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Topic: being skinny in america  (Read 1106 times)

Offline cwjalex

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being skinny in america
on: November 16, 2014, 12:45:41 AM
i am a korean american that was adopted and lived most of my life in america and like many asians it seems like i am doomed to be skinny for the rest of my life.   my adopted family is all overweight and i am constantly bombarded with different ways to lose weight in society but i see almost nothing in regards to gaining weight.  when i was younger my family would just say i have a fast metabolism and wait till i am older but now that i am approaching 30 my metabolism is exactly the same and it is a constant struggle to gain weight.  i go to the gym regularly and lift weights to gain mass (low reps high weight) and drink a 30g protein shake everyday.  nobody feels bad for you being skinny in america but it's just as hard for a fat person to lose weight as it is for a skinny person to gain weight.  as i am typing this i have a plate full of chicken next to me that i am forcing myself to eat.  it sucks.  anyone have any strategies to gain weight or make eating when ur not hungry easier?  i don't want to eat a ton of fatty, rich, buttery stuff and clog my arties but wolfing down this bland chicken is really difficult. 

Offline indianajo

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Re: being skinny in america
Reply #1 on: November 16, 2014, 01:30:22 AM
Just wait a bit and keep up the working out at the gym, I didn't "mature" until age 25.  When I graduated from college age 23 I was 68" and 135 lb and my shoulders were so narrow I still wore size 18 boys shirts, Then in the post Viet Nam war recession I couldn't find a decent job, and lost down to 125 lb loading trucks with furniture.  I was strong enough to carry 2 cartons of books up the stairs 2 at a time, or carry half an upright piano (>400 lb) up or down stairs, but didn't look like I had any muscles by European standards.  
I thought I looked pretty good, but the women around didn't agree.  I look like those of my ancestors that were Native American , so I have short legs, a long torso, very light bone structure, and my shoulders didn't widen out like a  man until my 23-25 year.  Native Am are racially Siberian, and have their own look.  Short legs, short arms, short fingers, not much hair on the face, the whole Asian bit in miniature.  I could have looked good to a a Native Am girl, but my Mother was the last one in our part of the country (Appalachia).  What european ancestry I got was Pict or "Iberian", the downtrodden short dark slight coal miners, not the dominent fair northern European decendents of swordfighters and sailors.  The Army would never have wanted me had not Mr Colt the arms manufacturer created men equal.  Now children can handle an AK47.  But I can hike 27 miles in the dark, and see where I'm going by starlight, too.  So people have different talents.  
I ballooned up to 182 lb in the Army in my thirties, was able to pass Army PT tests and run six 7.5 minute miles in a row with a pack, but I still didn't look muscular.  Then I gained  up to 213 lb when I was working 3rd shift 5 years ago and had a horrible diet and was eating a snack for a fourth meal.. That was not attractive.  Now that I am not working, I've lost back down to 175 lb which looks a lot better.  I work out to keep up the strength for piano etc, and I walked 27 miles in 6 hours last year, age 63.  I ride a bicycle a lot, 70 miles a week in the summer with groceries from my house in town to my rural property.  I'm starting to get looked at in public again, because I still look 2/3 my age, just like I did in school.  When I graduated high school age 18, a European woman I know saw my picture, and said I looked twelve.  It's payback time now, I'll outlive them all IMHO.  And I stll look 40, I got my first facial wrinkle last year.  
So be patient, and try to get around to locations where girls with some Asian background hang out.  Central Americans tend to have a lot of Native American background, too.    You might be able to impress a European woman, but it will be with your mind & talents, not your looks IMHO.  Don't try Houston TX, that is where I was, and before the Vietnamese influx after I left, I never got looked at by those huge European girls that  lived down there.   The good news is the USA is getting more racially mixed all the time.  Take a vacation in Toronto, everybody lives there, one of the most mixed towns in the world they say.  

Offline Bob

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Re: being skinny in america
Reply #2 on: November 16, 2014, 01:37:43 AM
I'd go for fit and healthy.  Most Americans are overweight.  If you're actually within healthy specs, and you're around overweight people, you'll look potentially less healthy if everyone's associating healthy with "roundness."  Being a skeleton isn't a great look either, if you're going by looks.  So I'd go for "fit."

