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>> portion sizes are gigantic

If anybody in the US thinks like you, we shouldn't have a problem with weight. After my dad passed away from a massive stroke, my revelation is that to combat obesity "you could eat most food, in reasonable amount, exercise wisely". I say most because for people with pre-existing conditions, some kind of food you are to avoid.

I'm tired of all of the diet tricks out there. At some point, my weight is going back up again. But, for the last year or so, I eat less meat/dairy and more of the veggie/tofu. I lost 10 lbs and still maintain that weight even though I did not skip or fast any meal. I reckon that if I reduce my intake, I could easily lose another 5 lbs. My family doctor approves!

There is a very unhealthy mentality in the US that exercise is the cure for obesity. It's easy to point out the flaw in this with simple math: count how many calories you burn running 3 miles or doing power lift, then compare to that of what you get from 2 slides of pizza or a big mac and you know what I mean. With our excessive food portion, you would need to run a marathon a day to keep up with the calories you take in.

I agree. My dad also died recently, as did my cousin in the US. Another cousin had a heart attack. Quite a few are obese. We are known to eat a lot. Part of it is that the parents came from extreme poverty and then got transplanted to the West.

After my dad died, I changed my diet. I ate a lot less, measured myself each day. When my cousin died, I moved more towards veggies. I'm 10kg down from the start of the year now.

Vegan diets are also easier to stay on, IMO. It fills you up to eat a load of broccoli or beetroots, but it's barely any calories. You also poop better, which is a strangely positive thing. As for taste, it seems to change when you know what killed your family members, and you get a bit more sensitive to the things you're not getting so much of, like salt and fats.

I do exercise regularly, but like you say there's no way that can be enough, you'd have to be doing professional athlete level workouts for it to matter. It's more that it's important to keep the muscles and skeleton used, and get the heart pumping. There's also the psychological effect, it feels good.

As a US native, this a thousand times. When I started doing meal prep for an exercise program, and really loading things up with protein, I was surprised at just how little I needed to eat throughout the day to feel satiated and energized, even while beginning a workout routine that was quite tough for a beginner.

Sometimes I still like to eat out, but it's a rare treat, I can't do it every day like I used to when I was younger. Even then, I'll usually look for the junior portions, which are plenty filling.

Before COVID, I was visiting the US 2-3 times a year, but only the northeast region. Are massive portion sizes more common in certain parts of the country? My naive impression is that portion sizes are bigger in the south, but I have no idea where I absorbed this belief from.

I've lived in South Texas, Washington State, Missouri, and Tennessee, and I don't really recall a difference in overall portion size at restaurants, fast food locations, or typical diners. A lot of the popular chains have standardized their menus, so you can usually pull up the online menu and check out the nutritional data. For international chains, it might be interesting to compare overall calorie counts if the region specific menus are available?

Most of my time in the US has been in the northeast and I've noticed that whenever I've gone to a conference, the south has significantly larger portion sizes at their establishments.

>portion sizes are gigantic

Statements in this vein get made quite a bit. But, as someone who lives in the US and (normally) travels around Europe quite a bit, I'm at least a little bit skeptical. Certainly when I'm eating out in Europe I don't think to myself "My, what small portions." (Admittedly, in the US some meals come with a lot of cheap carbs like potatoes but that's hardly unknown in Europe in my experience as well.)

>Even the strawberries seem to be bigger.

That's mostly industrialized farming for you. If you buy locally grown strawberries in, say, New England in season, they're both much tastier and smaller.

I have to agree, I travel Europe alot too, meals in London and Prague are plenty big. I had a seven course dinner in Paris that my Local friend took me too to share a place she would regularly go with her family, who are quite thin. I think a combination of multiple factors including less sugars, ample walking, a general culture of baseline thinness, and cheap/affordable/healthy snacks at bodegas/grocery stores. I tend to lose weight in europe by adopting this lifestyle, coffee and a croissant in the morning, a small cold cuts and cheese for lunch and a large dinner with wine. This is also a metropolitan lifestyle, could it be that city life is more conductive to staying thin?

Last time I went to london though, the obesity problem was looking bad.

One other point I want to make is that young people in europe do tend to look healthier than young people in america, I believe the food quality and standards/lower supply of fast food franchises helps alot. Quick food in europe tends to offer healthier and higher quality options.

I can certainly believe that a non-trivial part of overeating in the US is having 2 or even 3 high calorie meals per day (plus snacks)--rather than people routinely eating dinners that are too big.

>could it be that city life is more conductive to staying thin

Maybe? I'm not sure most people walk enough in a city on a day-to-day basis going into an office to really move the needle. And they're probably eating out more and cooking at home less than they would if they had to hop in a car and drive somewhere. Which certainly can lead to eating more than you want.

> Last time I went to london though, the obesity problem was looking bad.

Indeed, some parts of Europe do have obesity problems too. England obviously, but France is catching up. Junk food is getting increasingly pervasive. I think we're just lagging 10 years behind the US but we're getting there.

> at some point they will mention how portion sizes are gigantic.

Do you generally have doggy-bags (leftovers carry-out) outside the US? The portions sizes are large for a few reasons: 1) pricing needs to stay high as rents are still high or the restaurant will fold (most do anyway). 2) people often take leftovers home

So you pay higher prices for more food, and a 2nd (or sometimes 3rd) meal at home.

