Muscle training, carbohydrate restriction, cutting out oil…all of these are wrong.
Western diets are not necessarily suitable for Japanese people
- Raise your basal metabolism with muscle training and you’ll lose weight.
- Yakiniku is not fattening if you don’t eat white rice.
- If you drink beer or spirits with no carbohydrates, you won’t get fat.
These are “common sense” diet beliefs that everyone believes, but in fact, they are all wrong. But in fact, they are all wrong. There is no way to lose weight and gain weight.
It may sound harsh to those who are dieting for the summer, but Japanese people are constitutionally predisposed to gain visceral fat. In addition, it is difficult to build muscle mass, and the basal metabolic rate decreases during the summer, which is not good for dieting.
However, all that is circulating is diet information “from the West. Even if the information itself is correct, there are many diets that do not apply to Japanese people.
According to Dr. Masako Okuda, an internist and industrial physician who has treated more than 300,000 people, many people are stuck on diets that do not suit their constitution and not only do not lose weight but also gain weight.
There are many diets that have been considered good for losing weight, such as carbohydrate restriction, muscle training, oil-free, morning banana ……, and so on. In his book, “Stop This and You Will Lose Weight,” published in May, Dr. Okuda discusses the “NG habits” that should be stopped from these numerous dieting methods and ranks the worst 1 to 7 at the end of the book. In addition to explaining in an easy-to-understand, medically-based manner why the dieting methods that you have been following with good intentions are NG, the book also explains that the shortcut to losing weight is to eliminate the wastefulness of dieting.
Japanese cannot lose weight through “muscle training”!
Recently, carbohydrate restriction and muscle training are booming. For example, some people believe that they can lose weight by increasing basal metabolism through muscle training, or that grilled meat without white rice will not make them fat, so they work out at the gym on weekends and endure “no white rice” and “sugar-free beer. There must be some people who think that if they don’t eat white rice, grilled meat is not fattening.
However, according to Dr. Okuda, these are all diets (NG habits) that should be stopped if one considers the Japanese constitution. He explained these and other three NG habits to us.
If you raise your basal metabolism through muscle training, you should be able to lose weight.
“I often see articles on the Internet that say, ‘If you increase your muscle mass through muscle training, your basal metabolic rate will increase, making it easier to burn fat.
There is no doubt that muscle growth raises the basal metabolic rate. However, it does not mean that you will lose weight.
The reason for this is related to the Japanese constitution, which makes it difficult to build muscle.
Human muscles are composed of a mixture of red and white fibers, with red fibers providing endurance and white fibers providing instantaneous force.
Which is more abundant, red or white, depends on the race. 70% of Japanese people have red fibers. In contrast, people of European and African descent have 70% white fiber. It is a stark contrast.
And it is the white fibers, of which Japanese have only 30%, that become bigger through muscle training.
Furthermore, even if you put in the effort to build muscle, the increase in basal metabolic rate that results is negligible. Considering this, it must be said that the “build muscle, raise basal metabolic rate, and lose weight” diet is very inefficient for Japanese people.
Then, what is the most efficient diet method in terms of exercise?
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, East Asians, including the Japanese, tend to have visceral fat. Given this constitution, “aerobic exercise,” rather than muscle training, is the best choice.
First, there are two types of fat in the body, visceral fat and subcutaneous fat, and they differ in nature.
While subcutaneous fat is found on the surface of the entire body, visceral fat, which is found in the abdomen, is considered dangerous fat that can have adverse effects on the body, such as lifestyle-related diseases. Furthermore, when you gain weight, it comes from visceral fat.
The tendency to gain visceral fat is a major weakness for Japanese people in terms of both health and diet. However, there is a positive aspect because when you lose weight, you also lose it from visceral fat.
In terms of exercise, subcutaneous fat can be reduced to some extent by muscle training (anaerobic exercise), but visceral fat can only be reduced by aerobic exercise. Visceral fat cannot be reduced by muscle training. Therefore, if Japanese people want to exercise to lose weight, aerobic exercise is the only way to go. I hope you will remember this.
Is “sugar restriction” right?
Yakiniku is not fattening if there is no white rice
Sugar is now the enemy of dieting. It is easy to think that if you stop eating white rice, you can eat yakiniku without getting fat, because white rice is a carbohydrate. However, yakiniku meat contains a lot of fat, so there is no way you can eat it and not gain weight.
In the past, the general rule was that if you wanted to lose weight, you should cut back on fatty foods such as meat, fried foods, and dairy products. However, not long ago, “carbohydrate restriction” began to be advocated, and the claim that carbohydrates are more problematic than fats is spreading.
However, the argument that “carbohydrates are more problematic than lipids” has gone too far and has been replaced by extreme statements such as, “You don’t have to worry about lipids as long as you watch your carbohydrate intake. However, the argument that “carbohydrates are more important than fats” has gone too far, and has been replaced by an extreme view such as “you don’t have to worry about fats as long as you watch your carbohydrate intake.
Lipid is a mass of oil. To burn 1 gram of a piece of fat, you need to consume 9 calories. In contrast, carbohydrates consume less than half of that, only 4 kilocalories. It is clear that we should cut back on fat intake. On top of that, I think it is a well-balanced approach to look at reducing carbohydrates as well, rather than just cutting back on lipids and feeling relieved.
Many people drink beer every night thinking that they will not gain weight if it is sugar-free, but alcohol has calories (a 350 ml can of beer contains about 100 calories). Naturally, too much of it will make you fat. Although people tend to focus only on carbohydrates, carbohydrates are not the only enemy of weight loss.
Eat the same amount of calories in summer as you do in winter.
