Skinny Asian Woman Becomes Fat in America & Writes Diet Book
Author: Linda Yo


I was a skinny girl when I first came to the United States
twenty two years ago. But after several months of eating
American food, I gained 25 pounds.

For two years, I fought to lose the weight. I read at least a
dozen weight-loss books; I tried diet patches, fat reducing
creams, diet pills, diet tea, Slim-Fast, and everything that was
on commercials at the time. The expensive diet patches and
fat-reducing creams showed no results even though I applied them
religiously. The diet tea gave me diarrhea for a few days, and I
lost a couple of pounds. Then it lost its power, and my stomach
didn't react anymore. Consequently, I gained back the weight,
most of which was probably water anyway. Slim-Fast was just like
any regular milk for me. I would stay full for an hour, and then
be hungry again. It could not substitute for a regular meal.
Diet pills were a scary experience. They made my heart beat so
fast, I thought it was going to explode. I also followed the
directions in the many diet books I bought, but the result was
always yo-yo weight loss; I would lose 5 pounds, then gain back
7 pounds. It was very discouraging.

I began to reflect back on when I was growing up in Asia. I was
a skinny girl with a big appetite. Meals would last for an hour
and I usually ate two to three plates of food in addition to
mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks and also supper. I then
began to realize that American food was the culprit.

My two girlfriends who are also from my country are good cooks.
They cook and eat traditional food all the time. I always
thought they had "skinny genes."

Whenever we went to the mall, they had fun trying on clothes.
However, I could not find anything that looked good on me.
Frustrated, I always ended up going to a bookstore to look for a
new diet book to help me lose weight.

After I reduced my intake of American food and prepared my food
the traditional way, I lost the 25 pounds without hunger or
deprivation.

When I went back to my country, I feasted every day on favorite
foods that I cannot find in the United States. I ate at least
three big meals and two to four snacks every day. I never gained
weight at all.

Even throughout my pregnancy and my good life in a typical
upper middle class family in Indonesia, I stayed slim. This was
in spite of the fact that I was a stay-at-home mom with two
live-in maids who did everything from taking care of the baby to
shopping and cooking for my family.

I have traveled to Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
These are developed countries in Asia where the standard of
living is almost equal to the people in the United States.
However, the people there are noticeably slimmer than the
average American.

Since I love to eat, I observed and asked people lots of
questions about their dietary habits. Their answers confirmed
what I already suspected. The people who maintained their
traditional diet stayed slim while the people who adopted
western dietary habits gained extra weight.

I researched more on this subject by reading weight loss books
and articles and taking nutrition classes. All the good diets
supported by the most respectable experts pointed to a diet
similar to the Asian diet.

There is an extensive study done by Prof. T. Collin Campbell of
Cornell University where he compared the calories intake of the
least active group of Chinese with average American & he found
that those inactive Chinese actually consume 30% more calories
but they weight 20% less than the average American. How is this
possible? One of the reasons is the fact that Asian diet is rich
in resistant starch.

In the past, it was thought that all starch in food is digested
and absorbed by the human body. However, current research has
discovered that a significant portion of starch cannot be
digested and will be expelled from our body. This portion of
starch is called resistant starch.

This means the stomach will not digest this portion of starchy
food, which will come out of the body as waste. What the stomach
cannot digest, the stomach cannot absorb. So when we eat starchy
food that contains resistant starch, we get a reduction of the
calories!

In addition to that, a recent study at the University of
Colorado Health Sciences Center led by Dr. Higgins, published in
the October 2004 issue of Nutrition and Metabolism, found that
the presence of 5.4% resistant starch in a meal increased the
burning of fat in the body by 23%. And this increase is
sustained throughout the day even if only one meal contains
resistant starch.

There are several other reasons why Asian foods prevent obesity
but one of them is definitely because Asian foods are rich in
resistant starches.


About The Author: To get free chapters of "Asian Slim Secrets",
go to http://AsianSlimSecrets.com/. Linda Yo is a certified
weight consultant and the author of Asian Slim Secrets: Enjoy
Food, Stay Slim Naturally! Her weight loss method was praised
celebrities & the media