If your genetics are less fat and less muscular, that's how it is.  Still be healthy and fit though.  If you're eating more because everyone else around you is, what out for cholesterol, etc.  That can still build up even if you don't get fat.
Favorite new teacher quote -- "You found the only possible wrong answer."

Offline cwjalex

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Re: being skinny in america
Reply #3 on: November 16, 2014, 01:53:14 AM
i'm 5'6 150 pounds with 7-8% body fat.  i am actually close to the "obese" category but it's only because of muscle weight.  people describe me as "skinny" but i think it's only because i'm surrounded by fat people. 

Offline indianajo

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Re: being skinny in america
Reply #4 on: November 16, 2014, 02:34:28 AM
Yes, the whole country ballooned up in weight after they started adding high fructose corn syrup to every food in the eighties.  Even "Weight Watchers" foods have a lot of unnecessary carbos in it.  I had to quit buying much at the nearest grocery store, (Save-a-Lot)  everything, even canned peas,  has added sugar in it. 
I'm on a ultra low sugar high vegatable fat diet I kind of made up myself, but Dr. Furman's  amazing keys to immunity or something (PBS) show approximates the diet I am on.  I can reccomend his book but I just watched the TV show, since most of what he recommends is just the best of what my country ancestors ate 50 years ago.  I'm eating sugar free peanut butter and sugar free jelly sandwiches on 1 g sugar bread 2 meals a day, for pleasure and to fill my stomach.  Lettuce onion salads w/ low sugar dressing ( <1 g /tbsp) is another two meal a day habit.  Carbos for breakfast (oats or sugar free pancakes with sugar free syrup, olivio margerine) make a third meal, and I do eat a little fruit with sugar in it.  I got off the diebetes pills for two years after being diagnosed age 58, but this year despite losing five more pounds the pills are back.   
My nephew, who is half Hong Kong ancestry, and half the german-dutch part of my brother's ancestry, spent a lot of time in a gym growing up, drinking tiger's milk and the whole jujitsu gym program.  He could do 100 pushups when he went to ROTC summer camp, by flunked because he couldn't run  two miles in the allowed time.  He was so muscle bound he wasn't flexible. he is the same height as me and has longer legs.  So don't listen to the guys at the gym too much, they are so into proving their ****s are bigger than yours by how much weight they can press etc.  I lift a weight too, 5 lb 25 reps, but I'm still doing it age 64 and most gym rats that age are sunk in a Barcalounger looking at ESPN and   complaining about how much they hurt.  That starting stopping routine weightlifters use too, does nothing for your heart or cleaning out your blood vessels. When I do go to the gym, I use low enough resistance or weight  I can do it continuously for 40 minutes, which keeps my heart rate up per Dr. Cooper's Aerobics program.   My chloresterol was 208 when I was at my fattest working third shift, but I'm down to 175 without ever using statin drugs.  I think the vegetable fat is flushing bad chloresterol out of my system, at least the numbers are looking really good. 
Join a runners group or bicycle group or something, you'll find people there that appreciate the lean look.  The Army had me running 2 miles 3-4 times a week starting age 18, and I had to quit because of my combat boot injured knees age 38, but I ride an exerbike in the winter when I can't get out on my mountain bike.  20-25 minutes with heart rate >0.67*(200 -age in years) was Dr. Cooper's aeorbics program.  Three to four times a week.  i did six miles on the bicycle, to-from the big store with sugar free foods, yesterday.  I've got big baskets on my bicycle so I can carry a week's worth home, no car necessary. 
 

Offline Bob

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Re: being skinny in america
Reply #5 on: November 16, 2014, 06:23:46 AM
If you're in your 20's.... If you do the normal job routine soon in the future, getting older and doing a less active job will cause you gain weight.  Then you'll be on other side for weight.
Favorite new teacher quote -- "You found the only possible wrong answer."

Offline Bob

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Re: being skinny in america
Reply #6 on: November 16, 2014, 06:26:53 AM
Haha... Do people ask you if you're sick?  I lost some weight and heard that a few times.  "Sick?  No.  I'm the correct weight now."   Or farther from the edge of normal and obese.  They're just overweight.  Rounded has been normal/average.
Favorite new teacher quote -- "You found the only possible wrong answer."
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