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

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  • tomatoey
    tomatoey Posts: 5,446 Member
    edited May 2015
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    zyxst wrote: »
    tomatoey wrote: »
    zyxst wrote: »
    Liftng4Lis wrote: »
    You gain weight from eating too much. Doesn't matter where you eat it.

    +1

    I lived in the U.S. for 32 years and was fat.
    I lived in Canada for 13 years and was fat.

    Losing weight is a mental change. Where I live has very little impact.

    Yeah but those two countries are functionally the same, in terms of the impact of city design and food quality/quantity (lifestyle generally).
    Taking the overall country into a ball of generalization, yes they're the same, but that doesn't change that I stayed fat because I ate too much. Just because I never left the continent (technically) doesn't mean my experience is moot.

    I grew up in Iowa where you can get food out your backdoor, even in a city. In Newfoundland, a lot of food is shipped from the mainland via overnight ferry (provided it's in service); there aren't any farms (that I've seen) and no food production facilities despite living in the capital.

    right, you ate too much for the level of activity you were at. the level of activity you were at was at least partly determined by your environment, i.e. the features of the places you've lived, which I imagine are mostly the same. (i'm canadian, have visited the US). driving vs walking will do it every time, and places that aren't in the US or Canada are just really different on that point. also, you ate too much because the places you've lived share in common that they tend to serve too much food as a norm, unlike other places. not saying your experience isn't valuable, just saying canada and the us are really really similar on the points being discussed (car culture, etc)
  • azulvioleta6
    azulvioleta6 Posts: 4,195 Member
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    While I would not call Canada and the US the SAME by any means, it isn't a huge cross-cultural experience.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,542 Member
    edited May 2015
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    LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »
    When I lived in France I lost a bunch of weight because all their food is frickin horrible.

    Whaaat? I would immediately go back to France if I had the choice! All the fresh fish, fruits and veggies from a small shop, lots of good bread. There's nothing better than a fresh baguette with good butter and a slab of good-quality ham on top! (I did a lot of fieldwork all over Europe, btw) I also ate wonderfully in small Spanish or Italian villages. Sure, the choice wasn't too big, but generally the quality of the produce was wonderful.

    When we lived in the Netherlands we'd eat a lot of processed food. Those 'Asian' packs that come with rice, some powders and sauces and you just add some meat and veggies and stir it all together. We also ate out a lot. Yes, I did gain weight there but not much. Probably around 7kg in 8 years. I also did snack a lot, thus I'm not surprised.

    Then we moved to Norway and found there was not really any preprepared food at all. Well, to be honest, there was not much food to start with as pretty much everything gets imported. Especially the choice of fruits and veggies was poor and you could see that they were delivered once a week as everything was kind of fresh on Wednesday, and come Monday and Tuesday the meager choice looked rather sad. We had to learn to cook properly there :blush: Meat was also expensive thus it was a lot of rice or pasta with smaller amounts of meat and veggies. Not many Asian spices around either. And very little eating out. Hey, just going to a Chinese cost over 100USD, with 1/3 of that being three beers. But buying fresh crab and fish straight from the boat around the corner is unbeatably delicious! And picking berries in the right season! Yummy!

    Denmark is different again: a huge amount of fat free and fat reduced products. I don't like them because fat means flavour. Hey, milk with 0.01% fat? Yuck! You can't even get proper fullfat yoghurt or milk there and there's a fat tax. Many of those products are far too processed for my liking and have too many additives to give them some taste at all. Fruit and veggies are somewhat better, though usually unripe. But eating out at least in Copenhagen is quite good, if not cheap. Still not a big eating out fan. Once every or every second month was enough for us.
  • anitaclary
    anitaclary Posts: 10 Member
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    I'm from Germany. As everyone mentioned, a lot of walking and climbing stairs is required. In most places in the US we have no choice but to get in our cars to go anywhere. We have no public transit or even sidewalks for the most part. So living in Europe makes me more fit, which is a good thing. But it didn't make me skinny. I was one of those people who could eat a horse and not gain an ounce. At seventy, I gain weight and it seems like stuck. I always understood that some people gain weight while eating a lot less than skinny people. I just think you are all the greatest for working so hard and succeeding. I'm still learning and get a lot of encouragement from every pound lost here on this site :)

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