living abroad??

blakgarnet

Hi Everyone,
I've been on this site for a few weeks now and really love it! I check it more often than my e-mail now and love reading everyone's posts. I really want my mother to join it too, she's overweight and has struggled with it for her whole life. She knows that she simply needs to reduce calories and increase exercise, but I think the support found here and the food diary are what she really needs to get her to stick with something. Trouble is that she lives in China. She teaches at a boarding school there, so frequently eats at the dining hall. As a result, not only is she eating things that aren't in the food database, but they are things that she can't find out the ingredients for or information on the preparation because of the language barrier. Is there anyone else out there that lives in a country where they don't speak the native language? Any suggestions? I want to find a way to make this site work for her.

Thanks.
Jess

fanta014

Hey hey,
Fun to hear that you enjoy the site and want your mother to join as well I'm from Finland myself so English isn't my native language. As far as the language is concerned, I haven't had any trouble with that. However, sometimes it's difficult to track what I eat since there aren't many Finnish products in the database (though I can see that there has been other Finnish members too - I'm not the only one to add foods in Finnish :happy: ). I try to find similar things since adding foods is slower than just searching them from the database. I also use a Finnish equivalent to MFP (you can see the calorie amounts of most Finnish products there, but you need to pay if you wish to see more info on them etc.) to find out the calories. Once I have the calories found out, I search something similar in MFP database, and add it to my diary. Then I go and see whether the calorie amounts match or not. If they don't match at all, I change the serving size. Yep, this messes up the fat, protein, carbs, sugar etc. amounts but at least I can keep track of my calories

CarmenSantiago

I think it's awesome that you go out of your way to make this site work for you. Keep up the good work!

Good Luck to both of you!

bikegirl777

I was wondering if there were any other expats around. I live in Taiwan, also a Mandarin speaking country, and I'm a teacher, too. I get lots of my meals at school. That's a common thing here and generally the meals are pretty tasty. As far as entering the foods into MFP, sometimes I can find them on the database and sometimes I have to make some guesses or just try to choose something that's roughly equivalent. For instance, there are so many different kinds of greens here that I have no idea of the English name for. Usually I just put them down as spinach. Another issue your mom might want to address is all the rice. I know, carbs aren't really the enemy, but when you're trying to lose weight, all that white rice sure does take up a lot of calories better used for more nutritious choices. What I do at my school is ask the cook to leave out the rice and noodles in my meals and double up on the vegis. They all think I'm crazy, but that's really nothing new. In fact, I've noticed some of the other teachers are doing it too, especially after seeing how quickly I'm losing weight. It may be awkward at first, but Chinese women are just as interested in losing weight as Americans. It might even be a way to help bridge the culture gap!

QtPiJJ

I don't have experience with the language barrier, but I do with the dining hall experience. It can be really hard. I don't what hers is like, being in China, but here's how I survived the dining hall from hell:

Salads. I love them, and I know what I'm putting in it, thus I can easily track it.
Fruit
Sandwiches: A lot of cafeterias have sandwich bars, (subway style) so you can decide what goes on it
Cereal, Oatmeal, etc in the morning.
Soup: Even if you don't know how its made its pretty easy to figure out and track

Pretty much try to stick with foods you prep yourself (or have input in how they're made).

If you have to go through a hot line and you don't know what is in it, or there was something I just absolutely had to have (i.e. chicken strips :laugh: ) I would just take a very small portion.

HTH :flowerforyou:

blakgarnet

Thanks guys!! Hopefully these tips will help me show her that this site can work for her too! Special thanks to bikegirl since you're in the exact same situation she is in and have made it work for you. I hope it'll work, talking about loosing weight is a touchy subject for her and she hates discussing it since it's been an issue she's been criticized about her whole life. I am hoping that I can convince her when I go there to visit in February and can show her how well it's working for me and show her how to use it (that's how I got her on facebook).