RSD1

Well done. A great success story. 👍🏼

I don't mean to sound patronizing, but all the stuff you said about it not being so necessary to lose weight, and to try and get in better health in order to live a long life are the types of anecdotal comments you hear from people when they don't want to deal with taking the necessary responsibility needed to tackle chronic health issues. I used to know a woman who smoked heavily and unfortunately she died not too long ago from emphysema, but she always used to compare herself to people much older than her who smoked a lot too and would say that they are still alive and so the risks of smoking can't be that serious. Denial. But it was too late when she realized that. There is also that old joke about you go to the doctor and he tells you that you have six months to live and then you pay him $1000 and he gives you another six months. But more back on point, being overweight is always unhealthy. It puts unnecessary strain on the internal organs, particularly the heart, it often increases fat around your liver and kidneys which hinders their functionality, and it greatly increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. It also can cause inflammation of the arteries, which isn't good, and it can lead to joint problems. Also, if you already have type two diabetes, and you're overweight, the chances of you eventually needing regular insulin injections and possibly developing other symptoms related to diabetes like blindness increases, considerably. So just because your doctor doesn't tell you to lose weight when you're overweight doesn't mean that it's an OK thing. You can lose weight. Very many people do. It's definitely not an impossibility. I also have a friend in Thailand who started taking some of those new weight loss drugs recently, it's not that expensive, and he's losing weight steadily. He's also somebody that's been overweight for most of his life. And now that he's in his late 50s, it's really good that he's dropping the weight before he starts developing chronic diseases. And his weight is coming off at healthy level of about 1 kg a week. It wouldn't be a bad idea to take this situation a bit more seriously. Having diabetes puts you in a much higher mortality risk category if you're overweight. I'm sure others here will agree with what I am saying here even if it's not what you want to hear.

The white rice, brown rice thing makes very little difference actually in terms of calories or fat storage.

For a standard shot (1.5 oz or 44 ml), Lao Khao can contain approximately 97-140 calories, similar to vodka or other spirits. Five shots of that per day adds up too.

Yes, people like that most likely won’t be overweight. And it’s much less likely that the old villagers who’ve been eating that same way for decades won’t be getting too overweight either. The figures also don’t show that everybody in the country is obese. 50% are not. So those you mention fall into that other 50% who aren’t overweight. You need to go into any of the densely populated city centers in Thailand and look around. It’s pretty starkly obvious. Khon Kaen, Korat, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, etc, it’s unmistakable.

I was throwing you a bone and giving you a chance to clean up your public image. I forgot though, you love your public image just right where it is. 😂

There is a really easy way to lose weight without really going on a diet. Just figure out the two most calorically dense items in your diet and cut them out. For example, if you eat 3 to 4 egg yolks a day and a few handfuls of nuts per day, just cut that out. That alone would probably drop 500-700 calories from your diet a day. After about 10 days, your body will start noticing the change and burning up more calories from storage. And you're probably going to start losing about a kilo a week. Alcohol is another very highly calorically dense food item. This is just an example because I don't know what you eat. But if you can identify the highest calorie items and replace them with lower calorie items, then you wouldn't even feel like you're on a diet and you would probably just start losing weight slowly but consistently.

You're right, because of the high carb diet, a lot of them have very high triglyceride levels, which can lead to fatty liver disease.

It just depends on the number of calories in and calories out. Some people can eat a large portion of white rice and not put on weight if they're extremely active. It doesn't make the rice healthy, or nutritious, but it may not make them fat if they have a high metabolism and do enough to burn it off.

Wow, those are big swings in bodyweight. Also not that healthy actually to swing so much as you get older. But as your age, it's actually better to be slightly overweight than slightly underweight. It will make you a bit more resilient to illness. But as you know, too much overweight isn't good either.

Yes, we can sit around and complain about the aesthetics of obesity or that it's one person's own choice what they want to do with themselves. But it's so much more than that. It's turning into a large Public Health crisis that I think, 10 years from now, the government will be struggling to deal with. It's gonna put a lot of extra unnecessary financial strain on the healthcare system. Obesity levels in Thailand has far surpassed Western countries now. Statistically, obesity in the UK is actually also relatively fairly low.

A lot of it has to do with the sedentary lifestyle too of the younger generation. And a woman who is 75 years old, probably has been eating and living the same sort of active lifestyle, her whole life. So all the dietary changes that occurred in Thailand over the last 30 years or so for the next generation probably haven't affected her in any negative way.

It's probably the beer that's making up for the low calorie intake from food. Not the best type of calories, but it probably prevents you from going into rapid weight loss.

Yup, big wallet and small penis. It goes a long way in Thailand. Well done bob. I often suffer a surcharge because of the large size of my third leg.

But it's good value for money, bob. Two for the price of one. You see, it's all about perception.

Really? Any other snacking throughout the day? A lot of beer? If I ate like you, I would be losing weight very fast. And not in a good way.

That is very true too. And even if the ones in the provinces have no access to Western food, there is plenty of high calorie junk and processed foods containing trans fats, and other calorically rich stuff that quickly packs on the kilos. Some of those instant noodle packages, the larger ones, can have as much as nearly 500 calories in one pack. If they eat two of those a day, and wash it down with some sort of sweet, sugary drink, then that alone could be close to 2000 calories a day. If you're a person that only weighs 50 kg then that would be a high caloric surplus.

Ah, so you bring your pocket scale with you. Well done Bob S.

The Thais are less likely to be standing on the street to begin with these days. Many of them left en masse when the Indians started showing up in large numbers after Covid.

If they ate more Western food, they might be healthier and less overweight actually. It's all the rice and noodles and the sugar in the beverages that are all very calorically dense. There is also a lot of palm oil in the local cooking, which is also very calorically dense as well. Anything with coconut in it again is also calorically dense. And all those Thai deep-fried snacks like bananas and other types of fritters with corn and other stuff. Again, lots of calories.

The few times a year that I ride the skytrain in Bangkok, I try and spend the time counting the number of locals that are overweight versus the number that are not overweight. I would say it is in the range of about 50%. Sometimes what we consider overweight visually may also not be the true picture. Locals are small people to begin with and many of them are not very tall. So it's very easy for them to exceed a healthy BMI index without it being so obvious to the eye. Next time you are in a place in Thailand where there is a group of people for a sustained period of time, and they aren't coming or going, then try and do some counting yourself. As the article says though, the problem is much higher in Bangkok than in the provinces. And Bangkok does account for around 15%-20% of the country's total population.

Isn't it good though bob, when you're in a Soi 6 bar going short time, the music is so loud, and she has her thunder thighs wrapped around your head, drowning out all the noise?

Yes, it's a mathematical calculation. If you sleep with one prostitute 3 times a week, who sleeps with 25-30 customers a week, then that's your mathematical risk of infection. If you sleep with 3 different prostitutes a week, and each of them is sleeping with 25-30 customers a week, then mathematically your exposure and risk is much higher.

Also, in Bangkok, there aren't many from Uganda at all. The majority of them are under age 30 and are from Tanzania. I think Tanzania has around the same 5% average infection rate amongst the population. But I don't know if it's higher amongst Tanzanian women aged 30 to 50. As I said, though, you won't find that many above the age of 30 in Bangkok.

Yes, that's the best policy if that works for you. The other option is to get onto those PrEP drugs yourself.