On cultural differences: Vitamins

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Viv

This post is part of a series. You can find all the posts on cultural differences here.

I already wrote about the differences between German and US measurement units a while back, because that is one of those things I am dealing with daily since I started using MyFitnessPal.

Now I want to write about vitamins. To keep it short and sweet, the basic premise of my post can be summarized in two pictures.

Vitamins in the US

Vitamins in Germany

My impression is that in the US it is absolutely normal to take your daily vitamins and minerals in the form of a pill or several. Doctors recommend it and taking a vitamin is the norm. Read an article on living healthily and ‘take your daily vitamin’ is almost sure to be mentioned. No one would question you for taking a vitamin but you would be questioned, maybe even called irresponsible or unhealthy for not taking one. A vitamin pill seems to be part of a healthy diet just as much as vegetables, fruit, whole grains, lean meat, and EVOO.

In Germany things are a little different. Of course you can buy vitamin pills and all sorts of other nutritional supplements here. So if you just must have your daily vitamin, don’t let that deter you from coming here. I do have a bottle of vitamins, calcium, and magnesium in my pantry.* But here you will not find doctors, magazines, and mothers reminding you to take your daily vitamin. Unless you have an ongoing deficiency of a vitamin or mineral, no one** would recommend a vitamin. The general consensus is that you eat a healthy and varied diet and will get all the vitamins and minerals you need from the food you eat. That is what is recommended by doctors. I would go as far as saying that the majority of the German population has never taken a vitamin pill in their entire life.

Now, of course, that leaves the question, who is right? I think that – as with other cultural differences – there is not really a need to answer this question. I don’t think that the German population is any unhealthier than the US population as a whole for not taking a daily vitamin. I just think this one is one of those things where either way is fine – it doesn’t really make a difference. Do I think that taking a daily vitamin is part of a healthy diet? No. In fact I would even go as far as saying when you are already eating a healthy diet the vitamin is really not needed. But what it really comes down to is cultural norms – and personal preference.

Do you take a daily vitamin or other supplements?

* But I never take them.

** Exceptions prove the rule.

On extremes

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Viv

From reading about other people’s experience with losing weight and getting fit online, it seems that many people like to go to extremes. Whether it be about food – only eating 1000 calories per day, cutting out X out of your diet for good, only eating Y, no more alcohol, going vegetarian, etc. Or about working out – working out every single day, working out twice a day, going from not working out at all to working out two hours at a time, etc.

So many people seem to think you have to make a radical change like that to lose weight successfully. Now, there is nothing wrong with working out every day if you feel your body can handle it. There is nothing wrong with going vegetarian if you don’t want to eat meat anymore.

But – you knew that was coming, right? But. I don’t think it’s necessary to do anything extreme do lose weight. Make a radical change? Well, if you are trying to change your lifestyle that change is probably radical even if you are not doing anything but work out regularly and eat more healthily.

What it really comes down to for me is moderation. I know that theme has come up on my blog before because I really think it is so very important. I don’t think it is necessary to turn your life upside down to lose weight. You have to make a change of course – but what is even more important is to stick with it. And I think it is much more sustainable in the long run when you restrict yourself as little as possible.

Don’t make any foods off-limits. Don’t call it a ‘cheat day’ when you are having pizza. Cheating implies you are doing something wrong and eating pizza per se is not wrong. Look at the thin people around you – they eat pizza, don’t they? The important thing is not to go overboard and not to have pizza every day. But now and then? Nothing wrong with having pizza or fries or a burger as long as it is in moderation. I think that in the long run, a diet that forbids you to eat certain foods is not sustainable. In fact, I would say that any diet is not sustainable in the long run. The only one that really works is one that allows everything but in moderation.

If you never liked working out, I think even just working out 3 times a week is pretty damn fantastic. If you want to work out more, go ahead, but if you want a day off, that is perfectly fine. Why wouldn’t it be? Don’t feel bad for ‘only’ working out three times a week. I mean, that is three times more than you did when you didn’t work out at all.

