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Best Posts in Thread: Obesity

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  1. Rye83

    Rye83 with pastrami Admin Secured Account Highly Rated Poster SC Connoisseur Veteran Army

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    You can easily go over your maintenance calories with extremely cheap food, especially children that don't do much in the way of physical activities these days. Rice is 200 calories per cup. Most cooking oils are 120 calories per tablespoon. Fat is 9 calories per gram (the locals tend to not trim the fat off their pork). Sugar, 4 calories per gram, gets loaded into most meals that locals prepare (and most soft drinks have over 30 grams of it per serving). You can get very fat very quickly on a very small budget here. Eating a healthy and balanced diet is a much more expensive endeavor in most of the world, including here.
     
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    Rye83, Oct 7, 2020
    #3
  2. Show Pony

    Show Pony DI Forum Patron Highly Rated Poster Showcase Reviewer

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    Being obese here is generally not considered unhealthy at least not until someone has a heart attack or stroke. Then all a sudden everyone saw it coming.
    There was a comercial on TV for cheese showing a morbidly obese 10 year old stuffing his chubby little cheeks. They were trying to put forward cheese as a healthy life style. If that were my kid he would be on a diet of air and water.
    Personally I think I could lose about 10 kilos. My wife says if I if I drop the weight she will be embarrassed because people will start saying she doesn't know how to cook for me.
    It's mostly perception here as to what is considered over weight.
     
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    Show Pony, Oct 7, 2020
    #5
  3. hiddenuser

    hiddenuser Guest Guest User

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    i have lost forty pounds since coming here but have a long ways to go. more importantly to me is that i came here on ten prescription meds and i am now down to three, with two of those now being half tabs.

    i ride a bicycle almost every day to market and my diet has shifted markedly towards fresh raw vegetables.

    i once might have been within hailing distance of mr rye's fitness, having a 28 inch waist, weighing 140 pounds and running every day. wore a three piece suit to work, closed the discos at 2 a m three nights a week and my s*** didn't stink!! but those days are long long gone.

    the most important change for me here is that i love every day. i am happier in my personal life than i have ever been. every two years when i go back to the states i reach a new level of loathing for that life i used to live. (tho i still miss the biscuits and gravy but even when i go back i don't eat them anymore)

    i am always on the lookout for those things we expats have in common here and will offer the opinion that generally speaking we appear to be and or claim to be happier and more self satisfied here. i know it is markedly true for me.

    this is probably a good time to say that my daily dose of dumaguete info is a positive for me and i enjoy the humor, observations, assistance to each other and electronic repartee!
     
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    hiddenuser, Oct 8, 2020
    #17
  4. Always a Poppy

    Always a Poppy DI Senior Member Restricted Account

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    I think the losing weight thing when arriving here seems to be normal. I've lost 16lbs (7.25748 kg according to Google) by doing nothing. I've walked around a bit more here since arriving, particularly in the first couple of months before buying a vehicle. I was shocked when I got on the scales for the first time after about three months here, although I had read on a blog from another westerner who mentioned similar weight loss in three months here. I now seem to be able to eat what I like without adding back the weight, but Heaven knows how that's affecting my blood circulatory system. My BP has also gone down though about -20/10 points, so considering reducing my medication. Starting to exercise now with 3kms jogging/walking most days and never felt better (which makes it all the more frustrating being informed that I'm vulnerable and should stay at home and not go whale watching in Bais. I think all the obese politicians should stay home instead).

    I've had similar comments to Rye's, with one niece who's not on particularly good terms with my wife describing me as the husband like a rake. I can live with that.

    Has anyone else experienced similar weight loss on moving here?

    Great debate this one by the way, with some brilliant contributions.
     
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    Always a Poppy, Oct 7, 2020
    #12
  5. Rye83

    Rye83 with pastrami Admin Secured Account Highly Rated Poster SC Connoisseur Veteran Army

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    I went from 105kg @ 25% body fat (from when decided to lose weight and I got on a scale for the first time in probably a decade, my heaviest was likely around 110-115kg) to around 70kg @ ~7% body fat in less than a year while in Afghanistan. (Although, I will admit I was competition lean without much muscle mass. The average person from any country may be taken back when they can see every muscle fiber on a person.)

