? I'm not trying to criticize any country here but thinking more about small differences in lifestyle that might make weight loss a little easier or harder.

I lived in Canada for about 40 years. During that time, I was slim, fit, and healthy. The reason I was slim, fit and healthy was because I cycled a HUGE amount, as well as doing a whole lot of other exercise. I could eat anything I wanted, and I struggled to keep weight on. Lunch were those huge Costco muffins and things like that ... I ate them because they had 800+ calories each.

Then, 6 years ago, I moved to Australia ... and put on weight.

But not because of the food. The food choices here are great ... lots of fresh fruit and veg ... and not the rock hard, poorly ripened stuff you'll find in Canadian supermarkets ... real ripe fruit. So delicious! Plus my husband does quite a good job of cooking healthy meals in general. And there seems to be a wide variety of good choices in the supermarkets, fresh fruit and veg markets, Asian markets ... everywhere.

No ... I gained weight because I developed DVT on the flight here, which landed me in hospital for a couple weeks. Then I was on Warfarin for a year and was left with no energy to do anything. Walking short distances was an effort ... like trying to walk the length of the swimming pool with the water up around your shoulders. Just like that. And the amount of cycling I did dropped to a fraction of what I was doing before. I remember going for a ride about a month after I was let out of the hospital, and managing a teensy-tiny 6 km. How depressing.

A year later, I was taken off Warfarin, and it was like emerging from quicksand. I started cycling more and being more active in general ... and I lost the weight.

Then my husband and I spent 8 months travelling around the world ... and I put on weight. We cycled and walked quite a bit ... we brought our bicycles with us as we travelled ... but it wasn't enough to counteract the shortbreads and other delicious little bits and pieces in Hong Kong, the Millionaire Bars and the best macaroni and cheese I've ever tasted in Scotland, the gloriously wonderful ice creams we discovered during the 3 weeks we cycled the Rhine Route in Germany, and those amazing and horrifying buffets in the US.

Back to Australia again, and several moves while we got settled ... and now I'm losing the weight again.

I'm still impressed with the food choices here ... of course there are less than ideal choices readily available as well, but there is wide variety of good choices.

And my cycling, walking, and other exercise has increased again.

We're in a small city where lots of people walk. I walk between my university and my job (about 3 km) two or three times a week, and I'm not alone out there. I walk at lunch the rest of the week, and the footpaths are full of people walking. Even when my husband and I go out for a quick walk to the beach in the evening, we almost always meet other walkers out and about. It's good.

Jenninscotland

I am an American who has lived in Scotland for several years. I lost quite a bit of weight when I moved here simply due to walking a lot more. I live in Edinburgh, which is a very pedestrian friendly city - and one could say car unfriendly (it's easier to walk places than to drive and try to find a place to park).

Machka9

Jenninscotland wrote: »

I am an American who has lived in Scotland for several years. I lost quite a bit of weight when I moved here simply due to walking a lot more. I live in Edinburgh, which is a very pedestrian friendly city - and one could say car unfriendly (it's easier to walk places than to drive and try to find a place to park).

We were only in Edinburgh a little while but loved it. It's on our list of places where we would like to live.

MikaMojito

I lived in Wales for 6 months and lost a fair bit of weight. But that was due to the fact that I was stuck in the middle of nowhere without a car and had to rely on my boss to give me a lift to the shops once a week. Since she was dieting at that time, we agreed to police what went into our shopping carts. If I ran out of food, then I had nothing to eat. Eady to lose weight like that. Also, my job at that time meant I was standing and walking around all day long.

Essencerose3

I am American, but I've been living in New Zealand for the past 14 years. I admit, I worry greatly about going back to America because of the lifestyle. A lot of people rely on convenience and packaged foods, which are cheaper and easier to get than healthy food. It will take MUCH more discipline to be healthy in America, I think, than it does here.