Foreward: If you believe I'm full of shit, you don't have to follow this advice, but if any of this helps, or motivates you, I'm glad. :)
Howdy folks! I have observations I'd like to share, and how they've affected my weight loss journey. Strap in, it's gonna be a long post.
Background:
I live in Austin, Texas, and I started my journey pretty simply. My daily goal is to hit a 500 calorie deficit and to track 10K steps per day with 5 days of low impact cardio a week. My main focus is diet because over-eating is my biggest problem.
My Business trips:
I started working for a tech company back in August. This company's headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva is a city that is heavily influenced by French culture because it is right on the border of Switzerland in France, so keep that in mind. I had never been out of the US before starting this Job.
Since I started working here, I've been to Geneva 3 times. The first was a three-week stay in October for on-boarding and training. The second was in December, where we went to Annecy, France for a team-building event. I am currently in the middle of my third stay. I'm typing this post from my hotel room in downtown Geneva.
Overall Impressions:
You may have heard people praising European countries for being so healthy, and after spending some time here, I can say that praise is mostly accurate, and I've observed some things that have informed me on how to make better lifestyle choices and lose my weight.
I'm going to pair each observation with a takeaway/insight, and try to wrap it all up at the end with some driving principles.
Observation: Just about everything is smaller.
Doors, streets, sidewalks, buildings, elevators, cars, chairs, plates, glasses, and yes, food portions. It's all smaller. What does this mean? This means the average cup of coffee is 6 fl oz as opposed to 12 or 16, restaurants serve smaller portions on smaller plates. A can of Monster energy drink is more like 12 fl oz (350ml). You see it just about everywhere you look.
Insight:
People say this a lot. You should reduce portion sizes, but it's a lot easier to do that when you aren't offered giant portions in the first place. These smaller portions are taken for granted out here, and my colleagues who've visited Austin are surprised at how much food they're served, especially for such cheap prices.
Oh ya, which leads me to...
Observation: Everything is stupidly expensive
Switzerland uses the Swiss Franc (CHF) as currency, which currently has an exchange rate of roughly 1:1 with USD. A pint of Ben and Jerry's here costs 12 CHF. There's a Five Guys burgers in Geneva, and one single cheeseburger without fries costs 17 CHF. Most everything out here is really expensive, with two exceptions I've noticed. Fresh food/produce and Beer. I can't speak to the beer, but produce and freshly baked baguettes are much cheaper, so I usually get those.
Insight: With everything being so expensive, I felt motivated to get stuff that made better use of my money, and I really enjoyed the food out here, which leads to my next observation.
Observation: High-quality food is highly valued
Some people might have told you that in Europe, you can eat tons of bread and not get fat. That's not entirely true, but bread is a lot healthier out here. Most of the bread I see at the grocery store is fresh-baked and has ZERO added sugar. I scanned a barcode on a baguette and saw that half of it was only 300 calories. In addition to that, coffee creamer basically doesn't exist out here. They mostly drink small cups of coffee or espresso shots with a splash of milk and maybe one teaspoon of sugar, and most of my coworkers recoiled when I described coffee creamer, twinkies, and easy cheese to them.
Insight: The amount of sugar we put in our food in the US very high, and I've been more conscious of how much coffee creamer and sugar I put in my coffee since visiting Geneva.
So, overall, most of the people in Geneva eat better and take more pride in their food. One last observation.
Observation: People here are waaaaayyyy more active outside of the gym.
Activity is simply part of life here. In Austin, I drive to work, and I have to go out on multiple walks around the block throughout the day and hit the gym to get my 10k steps. When I'm in Geneva, I walk to the train station, take a train, and then walk to the office. Then I do the same thing in reverse on the way back. I hit my 10K steps out here WITHOUT EVEN HAVING TO THINK ABOUT IT, and I'm not the only one. Most of my coworkers take trains to work, or ride bikes. Gym culture isn't even that big of a thing out here, but the public transit is so good that it's more convenient to walk and use that than to drive. When we were in Annecy, my manager said there was a bar within walking distance. When he told me how far that distance actually was (about 1 mile), I was surprised, but then I realized that I walked 2-3 miles a day as part of my normal activities, so is it really that outlandish?
Insight: Going to the gym is nice, but for me, I realized from my trips here that I need to make light activity part of my everyday routine if I want to make sustainable fat loss a reality.
My personal conclusion: The US, or at least the part I live in, is designed to make people fat. I live in a city that was designed around cars. Restaurants serve 1500 calorie meals. Sugar is injected into most foods, and junk food is way cheaper than healthy food. I had two realizations when I decided to lose weight. The first was that I wasn't happy with my current size. The second is that the deck was stacked against most of us from the start.
If I lived in Geneva, I feel it would be much easier for me to lose weight. Every time I've come here, I've lost weight without putting in much effort, but to be honest, losing weight at home is like pulling teeth sometimes. Geneva (and probably most of Europe) has a culture designed for health. It's the default. In the US, it seems the default is a system that enables obesity.
Some last words of encouragement for my fellow Americans. I personally believe that losing weight in America is like Making it in New York City. If you can do it here, you can do it anywhere. (song reference)
So, what are some actionable tips I can give, based on my experience?
- smaller portions of quality food. Limit coffee drinks to 8 fl oz (fun fact, you can order a "short" from Starbucks that's 8 fl oz. That used to be their small size).
- Make walking, or some kind of movement, part of your daily routine. This will be harder if you're like me and have to drive everywhere, but it's given me good results so far. It doesn't even have to be super healthy. I vape, so when I take vape breaks, I walk around the block and vape instead of standing still.
- Try to find food that doesn't have added sugar. It'll have fewer calories, and will be better for you.
- Realize that the deck is stacked against you, and do your best to mitigate that.
That's all I can think of right now, and this post is getting long, so I'll leave it at that. Let me know if you have any insights or if I missed anything though. :)
