Japan is healthy!

The Japanese are very small. Dave & I are not tall, so it's kind of nice looking in everyone's eyes here (seriously, when we traveled home at December I was surprised to realize how many of our family and friends are so much taller than we are!). Still, compared to them, we are huge. Japanese adults are about the size of junior high Americans. They're short and very very slim. After living like Japanese for a couple of days, I can see why.

Most Japanese families own a car, but it is not used to get to work and/or school. It's used for family outings (vacations, yes, but also shopping, restaurants, visiting grandma, church, etc.). So, most days Japanese ride their bike for a few miles and/or walk to the metro, where they then walk through the station, stand on the metro car, walk through another station, and then walk to school or the market or work or the park. 5 miles per day is average for the Japanese, while the avg. American walks less than 1 mile. (The Japanese invented the concept of 10,000 steps per day for health, did you know that? http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/wellness/steps.html)

I have to say, this is an exhausting amount of steps. We walk a lot, and we like to walk, and this was still a lot of steps.

Also, the Japanese eat really really healthy food.
The most unhealthy thing we ate all weekend was Tempura (i ate it before I took a picture, so this is from google):

As you can see, this is fried vegetables and fish. But, it was served with a bowl of rice, a bowl of tofu miso soup, 2 kinds of cooked vegetables, and hot tea.

Even with the fried part, I'm guessing our large lunch was less than 500 calories.

For dinner, we had sukiyaki and shabu-shabu. This picture is sukiyaki, but they both look really similar. (I have no idea why this is crooked, sorry)


As you can see, this is a pot of meat and vegetables cooked at your table. The menu explained that Japanese really didn't eat meat (pork, chicken, and beef) until the late 18th century. The Japanese people found this meat really yucky looking and were not interested in eating it - kind of like Americans feel about fish, I suspect! So, to "ease them into it" someone came up with this idea of cooking the meat yourself, so that everyone knew what it was. The vegetables are put into the boiling pot of water, to make a delicious broth and also some cooked vegetables. Then, the very thinly sliced meat is cooked one piece at a time in the pot. Each person cooks their own meat and then puts the meat in their own bowl. Each person can add seasonings to their cooked meat as they wish. Sukiyai meat is dipped in raw egg after cooking in the pot and before eating. That sounded gross but was actually delicious.
The amount of meat in this meal was minimal; mainly we ate vegetables and noodles. I would be really surprised if we ate more than 700 calories with this meal.

This was the Denny's breakfast menu. I do not think any American would find a meal here that s/he was used to ordering at Denny's. Also, each meal was posted with its price and its calorie count. Most everything was between 500 and 700 calories.


Dave ordered a very Japanese breakfast, which included sticky rice with sesame seeds and bacon shavings, and a pot of noodle soup with tofu. Very delicious and very filling.


I'm pretty sure if I was here for a few weeks, and was able to avoid the Outback steakhouse and the McDonalds near the hotel, I would lose a few pounds!