Staying Fit with your Chinese Lifestyle

Yes it is sometimes tough here in China with so much great tasting food, I have heard some Chinese friends tell me that if you ate a different Chinese dish everyday for the rest of your life there would be still some that you haven’t tried.Because of the great abundance of food here, without sufficient exercise, for many of us laowai losing fat may be difficult. I have met people here who have lost up to 30kgs of fat, however these are usually people who had a lot to lose and were living on a western fast food diet almost everyday back home, and lost weight primarily through diet changes.

For others who are already quite healthy, exercise and eat good food, it is very hard to get rid of those last few kilo’s we have put on out here. If you are a Chinese/American or Chinese/Australian, then you will probably not gain weight at all because simply your genetics are used to eating rice and oily dishes everyday, thus you will digest it effectively into energy and thus gain no fat or even lose. With so many “yummy” dishes, rice, noodles and “bing” every meal for most of us laowai losing fat in China can be quite difficult.

To lose fat, stay healthy and gain lean muscle a diet combined with the right supplements with exercise works well for me and may also work for you. Sometimes people say they don’t have time to exercise, but there is always a way to get the work in if you are motivated

Here are some tips to all you to get in your excercise 4-5 days a week. If you have to miss a few days at the gym, try riding a bike to meetings and even to the office… this is also is great for the environment.If you are trying to gain muscle or lose fat you should get to the gym at least 4 times a week for a combination of cardio and weights. With weight training you need to train a different body part every work every week.

Do not over train and make sure you rest… remember you are not actually gaining muscle in the gym, but you are gaining muscle while you rest, while you eat and while you take the supplements that help recover and build your body. The same goes for losing fat, by exercising you are increasing your metoblic rate, thus you are actually burning calories when you are resting.Thus the saying “you are what you eat” is even more true when it comes to keeping fit and losing fat… exercise is only part of the answer, DIET is the most important.

Before Breakfast

Glass of warm water mixed with lemon on an empty stomach.This will help kick start your digestion and metabolism but also is great cleaning the liver.

Meal 1

Shake, low fat milk mixed with 2 handfuls of organic oats, Organic Green Barley Grass (helps detox the body, flushing out toxins), 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil (helps keep us lean, also great for skin, high in omega 6 and 9 fatty acids), small amount of orange juice for flavor and one scoop of protein powder/or 200ml of natural yoghurt (sugar free).You need protein (yoghurt) to help speed up the metobilism also to control our insulin level to burn fat.

After Breakfast

Multi Vitamins, Omega 3 Fish Oil

Exercise

20-40min walk/ride to office

Meal 2

Apple and protein shake mixed with extra virgin olive oil/or handful of almonds and cashews.

Meal 3

Can of tuna with spring water, or chicken (skin less), or fish with an organic carrot and organic cucumber with a small handful of almonds

Meal 4

Shake

Exercise

20-40mins walk/ride home from office

Exercise

30mins of high intensity cardio in gym

30mins of weight training (train a different body part each day)

Meal 5 after exercise

After exercise have 1 scoop of whey protein.

Meal 6

Lean chicken breast, beef, pork or fish mixed with tomatoes and sweet potato… experiment with recipes. At Chinese restaurant fish is always a good healthy choice followed by some vegetables or salad.

All this above will do a number of things, but mainly it will speed up your metabolism creating your body to be a natural fat burning machine.Again we have different body types than the local Chinese… I know we all think WOW the Chinese are all so thin because they eat lots of rice etc… well for us foreigners we do need to things differently to obtain a healthy body.To maintain this for long term I would highly suggest putting some variety and experimenting, also have some “cheat days” where you can eat and do everything to feel “normal” once again.

Drew Campbell is CEO of World Health Store and has over 10 of years experience dealing with natural health working in such companies as General Nutrition Centre (GNC).

For more information about living healthy in China, please contact the World Health Store.info@worldhealthstore.com.cn or visit www.worldhealthstore.com.cn

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