Suitcase weight

[JimOttley]

I am not disagreeing with what you say about evening it all up. But unfortunately it seems society has to rely on processed foods more and more in our 'fast' lives, I guess we are lucky that we can choose to eat wisely. Years ago, it was a sign of wealth to be fat, how times change!
I quite look forward to going to phils to eat fresh food each day.

Interestingly Steve it's still a sign of wealth to be fat in the Phils, that is something that makes me quite sad.

The fat content in the diet of the average 'skinny' poor Filipino family is much higher than that of many of fat westerners but there is a reason for that which is simply cheap access to energy, at 9 calories a gram it's better value for money for most folks, indeed I cringe when I see all the chicharon and the likes over there.

When I am in the Phils I always lose a lot of weight, I find the heat suppresses my appetite apart from anything else.

[JimOttley]

The answer is called exercise.

Burn off more calories than you take in and you'll lose weight.

Yes of course and the converse of my earlier point is eat one slice of buttered toast a day less than you need for 4 years and you will lose 4 stone. Alternatively add a couple of hundred calories of exercise a day and you will do the same.

I used to cycle to work in Glasgow a 16 mile a day round trip, I did that for over a year in all kinds of weather and by god I was fit and thin back then, that was before I started working in IT, a job where for many many years I was working 60 to 70 hours a week sitting in front of a monitor. In that situation you still have the cyclists appetite even though you have the computer programmers calorie budget

[fred]

The fat content in the diet of the average 'skinny' poor Filipino family is much higher than that of many of fat westerners but there is a reason for that which is simply cheap access to energy, at 9 calories a gram it's better value for money for most folks, indeed I cringe when I see all the chicharon and the likes over there.

I have to disagree with this statement to some degree.. If a family is poor then chicharon is a luxury they cannot afford..
The poor families here usually survive by eating things like cheap fish or 2 pesos worth of bagoong with plain rice and local veg like green papaya,malongay leaves etc..The thing that makes them fat is the rice they eat three times a day..Veg like Malungay is stuffed with vitimin C.. More Vit C in a tablespoon full then there is in 8 oranges or so..
The kids round here are also forever snacking on my Guava trees like it was their God given right!! Actually I let them pick as many as they like..
The middle class here all seem to head for Jollibee and Mcdo`s as you probably know.

[JimOttley]

I have to disagree with this statement to some degree.. If a family is poor then chicharon is a luxury they cannot afford..
The poor families here usually survive by eating things like cheap fish or 2 pesos worth of bagoong with plain rice and local veg like green papaya,malongay leaves etc..The thing that makes them fat is the rice they eat three times a day..Veg like Malungay is stuffed with vitimin C.. More Vit C in a tablespoon full then there is in 8 oranges or so..
The kids round here are also forever snacking on my Guava trees like it was their God given right!! Actually I let them pick as many as they like..
The middle class here all seem to head for Jollibee and Mcdo`s as you probably know.

I take your point Fred, I should not have implied Chicharon was a staple and yeah the 'Jollibee and Mcdo`s' thing is an expression of wealth for the middle class, I prefer the food at Chow King if I have to eat fast food, rice dishes and the likes, but Ana likes to take the kids to Jollibee :(

I am not a fan of burgers anywhere these days, although when my daughter was little back in the late 80's and early 90's we often went to Burger King until around the age of 8 she decided that eating meat was something she did not want to do

I'm probably also a bit off the beam in what I am defining as 'poor' in that post, two family's in my extended family are extremely poor and their diet is closer to what you describe.

My point which I made badly was that many of the family's I have met appear to have a fat intake around 1/3 of their diet, in the west many of us fatties have a much lower fat intake than that but yet we still inflate (sugar's as you say) many don't over there because they burn what they eat i.e. they need all the calories in the diet.

As a kid in Scotland I was encouraged to eat the fat on a bit of meat be it a pork chops or a bit of beef, I find it's similar over there but like us in the 60's they (mostly) don't get as fat as modern westerners and in my view it's a combination of them being more active and eating less processed food but I think the overriding factor is simply being more active.

[fred]

Yeah Jim..I eat in Chow king a lot too...Normally a bowl of beef noodles with them dumplings thrown in does me..
Kids hate going to the mall with me as I always walk them right past KFC and the burger joints..
I eat surprisingly little and really healthily but Im still a couple of stone over weight..Its too hot to Jog and everywhere I walk there is someone offering me a shot of Rum along the way..What can you do?
I`ll wait till next January and buy myself an exercise bike to put in the bedroom..Wack the A/C on full blast and I`ll be away!!! (At least until February!)

[JimOttley]

Its too hot to Jog and everywhere I walk there is someone offering me a shot of Rum along the way..What can you do?

Kids hate going to the mall with me as I always walk them right past KFC and the burger joints..

I might be the man of the house but that does not give me a lot of say in food related matters, you are clearly a more determined man than me

[fred]

As a kid in Scotland I was encouraged to eat the fat on a bit of meat be it a pork chops or a bit of beef, I find it's similar over there but like us in the 60's they (mostly) don't get as fat as modern westerners and in my view it's a combination of them being more active and eating less processed food but I think the overriding factor is simply being more active.

Just a thought..As a kid I remember my nan in London giving us bread and dripping from yesterdays roast and all kinds of fatty substances throughout the week.. That kind of thing is frowned upon today of course but Im sure there were no where near the amount of grossly fat people around back then..Probably all the greens they forced us to eat with it to even things out a bit??

[Englishman2010]

It's interesting what you gents are saying about fat in a diet. Followers of low carb diets will know that sugar is far more harmful than fat. Food that converts in to sugar in your body (processed carbs, like whole grains and refined sugar) are stored as fat if the they energy they produce isn't burned off, whereas fat is usually passed straight through the body. I eat a fairly high protein and high fat diet - meat, fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, olives, olive oil along with vegetables/salad and berries/fruit which are high in fibre and low in natural sugar, but am healthier now than I was 10 years ago when I ate a diet of processed junk.
However, 15 minutes exercise every day is all it would take most people to lose their excess baggage.

[grahamw48]

Just a thought..As a kid I remember my nan in London giving us bread and dripping from yesterdays roast and all kinds of fatty substances throughout the week.. That kind of thing is frowned upon today of course but Im sure there were no where near the amount of grossly fat people around back then..Probably all the greens they forced us to eat with it to even things out a bit??

Also consider how much both children and adults exercised in those days of fewer cars and labour-saving devices.
We also needed to burn a lot more calories to keep warm, whether we were out and about, or sitting in our non-centrally heated houses.

My Filipino relatives in the province do much more physical work than people here , and don't have access to fast-food outlets YET.

Their diet of rice, fish, chicken, fresh fruit and vegetables is pretty healthy too.
The kids eat far too many sugary snacks and drinks though IMO, and that often means they have bad teeth at a very early age.

[Englishman2010]

I didn't realise until now that "suitcase weight" had changed to "body weight" and a discussion about diet, but while health topics are discussed under most main forum categories I just can't find and read them all

Since when did any thread ever stay on topic It is sort of connected to the initial topic as overall weight of the passenger and baggage should be linked

[KeithD]

I wear all my clothes and take a case full of helium with me