Hi! I was in Japan and lost 10kg in Japan. I'm replying so this shows up on my wall and those on my FL in Japan can see it. Xxx

There was no mfp back then, but I had a little booklet of calories from a magazine and realised complex carbs counted for a lot of my calories, so simply reduced portion sizes of rice etc and stopped eating so much cake and bread.

I've been not bothering with the forums for a long time now, but I'm still here. Welcome!

When I first came to Japan, I lost a little bit of weight due to the extra exercise from biking everywhere. That motivated me to start trying for real and I took up jogging. I also teach at JHS and ES, so I started halving (sometimes even skipping altogether) the carbohydrate portion of lunch and going back for more vegetables instead.

At the end of the day, I didn't magically lose weight just by coming to Japan (as some people report). I had to work on it the same as I would have had I been back home. However, Japan has a lot of healthy options even at restaurants and combinis, so it's certainly been beneficial.

You requested tips so here you go:

1) Replace some of your carbs with veggies whenever possible, or if that's not possible with protein.

2) If you go to an izakaya, order the yaki-moyashi (a little bit of pork with lots of bean sprouts), sashimi salads, yaki-tori etc. instead of the fried and breaded things like kara-age.

3) A lot of ramen restaurants have a half-size option. Order the half-size veggie ramen for extra veggies in place of noodles. (Veggie ramen still has pork, it's not vegetarian, BTW).

4) The combini has drinking snacks like salted nori, wakame with sesame seeds and lots of dried cuttlefish etc. Not only do they make good snacks in place of potato chips, but you can also sprinkle them on top of salads for extra crunch and flavour.

5) Soba is one of the few whole grain (sort of) options readily available in Japan. Choose it over udon if you're at a noodle restaurant. Order zaru-soba or oroshi-soba instead of the options that come with tempura.

6) At sushi-train restaurants, they often have a miso soup option with extra seaweed in it. I find that it replaces at least one plate of sushi for me and is very low in calories.

7) Even if you can't cook, "arrange" food at home sometimes. Always eat a salad before you eat anything else, so that you're not as hungry. If you are eating take-out food, only dole out some of it onto a plate to reheat and put the rest back the in the fridge. You can always go back and reheat it if you need to, but you might find you weren't really so hungry after all.

8) If you eat anything with high sugar, try to exercise immediately afterwards (It doesn't have to be strenuous, a walk will do). If you go on the forums, someone will tell you that's silly and unnecessary, but studies have shown that excess sugar in the blood will be converted into fat very quickly. I figure that exercising it off right then and there is like heading it off at the pass!

Good luck!

Hello!

I'm also a new foreigner living in Japan. Before I came here, I lost about 10 pounds off of diet and exercise -- I thought that I would have no problem adjusting in Japan, but to my surprise its been a challenge. I'm a JET (working at a high school) and have been placed in the middle of no where (like, rice fields everywhere). No gym, or other familiar facilities, and I have fallen into this comfort eating habit.

I don't have much to lose (I am a size 2-4, so I am quite thin), but I want to maintain my weight and be generally healthy. Before I moved here, I ate tons of fruits and vegetables (I was a vegetarian, but I stopped once I moved to Japan). Eating meat again has been a shock to my system. The prices of fruit (which was a huge staple of my diet prior to my arriving in Japan) has also been a big shock.

I joined my schools badminton club (so much fun!) and do yoga on my off days. Running for distance isn't an option, because I have bad knees. Hopefully I can find a good balance of exercise while here.

Thanks to everyone who provides food suggestions in this thread. I will definitely take those into account -- my eating ice cream for dinner needs to stop.