European Weight Loss

Lodewyk56
Lodewyk56 Posts: 13 Member
in Success Stories
I returned yesterday from a 17-day trip to Europe. Before leaving I weighed 207 pounds. I am not quite 6’4”. When I reluctantly got on the scale this morning, I weighed 196!

While in Europe, I pretty much ate what I wanted to at meals. I didn’t snack much except on a few M&Ms. I ate plenty of croissants, pain au chocolat, and other pastries. I had no thought of counting calories or eating healthy. I only had two sodas.

We were on the go constantly, walking a great deal. I got an average of 15,000 steps a day. A couple of days I cracked the 20K step mark. No day was lower than 10K.

At home, I ride a stationary bike for a couple 60-70 minutes six days a week and usually get an average of 12K steps.

I did spent a fair amount of time on trains, subways, trams, ferries, etc. But we were very active.

I’m wondering what happened? There are two things I can think of: I ate two or three meals each day (but again, I ate basically what I wanted in terms of types of food—I don’t think I gorged myself), I didn’t snack much except the few M&Ms to bridge me between meals. And, I was on the move all the time. Of course, I never did any serious excercise except walking and taking a lot of stairs.
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Replies

  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,464 Member
    Celebrate!
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,463 Member
    I’ve found that even though I eat more at meals while traveling, I eat fewer snacks because we are on the go. Good job! Hope you had a great trip.
  • beachwalker99
    beachwalker99 Posts: 1,002 Member
    edited July 2019
    Congratulations on your weight loss! It sounds like you had a busy and enjoyable vacation.

    I spent about 3 1/2 weeks in Europe earlier this summer, with a week of very active travel at each end and ten days staying with family in the middle. My first-day-home weigh-in was up 1.6 lbs, but I was down 4.2 from that by the end of the week, suggesting that the gain was probably water and I might have actually lost a couple of pounds.

    As other posters have pointed out, portion size and snacks can make a big difference. I too ate and drank what I wanted, but I was mindful of the signals my body was sending about how hungry or full I felt. I also found that the 3 months I'd spent eating at a deficit prior to my trip affected how much I was comfortable eating, so I rarely had more than one large multi-course meal a day, plus a couple of lighter meals. I did sometimes stop for snacks (ice cream, a pastry, or a glass of wine, but this generally meant relaxing at a cafe, something that I think made those treats more satisfying and ultimately less calorific than if I'd been mindlessly munching on the go.
  • staticsplit
    staticsplit Posts: 538 Member
    edited July 2019
    kevinflemming1982 wrote: »
    Europe has stricter regulations on things like additives and our food safety is far more extensive, so I imagine that makes a huge difference.

    While I was flippant in my above reply, this is also true to a point. In general I notice less added sugars to things. When I go back to California everything tastes so overly sweet to me. Our portions in restaurants also tend to be smaller.

    I'm going to Paris next week and plan to eat a lot of cheese, baguette, and croissants. Yum. But yep, I'll be walking at least 25k a day and will snack less, so it'll probably work out to around maintenance.
  • LyndaBSS
    LyndaBSS Posts: 6,964 Member
    Deep fried Twinkie and cheesecake..... sigh.
  • Lodewyk56
    Lodewyk56 Posts: 13 Member
    I’m not sure the European cooking was all that different from U.S. cooking. I had one pasta dish with a cream sauce that was fabulous (certainly not light), fish and chips, steak and mashed potatoes, lots of fries (I was surprised that many main courses include fries), and croissants for breakfast. I also ate crepes, kebabs, and panini—this was no Weight Watchers tour!

    Part of my loss was likely due to dehydration. I like lots of water with my meals. That’s difficult to come by in Europe. And I normally drink a lot of water throughout the day. That didn’t happen for me while on vacation.

    I also think the lack of between-meal snacks played a large role as mentioned by others. In the normal course of things it’s just too easy to grab a snack and not realize how the calories add up. I know—log everything that goes in the mouth.

    Anyway, it was a pleasant experience to get on the scale.
  • Lodewyk56
    Lodewyk56 Posts: 13 Member
    Someone asked about portion sizes. They were generous.
  • nooboots
    nooboots Posts: 480 Member
    staticsplit wrote: »
    LyndaBSS wrote: »
    Europeans make their food healthy. Don't know where you live, but you would've put on 20 pounds vacationing in the US. Your exercise definitely made a difference. Very happy for you.

    As someone who lives in Scotland where most food seems to be based on a dare of 'I bet you can't deep fry that', I have to laugh.

    signed,
    an American who has tried a deep fried Mars bar, deep fried haggis, deep fried sausage, but for some reason can't bring herself to try a deep fried pizza.

    Hold on a minute, Im sure I saw on a documentary once which featured a fair in an american state, where one of the 'treats' and specialities of the fair was 'deep fried butter'. They call them sticks of butter and then deep fried it!!!

    Deep fried fat. But I'd give it a good go!!!
  • ExistingFish
    ExistingFish Posts: 1,259 Member
    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.

    My guess? No snacking and doubling or more your activity level. Most people consider 10K steps a goal in the US, so doing 15K to 20K, along with eliminating snacks, well that will go a long way to knocking off weight.
  • ExistingFish
    ExistingFish Posts: 1,259 Member
    Eating plenty of fattening US food on vacation here, no step counting though, I lost weight although I knew I ate way more food than I normally do and it was sodium-laden restaurant food. Besides the driving (we drove) we hardly had time to snack and were just "on the go" all the time, not lounging and mindlessly snacking.
  • staticsplit
    staticsplit Posts: 538 Member
    nooboots wrote: »
    staticsplit wrote: »
    LyndaBSS wrote: »
    Europeans make their food healthy. Don't know where you live, but you would've put on 20 pounds vacationing in the US. Your exercise definitely made a difference. Very happy for you.

    As someone who lives in Scotland where most food seems to be based on a dare of 'I bet you can't deep fry that', I have to laugh.

    signed,
    an American who has tried a deep fried Mars bar, deep fried haggis, deep fried sausage, but for some reason can't bring herself to try a deep fried pizza.

    Hold on a minute, Im sure I saw on a documentary once which featured a fair in an american state, where one of the 'treats' and specialities of the fair was 'deep fried butter'. They call them sticks of butter and then deep fried it!!!

    Deep fried fat. But I'd give it a good go!!!

    I've had deep fried Oreos in the states--they are pretty amazing tbh.

    Deep fried butter is terrifying. I'd probably try a bite though.
  • 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: 1,032 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.

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