Hot summer will soon arrive. Some people may try to maintain their strength by eating eels and pork cutlets with the excuse that “summer consumes a lot of energy and calories, so I should be fine.
However, this is a big mistake. In the case of the Japanese, “basal metabolic rate fluctuates with the seasons. In summer, the basal metabolic rate is 8% lower than in winter, so if you eat the same amount of calories in summer as you do in winter, you will definitely gain weight.
There is data showing that the basal metabolic rate of people of European descent is constant throughout the year, but the basal metabolic rate of Japanese people changes with the seasons. Perhaps as a result of the body’s adaptation to Japan’s hot and humid summers, the basal metabolic rate is higher in winter and lower in summer.
In winter, when the temperature is lower, the body needs to burn energy and generate heat to maintain body temperature, so the basal metabolic rate is higher. On the other hand, in summer, when the temperature is higher, the body can easily maintain its temperature without burning energy. This is why the basal metabolic rate is lower in summer.
In other words, since fewer calories are consumed in summer than in other seasons, eating the same amount of food in summer will result in weight gain.
In summer, when calorie consumption is low, there is no need to take in more calories, which naturally reduces appetite. It is a well-designed body mechanism, but some people misunderstand the loss of appetite as a “bad thing.
If you don’t eat, you will suffer from summer fatigue, lose strength, and lose resistance, so you need something that gives you stamina. When your stamina drops, you should rest your body.
You do not need to be as active as in other seasons. It is enough if you make a conscious effort to consume vegetables, because you need to replenish your body with vitamins and minerals that your body cannot store, as well as water.
It is natural for a healthy person to lose appetite in summer. If you are trying to lose weight, it is best to let nature take its course.
Reducing calorie intake is good for your health.
Many people suffering from obesity are unaware of their wrong eating habits, and “more to the point, I worry that they are turning a blind eye,” says Dr. Okuda.
When I ask patients why they cannot lose weight, many blame lack of exercise when in reality it is due to overeating, or they list popular foods such as bananas and avocados and say, ‘I eat them because they are good for weight loss, but I cannot lose weight.
It is impossible to eat any food and lose weight. The reason they can’t lose weight is because of their diet, but they don’t want to focus on that. It is very unfortunate.”
In order for Japanese people to lose weight, it is important for them to do the aerobic exercise mentioned above for exercise, and to keep in mind the “diet for not gaining weight” for diet. To achieve this, it is important to keep in mind the “golden rule of dieting.
Dr. Okuda believes that the “golden rule” of dieting for Japanese people is to “reduce calorie intake, then reduce fat, and then reduce carbohydrates.
The first step in a “diet for avoiding weight gain” is to reduce calorie intake. After all, no matter what you eat, you will gain weight if you consume fewer calories than you consume.
This was proven in a study conducted by an American nutrition expert who experimented on himself.
He kept his daily calorie intake to 1,800 calories, half the average American, and ate only junk food every day for 10 weeks.
After 10 weeks, he had lost 12 kg. Not only did he lose weight, but his cholesterol and blood sugar levels dropped, and he woke up in the morning feeling refreshed, energized, and so much better that he felt like a new person.
The experiments were conducted by experts following a medical program, so the general public should not imitate them, but it became clear that calorie intake is the most important factor in losing weight, and that if you reduce calories, you will be healthier.
So why is it preferable to reduce fat first rather than carbohydrates?
As I mentioned in “No White Rice, No Fat from Grilled Meat,” there are many different opinions on whether to reduce fat or carbohydrates.
However, this issue also has a lot to do with racial differences. The way insulin works is different. In recent years, we have come to understand whether we should cut back on fat or carbohydrates depending on these differences.
In fact, East Asians, including the Japanese, originally secrete only half to one-fourth the amount of insulin of people of European descent. However, East Asians’ insulin works better than that of Europeans. It works better. However, the effectiveness of insulin also deteriorates when Japanese people become obese, so it is important to eliminate obesity in this sense as well.
As a result of research based on these differences in constitution, we have found that a “low-carbohydrate diet” is desirable for people of European descent with high insulin secretion and poor insulin function to become healthy, while a “low-lipid diet” is suitable for East Asians with low insulin secretion and high insulin function.
The reasons for this are still under study, so here is my theory.
I mentioned earlier that a part of carbohydrates turns into lipids, but I think that Japanese people, for whom insulin originally works very well, have a hard time turning into lipids because insulin works effectively and can be processed quickly. Therefore, even if they take the same amount of carbohydrates as people of European descent, less sugar is converted into lipids. Therefore, I assume that dieting with less fat is more effective than dieting with less sugar.
Therefore, the “golden rule of dieting” is to first reduce calorie intake, then fat, and then sugar. I hope that you will review your diet with this in mind.
Masako Okuda graduated from Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine. Completed graduate studies at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine. Doctor of Medicine, Kyoto University. Engaged in basic research as a doctoral student. She was attracted to the philosophy of preventive medicine while considering what life and health are, and has examined and treated more than 300,000 people in total at medical checkups and physical examinations. He has also translated foreign medical literature and medical books. He also serves as an industrial physician for an airline company and continues to provide comprehensive medical care, including stress management. She is the author of “So Different from Westerners: The ‘Constitution’ of the Japanese” (Kodansha Blue Backs), “Lose Visceral Fat the Fastest” (Gentosha Shinsho), “Stop This and You Will Lose Weight” (Toyo Keizai Shinposha), and “Super Translation: Yosei-kun: Yosei-kun Soshiki ni Narenai Bodi wo Tsukuru” (Discover Twenty One), among other books.
Interview and text by： Keiko Tsuji
