2019年3月9日土曜日

2019年3月9日土曜日 -

How I lost 17 kilos without exercise!


Coming from America, Japan is often seen as a country with an extremely healthy population, which is attributed to good lifestyle and diet. Japanese eating practices such as hara hachi bu are often touted as weight loss advice in American articles. The first time I came to Japan I stayed with a host family, and my host mother, a full-time homemaker, made me healthy Japanese meals almost every night. I had always had a pretty unhealthy lifestyle, so naturally in a year of eating Japanese food I lost some weight.

That was in 2015. In 2016 I came back to Japan, this time to Osaka. There was no mother to cook for me, and now I had a tiny kitchen and a small set of things I knew how to cook. Based on my previous experience, however, I had determined that Japanese food was healthy, so I could eat pretty much whatever I wanted. After two years of living this way, I realized that my favorite skirt no longer fit me, and I decided to check the scale. In August 2018 I was 88 kilos, and being a short girl of only 157 centimeters, that was quite heavy. I was shocked, and I knew I had to change my lifestyle.

I started doing some research online and I quickly found that Japan has a lot of diet drinks, diet pills, and strange leggings that make your legs slimmer, but I decided to go for a more natural approach. I decided to cut out all starches, such as rice, bread, and noodles. I also cut diary products like milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream. Sweets and fried food were out as well.

At first it was quite difficult and I always felt sad seeing pictures of food that I wasn't allowed to eat, and walking by restaurants where I could smell the karaage or bread from outside was torture. However, by changing my diet I started seeing results almost immediately, and that kept me going. It's March 2019 now, and I weigh about 71 kilos. Of course I still have some weight to lose, and these days I don't keep my diet so strict. My rule is that when I eat alone, I try to keep my meal as healthy as possible. When I go out with friends, maybe I can have a little rice or something fried, or a small dessert. The key is remembering that I'm not on a "diet" that's going to end one day. Rather, I try to be as healthy as possible, but I don't feel too guilty when I eat something that's not.

 extremely: 極めて
attribute to:　～によるものとみなす
base on: ～に基づく
determine:～と決定する
no longer: もはや～でない
slimmer:　スリム
starches:　でんぷん質の食べ物
diary products:　乳製品
quite:　非常に
torture:　拷問
immediately:　すぐに
guilty:　罪の自覚がある