The Korean diet and lifting

[pseudonym]

seeing as I am living in Korea right now (studying ... not teaching or standing around with a rifle - obviously no offense intended to any soldiers or english teachers) I find myself eating a lot of Korean food (makes sense no ? ).

Basically ... well no not basically ... quite literally every meal is rice with something, my personal favourite is either Kimchi or Tofu soup and generally if you can get any meat it is almost invariably pork or squid.

I love Korean food but do notice that I eat almost no red meat, most protein is either from tofu, pork, or seafood and the carb intake is massive (rice 5 or 6 times a day and usually a potato or seaweed soup for breakfast).

This said I have put on almost a kilo in the last 3 or 4 weeks of lifting and I do note some fair muscular definition which I put down to the almost complete lack of fat in the food here.

This seems to contravine a few dietry 'rules' i.e. low protein high carb and I am losing fat and gaining muscle (to my mind anyway ) but hey it's working so I am going with it

I don't really know if I had a question in all this or if it was just to share that if anyone is keen to lose fat you might wanna try 'going Korean' (I'll send some recipies to anyone who's keen). Thinking of getting a supplement of some sort soon just to boost my protein intake ... just in case

Cheers

Colin

[sooner_ed]

Originally Posted by pseudonym

seeing as I am living in Korea right now (studying ... not teaching or standing around with a rifle - obviously no offense intended to any soldiers or english teachers) I find myself eating a lot of Korean food (makes sense no ? ).

Basically ... well no not basically ... quite literally every meal is rice with something, my personal favourite is either Kimchi or Tofu soup and generally if you can get any meat it is almost invariably pork or squid.

I love Korean food but do notice that I eat almost no red meat, most protein is either from tofu, pork, or seafood and the carb intake is massive (rice 5 or 6 times a day and usually a potato or seaweed soup for breakfast).

This said I have put on almost a kilo in the last 3 or 4 weeks of lifting and I do note some fair muscular definition which I put down to the almost complete lack of fat in the food here.

This seems to contravine a few dietry 'rules' i.e. low protein high carb and I am losing fat and gaining muscle (to my mind anyway ) but hey it's working so I am going with it

I don't really know if I had a question in all this or if it was just to share that if anyone is keen to lose fat you might wanna try 'going Korean' (I'll send some recipies to anyone who's keen). Thinking of getting a supplement of some sort soon just to boost my protein intake ... just in case

Cheers

Colin

Lucky you. I used to live in Korea and absolutely loved it there, food and all. I still eat Korean food to this day.
If anyone else responds to this post, they will tell you to skip the rice. Although their reasons for not eating white rice are valid, since you live in Korea, tell me how many fat Koreans you see. I saw only one while I was there for three years. Even with white rice being a staple of each meal there, their diet overall is extremely healthy. You can not go wrong with the foods you are eating over there.
By the way, where are you in Korea? I lived about an hour north of Seoul for a year and spent two years in Pusan. Enjoy the heck out of it while you're there. And as I said, lucky you.

[threenorns]

you can't just point to the diet and say "that's why they're all skinny". the korean diet evolved as a result of the korean environment and culture. for example, i suspect that koreans don't spend as much time sitting on their asses as north americans do. also, orientals have a different biological structure than westerners do - they tend toward ectomorphy as a whole, with slight bones, delicate joints, and very rapid metabolisms.

as a mesomorph with endomorph traits, feed me the korean diet and i'd blow up like a puffer fish in no time!

[abarlament]

Originally Posted by threenorns

orientals have a different biological structure than westerners do - they tend toward ectomorphy as a whole, with slight bones, delicate joints, and very rapid metabolisms.

If you have proof for this, can you send me a link?

[threenorns]

Originally Posted by abarlament

If you have proof for this, can you send me a link?

alas, my observation is from strictly empirical evidence: how many oriental basketball and football players are there? how many famous oriental actors are there over 5'9" (jackie chan and jet li aren't)? when one thinks of "tall and muscular", odds are one isn't thinking "oriental".

granted, there are *some* populations of very large, mesomorphic orientals (northern hunan and the ainu of japan come to mind), but *on the whole*, orientals are on average short and slight in stature. that is apparently changing as their diet becomes "westernized" - many children in china are now obese and the average height in japan is increasing rapidly.

there's a reason something becomes a stereotype - it's because certain qualities and characteristics are identifiable to that particular thing. example, the epicanthic fold: there are *some* black and white populations that have an epicanthic fold, but they're still called "oriental eyes".

[arnz]

I went to Argentina, they have a high fat diet. My fellow tourist and I remarked on how we could not find a fat person in our three weeks stay there. Also Russia, with very rich food, with all due respect to the older babushkas, couldnt find any heavy people under 50. I dont think its the the type of diet, I think its simply the amount of food.

