Beyond Bounds Blog

You never can predict how your life will be affected by living abroad, but as long as you are open minded and act consciously it will almost always be for the better. I grew up on meat, potato chips, soda, and fast food. In middle school and high school it was common for me to eat 2 meals of fast food a day. Now I’m three months into a vegan transformation, and managed to shock my family and friends in the process. If I never went abroad, I may have never made this change.

During college I always saw myself as very health conscious: I was physically active 7 days a week for at least an hour a day and avoided fast food and snacks. I never considered any diets, as intuitively little work for a quick gain doesn’t make sense to me for anything, especially not health.

If I stop exercising for a month, I gain weight fast, and no matter what I get sick often. This has always lead me to question whether or not there was something I was missing that was causing a constant uphill battle against weight gain.

When I came to China in 2005 to study abroad for a year, the amount that I exercised decreased a lot, but it was easy for me to keep weight off. When I came back into America I was greeted by “you are too skinny,” and “you haven’t been eating enough have you,” by my parents. And yet the truth is that I was eating MORE than before. While in the States I would watch my money and restrict how much I ate, but in China I didn’t have this problem and ate freely. So with less exercise and more calorie intake, weight was no longer a concern. How could this be?

Recently I ran into the answers. “The China Study” is a book written by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. The book is the comprehensive conclusions from a 20+ year study of the diets of rural Chinese in different parts of China, and also draws support from many other similar studies. The China Study challenges conventional wisdom about diet and attacks the fads and trends in our eating habits.

The conclusions are strong, simple, and consistent: eating a whole-food, plant-based diet can prevent and reverse nearly any health problems, whether it is obesity, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, etc. Nutrition works as a whole in an orchestrated way, so isolating certain nutrients and eating supplements won’t work, and diet fads are non sustainable, also usually causing long term harm for short term gains.  

It started to make sense to me: Chinese food is usually 2 parts vegetables 1 part meat, and there are a lot more tasty vegetable dishes than in America. American food is usually 3 parts meat, 1 part vegetables, and then an added spoonful of lard. Even healthy food in America is seen as unhealthy here; last year when I told my friend that I was avoiding McDonalds but going to Subway to eat sandwiches instead, she laughed at me “it’s the same, just a different size. They are both mostly meat wrapped in bread.” Chinese actually don’t see meat as unhealthy, but I learned something through the difference in diets between America and China.

I’ve been experimenting with this diet for over 3 months now. Before, it was common for me to get sick 1-2x a month, but in this time I haven’t been sick once. I’ve never been fat, but many of my friends tell me that I look a lot leaner than before.

Interest in China and studying abroad caused me to question conventional health knowledge and my own perspectives on health. If I never came abroad I wouldn’t have noticed the relationship between my health and my diet, and I also wouldn’t have taken interest in a book called “the China Study.” This is only one of the countless ways that my life has been affected in unexpected ways by living abroad and exposing myself to other ways of thinking.

I highly recommend “the China Study” to anyone who would like an alternative opinion to conventional wisdom and what doctors tell them, however there isn’t much in here actually about China itself.   If you are interested in China, read something else.

Has living or traveling abroad changed your life in a big way? Are you not happy with something in your life but don’t know the answers? You might just find the answer in another country.

You never can predict how your life will be affected by living abroad, but as long as you are open minded and act consciously it will almost always be for the better. I grew up on meat, potato chips, soda, and fast food. In middle school and high school it was common for me to eat 2 meals of fast food a day. Now I’m three months into a vegan transformation, and managed to shock my family and friends in the process. If I never went abroad, I may have never made this change.

During college I always saw myself as very health conscious: I was physically active 7 days a week for at least an hour a day and avoided fast food and snacks. I never considered any diets, as intuitively little work for a quick gain doesn’t make sense to me for anything, especially not health.

If I stop exercising for a month, I gain weight fast, and no matter what I get sick often. This has always lead me to question whether or not there was something I was missing that was causing a constant uphill battle against weight gain.

When I came to China in 2005 to study abroad for a year, the amount that I exercised decreased a lot, but it was easy for me to keep weight off. When I came back into America I was greeted by “you are too skinny,” and “you haven’t been eating enough have you,” by my parents. And yet the truth is that I was eating MORE than before. While in the States I would watch my money and restrict how much I ate, but in China I didn’t have this problem and ate freely. So with less exercise and more calorie intake, weight was no longer a concern. How could this be?

Recently I ran into the answers. “The China Study” is a book written by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. The book is the comprehensive conclusions from a 20+ year study of the diets of rural Chinese in different parts of China, and also draws support from many other similar studies. The China Study challenges conventional wisdom about diet and attacks the fads and trends in our eating habits.

The conclusions are strong, simple, and consistent: eating a whole-food, plant-based diet can prevent and reverse nearly any health problems, whether it is obesity, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, etc. Nutrition works as a whole in an orchestrated way, so isolating certain nutrients and eating supplements won’t work, and diet fads are non sustainable, also usually causing long term harm for short term gains.  

It started to make sense to me: Chinese food is usually 2 parts vegetables 1 part meat, and there are a lot more tasty vegetable dishes than in America. American food is usually 3 parts meat, 1 part vegetables, and then an added spoonful of lard. Even healthy food in America is seen as unhealthy here; last year when I told my friend that I was avoiding McDonalds but going to Subway to eat sandwiches instead, she laughed at me “it’s the same, just a different size. They are both mostly meat wrapped in bread.” Chinese actually don’t see meat as unhealthy, but I learned something through the difference in diets between America and China.

I’ve been experimenting with this diet for over 3 months now. Before, it was common for me to get sick 1-2x a month, but in this time I haven’t been sick once. I’ve never been fat, but many of my friends tell me that I look a lot leaner than before.

Interest in China and studying abroad caused me to question conventional health knowledge and my own perspectives on health. If I never came abroad I wouldn’t have noticed the relationship between my health and my diet, and I also wouldn’t have taken interest in a book called “the China Study.” This is only one of the countless ways that my life has been affected in unexpected ways by living abroad and exposing myself to other ways of thinking.

I highly recommend “the China Study” to anyone who would like an alternative opinion to conventional wisdom and what doctors tell them, however there isn’t much in here actually about China itself.   If you are interested in China, read something else.

Has living or traveling abroad changed your life in a big way? Are you not happy with something in your life but don’t know the answers? You might just find the answer in another country.