The Two Okinawan Diet Rules (or How I’m Getting Leaner During the Holidays)

Sent to you via Google Reader

The Two Okinawan Diet Rules (or How I'm Getting Leaner During the Holidays)

Article by Leo Babauta. (Follow me on Twitter.)

Like many people, I tend to overeat during the holidays, from Thanksgiving through New Year's. It's kinda part of the tradition to consume huge amounts of food, you know?

And like many others, I also tend to gain weight during the holidays — some people can gain 5 or more pounds (though for most it's usually only a couple pounds).

Not this time around.

On Thanksgiving, while I enjoyed time with my family, and while everyone else pigged out, I ate moderately and wisely. And I felt great about it. I also got a great workout in the morning after — heavy deadlifts followed by two brutal 10-minute weight circuits and finished with 15 minutes of hard intervals.

This will be the healthiest holiday season ever for me. I'm also starting a meal plan and exercise routine that will have me drop some fat while gaining muscle by New Years, I promise. I'll publish more about this plan after I see the results (3 pounds dropped already).

But the really cool thing I started on Thanksgiving comes from the Okinawan people (who don't live too far away from my home, the beautiful island of Guam).

The Okinawan Diet Rules

The Okinawans (the indiginous people of the Ryukyu islands in Japan) are famous for having the longest life expectancy in the world. This single fact has had them studied from every angle, from diet to lifestyle to genetics to environment. And while all of these have played a factor, there's no doubt that their traditional diet has played a big part — when they eat a more modern, Western-style diet, they don't live as long or as healthy.

So what's their secret? Actually, there are two secrets (and they're not really secrets), and I used these rules to guide my eating on Thanksgiving (and beyond):

Rule 1. Eat to 80% full. The Okinawans call this rule "Hara Hachi Bu", and if you haven't tried it, you should. I did this on Thanksgiving — while I usually stuff myself with all the good food, I just ate until I was about 80% full. Of course, there's no way to know exactly how full you are, but it's a guideline. And as our brains are 10-20 minutes behind our stomachs, it usually turns out that when you think you're 80% full, you're actually full … while when we eat to 100% full, we are usually overstuffing ourselves.

The result of this rule for Okinawans is that they end up eating fewer calories than most people. They tend not to gain too much weight as a result, and coupled with their active lifestyles (they farm and garden and ...