    When I came back here the comments I got were downright offensive and disrespectful. They thought I was dying from some deadly disease or had been horribly addicted to meth, it did not change any opinions when I told them that I was extremely strict with my diet, in the gym 7 days a week and walking 15-20km/day (and had extensive knowledge, notes, data and an article about me on the men's health website to prove it). Some even commented that they thought I used to look "buff" when I was extremely obese and suggested I go back to that. I never took it personal though, their opinions were coming from a place of ignorance.

    I think this idea that obesity=healthy stems from the country reducing the number of people living in poverty and the introduction of cheap calories in the past several decades. They just don't know any better...though many will be learning through huge medical bills and early deaths in the very near future. I believe many Western civilizations have went through this exact thing before (glorification of obesity...which is not the same as the dereistic thinking of today). The government will likely step in and push nutritional/exercise classes in schools and PSAs, I could even see them adding junk foods under the "sin tax" (gluttony is a sin, right?), once it gets completely out of hand and hospitals start complaining to politicians about not getting paid.
     
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    Rye83, Oct 7, 2020
    #8
  6. Jack Peterson

    Jack Peterson DI Forum Luminary Highly Rated Poster SC Connoisseur Veteran Air Force

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    Which is what I said in the OP it was merely my observation on my walks around the Barangay. It is the Keyboard warriors that have Taken this to it's now ( as you say ) a pointless level, maybe some should get out in their Barangays and have a look around but for me, time to be moving on.png :deadhorse:
     
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    Jack Peterson, Oct 12, 2020
    #68
  7. charlyB

    charlyB DI Senior Member

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    Way way back at the beginning of this post i think the obese people commented about were Filipinos.
    In my opinion eating for filipinos is like something that must be religiously followed, 3 full meals a day and snacks in-between or they fear they will instantly wither and die.
    I can remember some years ago we were getting our a/c's serviced, 5 people came although only 2 were actually doing the work, we had quite a few a/c's so it was to be a 2 day job, on the second day by 11.30am they said they would go for lunch and finish off when they came back, i asked how much remaining work there was to do and they said about 1 hours worth. (they admitted to 1 hour so it was probably only 30min)
    So i foolishly suggested they delay lunch and finish the job so we could go out for shopping in the afternoon.
    They looked at me as if it was the most outlandish thing they had ever heard of and i must be a complete nutcase.
    To my surprise they eventually agreed but all kept looking at me like i was some sort of whip in hand slave driver.
    So i think the reason there are a lot of obese people here is they never ever miss or even delay a meal and they eat too much.
     
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    charlyB, Oct 11, 2020
    #50
  8. JoyDelicacies

    JoyDelicacies DI Member

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    We are making biscuits and sausage gravy at the Valencia market on Sunday. We make the sausage, the biscuits and the gravy from scratch. I was born in Memphis and lived in North Mississippi for 25 years. I've been making biscuits and gravy all my life. Most think they are pretty good. PJ's is getting an order of my biscuits tomorrow if you want to try them. He makes his own gravy.
     
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    JoyDelicacies, Oct 8, 2020
    #35
  9. Notmyrealname

    Notmyrealname DI Forum Luminary Highly Rated Poster Showcase Reviewer

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    That is why I don't give a toss about what people say about me - until they live inside the space I occupy, they don't know me. And whilst I am here in the land of the living I think it is impossible to occupy my space!

    I tell my asawa this - it is not just for now but for the avoidance of a huge set of health problems in the future.
     
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    Notmyrealname, Oct 7, 2020
    #14
  10. Always a Poppy

    Always a Poppy DI Senior Member Restricted Account

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    Very true. My Mrs is similar, although 10 years or so in UK has changed her attitude a bit. It's quite typical of a developing economy and society where millions are coming out of poverty and suddenly have enough money to eat a lot, whether it be the right or wrong type of food being largely irrelevant. It's a kind of status symbol to have kids with plenty of meat on their bones, like the 4x4 in the driveway etc. I knew lots of Filipino families in the UK with the same attitudes.

    I look at most of my wife's relatives and they are mostly rake thin. Why, because their diet is basically rice, fish and vegetables, supplemented by the occasional bottle of Red Horse, and their work is mostly physical. However, I can see that changing over time too. When they stay with us, three full meals with rice is the norm.
     
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    Always a Poppy, Oct 7, 2020
    #6
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