Vacation In Okinawa – Try The Okinawa Diet

Why go to Okinawa in order to diet? Okinawa has some of the world’s oldest living residents.

The indigenous people of Okinawa eat 20% fewer calories than others in Japan and they have 300% of the vegetables.

In fact, in Okinawa, meat is not even considered a food but a condiment. Okinawa food is very light, nutritious and low calorie.

Okinawa right in your dining room

You do not have to travel to Japan in order to try the Okinawa diet. All you have to do is eat many of the foods that those in Okinawa eat.

Those in Okinawa place the same importance on grains as the American food pyramid, but they ask for an equal number of vegetables in one diet.

Fruit intake remains relatively the same as the recommended American diet. For fish, the Okinawa diet recommends at least one serving.

But the Okinawa diet recommends that you avoid other forms of meat altogether. If necessary, only one serving of meat should be incorporated. Like usual, sweets should be kept to a minimum.

Okinawa concepts

A lot of the principles in the Okinawa diet are similar to other diets. You must consume fewer calories than you take in. But different foods have different calorie density.

You can decrease the amount of food that you consume, but this will only make you hungry and discourage from dieting.

If you instead eat the same amount of food at a lower calorie density, there will be fewer calories that you have to burn.

And since the food is more nutritious, you will not only have to worry about malnutrition, but you will also have more energy to exercise and burn calories.

Good stuff vs. bad stuff

Since the dawn of dieting, dieters have tried to get rid of certain parts of food. Low fat diets led to eliminating fat, without realizing that some fats are good. Antibiotics get rid of bacteria, even though there is some good bacteria.

The low carb diet tries to eliminate carbohydrates, even though there are some good carbohydrates. See the trend? There are actually some carbs, fats, proteins, fibers and fluids that our bodies need in order to function properly. Eliminate these and energy drain and malnutrition will result.

But if you incorporate food that has all of the right carbs, fats, proteins, fibers and fluids, you will become healthier and start to lose weight naturally.

Getting started with the Okinawa diet

So what do you need to do in order to get started? Getting to know the foods that Okinawa residents typically eat is a start, but before even starting this, you should become aware of three important rules of the Okinawa diet.

First, your foods should be light. Second, your foods should mostly be plants. Third, do not eat until you are full. Eat until you are 80% full.