Is going vegetarian going to make you lose weight more quickly? Well, unless you were eating fatty meat every day, no, probably not. Being vegetarian is not automatically healthy. My brother is a vegetarian and I grew up eating very little meat (and I still don’t eat meat that much), and even though he is skinny, I’d dare to say that I eat more healthily that he does. Meat per se is not unhealthy. There are lots of reasons for going vegetarian, but in my opinion, wanting to lose weight is not one of them. You could lose weight just as well if you cut down on the amount of meat you eat and stick to lean meat, such as chicken.

I believe that moderation is the key to successfully losing weight and keeping it off. Make a change but do not make yourself into someone who you cannot keep being for the rest of your life. It may take a little longer to lose the weight that way, but it will be easier to keep it off. Make the changes you need to, but don’t over-do it. You don’t need to become a super-athlete or a ‘health nut’ to be healthy.

I feel like so many of us go from one extreme to the other. I think that many overweight people are prone for going to extremes, one way or the other. Challenge yourself and be demanding of yourself but don’t push yourself too hard. You do not have to become a whole new person to make this work.

P.S. Obviously, this post only reflects my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

On cultural differences: measurement units

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Viv

There are some differences between the United States and Europe – Germany, to be more specific. I know, duh! Well, but this particular one is related to healthy living. And please remember not to leave your sense of humor at the door. No offense meant – or as we would say, nothing for ungood [nichts für ungut].

Measurement units

On Saturday I started tracking calories with MyFitnessPal (add me!) and while I am absolutely in love with the site as a whole, there is one thing that is driving me nuts. I really don’t like cups. Not the ones you drink tea from, but the measurement unit cup. Here, cups are for bras.

If you are American, using cups, tablespoons and teaspoons is probably completely natural to you. In fact, your measurement system may even *gasp* make sense to you. In which case I may or may not be a little jealous.

You see, in Germany we use scales and grams. That makes sense to me because in my opinion, for most solid food, it makes no sense whatsoever to measure in volume instead of weight.

Using cups for measuring sugar or flour? Sure. For liquids? No problemo. But for something that’s bigger? Like chopped veggies? Or pasta? How is that accurate? I mean wouldn’t it depend on the size of the veggies and pasta and how densely they are stacked in your measuring cup? When I cut a bell pepper into strips, I am hardly going to squish the strips into a measuring cup to see just how many I can fit in there because I need a cup of bell pepper strips. Scales, on the other hand, are always accurate. Regardless of how small or big your pasta is, 100g remains 100g. If you are measuring something as small as macaroni – yup, not a problem with a kitchen scale. Something as unshapely as uncooked spaghetti? Bring it on!

And then there are spoons. Teaspoons, tablespoons. A perfect way of kidding yourself into believing you are only having a teaspoon of peanut butter while what you are really having is a heaped teaspoon of peanut butter – which could be as much as a tablespoon. But who really has time to get exactly a teaspoon of peanut butter out of the jar? I mean, that stuff is pretty sticky. But guess what? If the kitchen scale says you’ve had 15g of peanut butter, there is no way to kid yourself and say, well but it was only a teaspoon. Which, per definition equals 5g.

Heck, I have spent a year living in the States. I love the place. I get a lot of things other Europeans don’t get. But the measuring units over there? I’ll never get used to them. Beginning with feet, miles and Fahrenheit, ending with ounces and pounds. I can convert most in my head after years of practice (and when I can’t, Google does it for me) but they’ll never make sense to me. I like my measurement units to be metric. They make much more sense. Decimals. Kilometers, kilos & grams, Celsius, liters, that’s what I’m talking about.

Occasionally cooking or baking an American recipe, and using US measurement units for it I can handle. I even own not one but two sets of measuring cups. But on MyFitnessPal I sometimes have to scroll through several duplicate entries of the same exact food until I find one that has nutrition facts entered for portions measured in grams. On a daily basis, I just need my measurement units to be metric. It’s so easy to just set a plate on the scale and add ingredients bit by bit, simply hitting tare between different ingredients.

The measurement units are actually one reason why I stuck to German Weight Watchers for so long: German measurement units and most food brands are already in the database. But you know, if all it takes is a little extra patience and entering store-bought products into the database myself, right now I am thinking it’ll be worth it to stick to MyFitnessPal and cancel my Weight Watchers subscription. If only because the social networking aspect is a thousand times better on MyFitnessPal and on top of that it’s free!

I’ll just have to clench my teeth and be brave. Cups and spoons, you can’t get me down!