Repatriate Me!

since I arrived in Canada in June I’ve gained 6kg. This is definitely not good and I’m now having some trouble putting on my pants – yikes.

I attribute this to two factors. First lifestyle change. I no longer walk anywhere to do anything. Living in Seoul I walked everywhere. Up and down stairs daily while riding the subway, to the supermarket, to the dry cleaners, to coffee shops, to the movie theater, up the big hill at work (my office was at the top of a large hill on campus).

In Canada there is nothing within a reasonable walking distance. The subway in Toronto is not nearly as extensive as it is in Seoul and consequently I don’t need to take it nor do I have any opportunities. In my neighborhood the nearest store that I could walk to is Shoppers Drug Mart and that would take at a minimum 20 minutes to get there. So walking isn’t happening much here – that’s a big change in my physical activity which isn’t using up nearly as many calories as it should.

next and probably more important is food. In Seoul there wasn’t as much availability of foods that I could easily cook. Additionally the restaurant food that I did eat had smaller portions and was generally healthier than what I can get in Toronto (assuming I ate Korean which I usually did). Since I’ve returned to Canada I have tended to eat much more than I did in Korea because I could finally cook stuff that was not easily found to cook in Korea.

For example – didn’t own a bar-be-que in Korea so couldn’t have burgers, steaks, ribs or other grilled food easily.

I’ve also made a roast, which was massive and took over a week for us to finish.

Could never find lasagna noodles or cottage cheese in Korea, now it’s no problem.

Baking – can be done in Korea, but it’s difficult to find all the supplies you need so I usually only made muffins and cookies. Made an apple pie last weekend. Yummy – also picked the apples ourselves at an apple orchard.

So with all this food and lack of exercise it’s easy to see where this expanding waistline has come from. Now it’s a matter of will power and reducing portion size and trying to find some way to increase my physical activity. Unfortunately going to a gym is not an option as the cost is unaffordable at this time.