I think the bigger issue is that due to sprawl and walk/bike-unfriendliness, people take their cars everywhere. As a part of COVID restrictions my family has started using bikes to things we would normally get in a car for - e.g. get takeout or library - but most people don't.

My parents ran a restaurant, and my extended family run restaurants in different countries.

In most places I'd say you can get a doggy-bag, but unless it's because your kids won't eat, you won't. Unless you're going to take-away most of the meal, you probably won't need a box. People do sometimes not eat everything, but there's not a lot of point in saving two or three bites.

My sense is that most restaurants in the US could just charge more for the same, and people would just pay it. Perhaps the doggy-bag thing has changed expectations so that won't work, who knows.

I'm not sure cycling is going to fix obesity. If you're getting a meal that's 2x what it's supposed to be, which seems to be what happens in the US, and a normal meal at a restaurant is maybe 1000-1500 calories, cycling isn't gonna be enough to help you. For reference I can do maybe 10 calories a minute on my elliptical, and I can hold that pace for maybe an hour. And that's some workout, quite a lot harder than a bike ride.

> I'm not sure cycling is going to fix obesity

Agree, but it helps. You can burn a few hundred kcal everyday with light exercise which helps to maintain a healthy weight. But of course, no realistic amount of exercise will help to compensate for a junk food diet (especially if you're already overweight and unable to exercise safely).

The whole world uses take-home bags. They are just smaller in other countries.

I’ve never heard of using doggy bags in Spain and it sounds, quite frankly, weird to take leftovers back home.

I thought it was considered rude to ask for take-home bags in countries like France. However, looks like that might be changing [1].

[1] https://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/french-culture/french-doggy...

It is changing and it's great. It used to be unheard of (or even made fun of), but nowadays it's acceptable in most places. That being said, I rarely have the need for one except in Indian restaurants.

In the UK, I don't think I have ever seen someone ask to take food home served in a restaurant, except people with an american accent.

Large sizes at the supermarket, I think, are simply because Americans shop maybe once a week at the supermarket while Europeans will shop everyday or every other day.

This is because Americans will typically drive to the supermarket and can carry a lot of stuff home, while Europeans will take public transport or walk, and can't carry as much.

Additionally houses in Europe are a lot smaller and they just don't have room to store so much, while in America houses tend to be larger (at least if you're not in a dense city).

I think Europeans also just care more about the freshness of their food than typical Americans, and they're willing to shop more often for it (i'm American but know Europeans who have culture shock when visiting the US and see the mass-produced, packaged food here).

Also we drive everywhere. Other countries in Europe/Asia/Africa walking is normal. People will walk to their neighbor, the park, work, or the market. US cities have some walk-ability features but streets in US suburbs are not walkable, you have to drive everywhere. Even if you walk here in the suburbs, people in their cars rubberneck and find you interesting. My observations anyway.

I have lost some weight during the quarantine. My explanation is that when working at the office I typically have lunch with a deli sandwich or something from a food truck. These portions are set based on a) what the business needs to charge per portion to stay solvent, and b) what the downtown office worker expects to get for that price ($8 to $12, say.) At home, I eat a lighter lunch, and some pounds have come off.

> Finally, sweets and junk food in America are like crack.

They are literally engineered this way and companies spend billions on the process.

Everyone should read the book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (2014)

https://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/08129...

> sweets in America are like crack...I don't know what they put in it

They don't put sugar but some sugar-like substance. They can get away by calling it sugar nevertheless. Run this simple test - go to an Indian store & buy Cadbury's Milk Chocolate. This is the Cadbury's not manufactured in America, but imported from India. Now buy the same Cadbury's Milk Chocolate from the Candy aisle in any American supermarket. That's the garbage made right here in USA by Hershey (which owns Cadbury). The taste is different. The calories are different. The effect is different. And this isn't just me - a ton of people know this:

https://www.businessinsider.com/cadbury-chocolate-different-...

> I went to a supermarket and you can mega sized versions of just about anything.

Americans love bulk purchase discounts. Contrast that to time I spent in France where seemingly invariably larger packages would cost more per quantity than smaller ones. Seeing that did weird things to my brain.

>> portion sizes are gigantic

Agreed. My wife and I typically get an appetizer and split a dish at restaurants. In lieu of having to pay for another meal we typically tip nicely.

Salt.

Next time you're in the US, go to a Costco - it's where Americans go when normal portion sizes are too small. Sizes are 2-4x regular grocery store sizes. It's the America of America.

ETA: and they have free samples :)

Costco is a wholesale warehouse. They're selling things in bulk, which isn't exactly the same thing as "large portion sizes."

Idk - everyone I see there looks like they're shopping for a family. They're a wholesale warehouse like Wal-Mart is/was a wholesale warehouse... it's still meant for individuals.

I can’t buy bulk food at Wal-Mart like I do at Costco, I agree with the comment you’re responding to. Costco sells in bulk which causes the prices to be lower (or seem lower, relatively) and I know of quite a few restaurants who source their ingredients from there, which may make up some of the people you see with carts loaded with things like coffee or tomatoes.