It's a familiar scenario: The beer drinking and fried-food-eating farang shopping for clothes that don't seem fit correctly. Of course, the farang ooan (fat) physique is far from the mental images of Adonis or the catwalk models of Milan. Nor does it tend to fit into the typical clothes that seem designed for people with no shoulders or upper legs.

Many people who have come to Asia have found that the spare tire on their waist or the girth of their hips is outwardly expanding. All the nights spent around town, guzzling beer and inhaling late night chips at their favorite pub seem to have a way of sneaking up on the midsections.

However, by adjusting your approach to health and fitness, you can shed the farang physique and create a body that you can proudly stroll along the sun baked beaches of Samui, Phuket or Pattaya. By changing some of your daily nutritional routines and exercise habits, you will not only look better, but be able to approach your job and life with newfound energy and vigor.

Examine Your Habits
In order to change your body, you must first recognize the habits that have already been created in your daily routine. Write down what your daily routine looks like and examine which parts of your routine might be adding pounds to your frame. Most people have a daily routine that consists of the same types of foods on most days. Start by changing one habit at a time, incorporating a healthier, more productive habit in its place. If you tend to stop by the bakery on the way home each day to pick up a snack, you might try stopping by the market to pick up some apples instead. Most psychologists believe it takes around 21 to 30 days to recreate the neurological pathways in the brain that create habits. So, be persistent and patient with yourself as you gradually incorporate the new habits that will transform your body right before your eyes.

Don't diet'
Many people do the wrong things when they find that they've put on extra pounds. They usually assume they are eating too much and proceed to drastically limit their calorie consumption. By lowering the calorie intake too much, the body will lower its metabolism (amount of calories it burns to maintain basic functions) to counteract the decrease in calories. Any drop in metabolism will disrupt the long-term goal of becoming fit. Soon, the feelings of lethargy and irritability set in, often causing many people to rely on such things as coffee (especially the sugar infested ice coffees) to get them through their day? When dinner time finally arrives, the starving teacher is ready to eat anything he can get his whiteboard marker stained hands on. At this point, tom yum or fruit will be of no help to this mad hunger, so he must resort to something that has worked in the past. KFC! This type of impulsive behavior will only result in the feeling of hopelessness in our own abilities to achieve our fitness goals.

Eat 4 to 6 small meals a day
One of the first things you can do to improve your fitness level and your body's appearance is to eat smaller portions of food gradually throughout the day. By eating smaller portions of food every three hours (or 4 to 6 times a day), you can keep yourself from getting so hungry that our choices of food are limited to that which is easiest and most satiating at the time (like pub food or fast food). Also, by eating smaller portions of food more frequently, the blood sugar levels will stabilize, keeping you from getting cravings for simple carbohydrates such as sugar.

A great way to accomplish this is to eat a high fiber breakfast, a small snack, lunch, a small snack, and then dinner. This type of eating plan will stabilize your blood sugar and have an incredibly positive effect on both your energy levels and mood throughout the day. Though eating frequently is important, it is also important to make the right decisions when choosing which foods to snack on.

Be sure to eat plenty of fiber and protein while reducing simple carbohydrates. One of the biggest changes someone can make in their nutritional habits is to include more fiber and protein in their diet.

Fiber is in many ways the “magic health pill” people have been seeking. Fiber is the non-digestible part of the fruits, vegetables and grains that you SHOULD be eating daily. Fiber slows down the absorption of the carbohydrates you are eating, thereby helping keep your insulin production low and the blood sugar levels stable throughout the day. By avoiding that big insulin spike, you hinder your body's ability to store fat, putting it into a fat-burning state, instead. It has also been well documented that fiber helps prevent cancer, heart disease, diabetes and a host of other common health problems.

In addition to eating more often and increasing your fiber intake, it is also important to restrict the amount of simple carbohydrates (carbohydrates that are quickly absorbed by the body) you are eating while keeping your protein levels up.

Refined sugar is the biggest culprit of obesity among foreign teachers. Ice coffee, sodas, bakeries and sweets are all loaded with sugar. Every time we choose to eat them we give a sudden rise to our blood sugar level, causing the pancreas to release insulin into the blood stream. Our body is now in prime fat storing mode and its ability to burn fat is halted.

Rice and white bread are also converted to sugar very easily once inside the body. It is best to try and eat them with meat (protein) and fiber (especially vegetables) to slow down the absorption of the glucose (sugar at its simplest form) into the blood stream, minimizing the effects on the blood sugar level.

Move your body!
Now that your dietary habits are under reconstruction, we can focus on the body itself. Let's face it; Thailand often times provides many people with a pretty laid back lifestyle. If walking up the stairs at the BTS station was an efficient form of burning calories, everyone here would already be a lean, mean, fat free machine! But the truth is, we need to make time to take care of our body. There are numerous ways to achieve the physical activity needed to shape up.

The first and best way to increase your physical activity is to find a gym that is near enough to your home or work that you will not find excuses for not having time to get there. If you do not drive, it is recommended that you find a gym near a bus stop or a SkyTrain or Subway station. Increase your metabolism through weight training.

Whether you are male or female, it is important to begin a weight training program. Lifting weights does not mean you are going to turn yourself into Arnold Swarzenegger.

However, weight training will ensure is an increase in your metabolic rate (metabolism), which means you will be burning more calories (from stored fat and sugar) twenty four hours a day seven days a week. One pound of muscle takes up about 20% of the amount of space of the same weight of bodyfat. If you lose a pound of fat, and gain a pound of muscle, your body will get smaller.

Do cardiovascular training to improve your cardiovascular system and increase your caloric expenditure.

It is also important to begin some type of cardiovascular workout like walking/running on a treadmill or working on a stationary bicycle. Cardio workouts should coincide with your weight training program to improve your body's ability to function both aerobically and an anaerobically. This might be a burden to those who smoke, but the advantages will be well worth it. Cardiovascular workouts will improve your body's ability to make the best out of the oxygen it breathes as well as increase your calorie expenditure and trim your waistline. Your cardiovascular workouts need not be long to yield results. 15 to 20 minutes of higher intensity cardio work is sufficient for most people. A 100 meter sprinter achieves his fit body utilizing weight training exercises such as squats and high intensity, short duration cardiovascular workouts consisting of windsprints, rather than long bouts on a treadmill. If you have any questions about which exercises to do at the gym, do some research or ask one of the fitness instructors at your gym.

Another way to improve your physical fitness is to simply move more outside the gym. Play some tennis, go swimming, go jogging in the park or just go for a walk. Instead of always opting for the motor bike or car, try walking to the market. Choose the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator. Make many small changes in your daily routine where you can. They may not seem like much when you do them, but over the course of a month, those small changes can yield tremendous results!

By incorporating these simple guidelines into your lifestyle, you will find that it is easy to shed yourself of the unfit “farang ooun” body and create a new, healthier body with a higher level of fitness.

You will find the quality of life improving along with your fitness levels. Small things, such as the hot humid weather, or carrying groceries up three flights of stairs will not seem as painstaking as they had seemed before.

In the end, people are generally happier when they are feeling good about themselves. Working out, and eating healthy will help you feel better about yourself, helping you become a healthier and more positive person to everyone around you!