I think people in the US simply eat more than the rest of the world...I am asian, my nieces that grew up here (9 and 10 years old) both weigh 130 (obese). Their cousins who came to visit last month weigh around 80 to 90 pounds, a striking difference.

BTW, I am 5'11 and 190 pounds and both my brothers are over 6 feet tall, and no we didnt grow up in the States. I hate generalizations

[threenorns]

as i said, there are SOME populations on either end of the bell curve and Yao Ming is an excellent basketball player, but *on average* the AVERAGE oriental is short and slight. just like most italians are short and swarthy, but northern italians are tall, blonde, and green-eyed except for the ones that aren't.

generalizations are merely a means of expressing an overall average - if we had to be politically correct and take into account every possible variation on a theme, conversation would quickly become impossible: "the suspect was a short male with darker skin that could possibly be considered italianate if he were from the south end of rome but not if he were from the northern end of the country and his hair was dark brown and curly" is a lot more confusing than "a short italian-looking male". after all, "man" and "woman" are generalizations meaning the individual possessed certain gender-typical characteristics - except some lacking one or more of them or possess gender atypical characteristics.

what becomes a problem is when one uses a generalization to quantify a specific individual - ie, "you're cuban, therefore you're a drug dealer" or "you're a newfie, therefore you're a drunk" or even "you're japanese, therefore you're a genius".

anyhow, as i pointed out earlier, i think a large part of the problem with weight in north america is that we have a hugely sedentary population. our kids aren't outside playing ball hockey or soccer or baseball any more. they don't eat fruit and vegetables, home-made cake and cookies aren't treats - it's all mcdonald's and taco bell. home-made food is "boring" or "too time-consuming to make". kids as young as 7 come home and sit in front of the tube until mom or dad gets in. nobody drinks water any more - it's kool-ade, gatorade, lemonade, and all kinds of ades, not to mention pop and what-have-you. in the cities, the kids stay "right near the house where i can see you" - they don't ride their bikes around the block to their friend's house, they're driven there by their parents.

i have a young friend in istanbul, and while he's on the computer all night, all day he's out with his friends. they skate, they ride bikes, they hike, and so on and all of them are very trim.

[abarlament]

Originally Posted by threenorns

as i said, there are SOME populations on either end of the bell curve and Yao Ming is an excellent basketball player, but *on average* the AVERAGE oriental is short and slight. just like most italians are short and swarthy, but northern italians are tall, blonde, and green-eyed except for the ones that aren't.

Even after admitting you have no proof, you again state this like a fact (1). Amazing.

1. Not that I have researched the matter either, but I'm not the one making statements like that.

[threenorns]

Originally Posted by abarlament

Even after admitting you have no proof, you again state this like a fact (1). Amazing.

1. Not that I have researched the matter either, but I'm not the one making statements like that.

<sigh> average height in japan is 5'5" for men, 5'0" for women ; in viet nam, 5'4" for young men; in north korea, 4'11" , although this is expected to increase rapidly as their economies improve and they have access to more nutritious food (http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/enc...man_height.htm)

[abarlament]

Just for the sake of argument...

From that same page: "Nutrition is the most important factor in height," and "it now seems that humans as a species probably have a similar genetic height potential" would seem to argue against your statement in #3 that Asians have a different biological structure than Westerners (although you argued for ectomorphism as a tendancy, not height but whatever).

[goodgirl]

I knew someone from the Philippines and she said that one of the most shocking things she saw when she moved to the US was the portion sizes in restaurants. She said she couldn't believe it.

threenorns -- I tried bringing up the same argument with my health professor a while back and she said that others are no biologically different than Americans, it's just that they don't have as many processed foods and their portions are much smaller.

[threenorns]

yeah, that's what it said - apparently, the japanese are expected to outstrip north americans in about a decade.

[threenorns]

Originally Posted by abarlament

Just for the sake of argument...

From that same page: "Nutrition is the most important factor in height," and "it now seems that humans as a species probably have a similar genetic height potential" would seem to argue against your statement in #3 that Asians have a different biological structure than Westerners (although you argued for ectomorphism as a tendancy, not height but whatever).

yes, i did state that specifically in my post:

Originally Posted by threenorns

although this is expected to increase rapidly as their economies improve and they have access to more nutritious food

[abarlament]

So you agree humans aren't very biologically different after all?

[sooner_ed]

Originally Posted by pseudonym

I am losing fat and gaining muscle (to my mind anyway ) but hey it's working so I am going with it

This is the bottom line. You go with what works for you.

Now I remember why I quit posting on this board even though I read everything with great interest. I just have a weakness for all things Korean so I had to respond to your post.

We have people who speak with great authority on this topic and have never lived a day in Korea and have no clue what Korean people eat day in and day out.

I'm now back to hide underneath my rock.