Japanese Women Don't Get Fat or Old?

As I was lazing around my house Sunday after a gluttonous wedding weekend as a Matron of Honor I was perusing the health and fitness videos on MSN.com and came across a clip from the Today show where Katie Couric interviews the author of Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother's Tokyo Kitchen.

I'm Chinese, I buy into the idea that the average Asian diet is healthier than the average American diet so of course, I kept watching. Apparently there are 7 basic guidelines.

Here's the gist with my own little spin:

1. Healthy ingredients make for healthy food. Eat homemmade meals preferably using fish, soy, vegetables and fruit. She made a point in the interview of noting that chicken is fine, the key is less red meat.

2. Get Closer to the Grain. Use rice instead of bread. Brown rice is preferred.

3. Small Plates, Smaller Body. Eat smaller portions by serving your food separately on small plates. The sample meal in the video included a small bowl of miso soup, a small bowl of mixed green salad, a small plate of chicken, a small bowl of rice, a small plate of multicolored vegetables and a pot of green tea with cup. Visually it looked like a lot and full of healthy and appetizing foods.

4. Miso Happy Day. Have a bowl of miso soup for breakfast, which is traditional in Japan because of ease and quickness of preparation, it's high nutrient, protein and fiber values and because it's just plain delicious.

5. Small Desserts. No really, that pazookie is not small enough.

6. Light and Gentle Cooking. I'm a big proponent of raw fish and other sea life but this concept lends itself to general Japanese cooking. Steaming, brief boiling, anything that doesn't impact the original ingredient too far from it's original flavors is preferred. Yes, I am talking to you Broccoli Casserole.

7. Hari Hachi Bunme. This is the Japanese art of not stuffing your face until you're full ala some pizza buffet. The author more tactifully put it as eating small amounts of food whenever you like until you are 80 percent full.

Pretty solid ideas except I like foods from other cultures. There's got to be easier, wider guidelines. I'll think on it and get back to you soon.

Image courtesy of Finnair.com.

The Diet Derailer: Weekends

What is it about weekends that make them such a huge diet derailer? Is it the lack of routine? The copious amounts of partying and meals with friends? The idea that it's a minivacation amid the week of responsible behavior?

All I know is that come Monday I'm struggling to get back to my healthy lifestyle changes, find that I'm at least a lb heavier than I was Friday morning, and sometimes nursing a hazy post weekend buzzy headache. Am I alone here?

On Mondays, I try to go back and enter everything I can remember consuming into my diet journal because despite the fact that I have a program that will wirelessly sync the data from my cellphone to the website, on weekends I just can't seem to find the concentration to even think about calories. Even with the memory blocks that might have occured in a retrospective calorie count, I still blow my caloric intake off the rails! (Read: 1000 calories over par.) Partner that with the fact that I RARELY make it to the gym on the weekends and I'm basically reversing my entire weeks progress in the matter of 2 days!

Here's what I'm going to do to get my train on track this weekend:

1. Drink More. Water that is. Between every glass of beer while bowling, every drink while bar hopping, every wine glass at dinner there will be a glass of water instead. I don't care if it doesn't look cool, I'm starting to think that I'm imbibing more alcohol than I have use for just because it's something to do between gutter balls, funny stories and courses respectively.

2. Eat More. Leafy green vegetables I mean. I will sneak some spinach into a breakfast omelette, a salad before every gluttonous meal just to take up space in this cavernous pit I call a stomach. More goodness in my stomach means less room for that cheesecake that keeps giving me the eye.

3. Play More. If I'm not going to get to the gym because I'm too busy socializing, then I can play while I entertain my friends. A game of tennis here, frisbee golf there, maybe even a bike ride to the beach. The possibilities: endless.

4. Pamper myself. Ok, this is more of a perspective shift. For most of the week, because I workout early in the morning before work, I never get a chance to sit in the steam room or sauna or hang out in the spa. I think if I make it the first thing I do on Sunday with the purpose of relaxation versus working out I could actually convince myself to get into the gym on... wait for it... a weekend. *gasp*