European Weight Loss

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Replies

  • manderson27
    manderson27 Posts: 3,510 Member
    I just had to google deep fried butter stick. OMG where do we humans get these ideas. Some places in the UK recently started serving freakshakes at over a thousand calories a glass. Why just....why. Especially as these are aimed mostly at children and teenagers. So Europe (in this case I mean the UK) are becoming less healthy.
  • Lodewyk56
    Lodewyk56 Posts: 13 Member
    “Water is always available in restaurants or cafes? Just ask for tap water and they'll bring out a big bottle or glasses of it.”

    Well, not in our experience. At least as much as I like to drink.
  • Lodewyk56
    Lodewyk56 Posts: 13 Member
    In one restaurant they actually refused tap water.
  • nooboots
    nooboots Posts: 480 Member
    You must have been very unlucky, I have never eaten anywhere in the UK or europe where water has been refused, in fact in the UK you need to ask for it but in europe they tend to just bring it out as part of the service, even if you're just having a coffee.
  • Pickle107
    Pickle107 Posts: 153 Member
    As a Scot from a poorer area- the obesity rate increases visibly just getting on the bus to our part of town. Especially once you become aware that 'overweight' is not as big as you think it is (said as a slim-ish looking normal bmi who's just got out of the overweight category herself). Alcohol is a big part of it. As is a love of biscuits/cookies, cakes and meat pies/sausage rolls. You see school kids having energy drinks and a sausage roll for breakfast. Or toddlers eating chocolate at 9am. We have a Chinese takeaway, Indian takeaway, small supermarket, small convenience shop, bakery and sandwich shop all along a small parade of shops. We had a small council gym but the council shut it as it wasn't profitable enough...Smoking and casual drugs are also things.
  • jonnyman41
    jonnyman41 Posts: 1,031 Member
    nooboots wrote: »
    You must have been very unlucky, I have never eaten anywhere in the UK or europe where water has been refused, in fact in the UK you need to ask for it but in europe they tend to just bring it out as part of the service, even if you're just having a coffee.

    Yup I agree. You Do tend to need to ask for it though. In UK they will bring you tap water or bottled water depending on what you ask for. ( tap is free) in France, Spain, Italy etc youbagsin have to ask but it tends to be bottles water that you pay. Never ever not had water in one way or another!
  • deputy_randolph
    deputy_randolph Posts: 940 Member
    I went to Germany for a week and stayed with a friend. I lost a couple of pounds despite no intentional exercise and eating "whatever" I wanted.

    Here are my thoughts...we rode bikes everywhere. My friend doesn't have a car. We made very filling breakfasts (eggs, bacon, toast every morning) and would mainly eat sausage and sauerkraut (from street vendors) for lunch (high protein/fat low carbs). Pretty much zero snacking between meals...and we split GIANT pretzels with multiple people to economize.

    The liter (or more) of beer I drank everday seemed a-okay.
  • staticsplit
    staticsplit Posts: 538 Member
    I've been in France for a few days and out of curiosity I've been loosely logging (since I'm guessing a fair amount--although this apartment has a food scale, haha, so my lunch yesterday was exact).

    I'm eating sliightly more calories than at home (about 2400 calories when at home I eat more like 2100-2300 unless I go out to eat); it's just being clustered into fewer meals/less snacking. I'm having bigger breakfasts than I have at home (because croissants).

    So far I've walked at least 17k steps per day. Fitbit shows my TDEE as 2800, but I think it probably overestimates by about 10%, so let's say 2,500 or so. Between me probably slightly underlogging calories due to guessing, I'll more than likely maintain or even lose slightly despite all the cake and gelato and crepes.

    I am probably sweating out a lot of water despite guzzling the stuff because the heat here is next level. No aircon and the hottest temperatures ever recorded yesterday. Yay, global warming...
  • mmnv79
    mmnv79 Posts: 538 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    How different did you find the portion sizes OP?

    I spent three months in the US back in 2006 and portion sizes were far bigger than here. I stayed with my American family and basically everything was done by car, the pharmacy, the bank, etc., since distances were so big, while here I walk everywhere, because we have small shops, banks and supermarkets in each neighbourhood, instead of having to drive to malls elsewhere. I don't want to generalised, as maybe it was just the place where I stayed. Also, I noticed that people drink far more soda than here, as well as for example adding cream and other stuff in their coffee. Here we drink it either black or with a wee bit of semi milk. My lifestyle it was completely different there.
  • mmnv79
    mmnv79 Posts: 538 Member
    ExistingFish wrote: »
    I would venture the foods aren't that much different. Obesity rates in Europe are almost the same as in US, although slightly lower. I watch enough of that one UK show with superfat and superskinny people to know that their food is just as fattening is ours, if eaten in the "right" portions.

    At least here, it's getting really bad among the little ones in recent years. A combination of energy drinks and playing video-games instead of being playing outside it's to blame. But there's also more and more kids under eating. Also, there are more and more types of unhealthy ready meals at the supermarkets. By the way, that show, Supersize vs Supperskinny, is available on Youtube. I really like Dr Christian because he talks about how both extremes are unhealthy, while other shows are all over overweight people.
  • vivo1972
    vivo1972 Posts: 129 Member
    edited September 2019
    From my experience with trips to the US (I'm UK) it's car culture and walking/cycling that are the biggest differences. We are fat too mind.... " In 2016 according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nearly 27% of adults in the United Kingdom were obese, the highest proportion in Western Europe and a 92% increase since 1996" I got married in the US in 2002 and I was stunned how enormous the portions were.....now I'm not so stunned. It's everywhere.
  • SugaSugaNooo
    SugaSugaNooo Posts: 106 Member
    What on earth is "European food"? There's quite a few countries on the continent... Some with healthier diets than others.

    I reckon it was mostly all the walking you did, being on the go all day, that helped you lose the weight. You must be delighted!

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