Ice Cream Maker Basics

Archive for the ‘green tea diet’ Category

Last week, I started working on an informal weight-loss study which I’m calling the green tea diet. The “diet” is in response to all the ice cream I’ve been eating as a responsibility for having a website where I review stuff for making your own ice cream. What the diet isn’t however is how to lose weight fast. The basic premise of the diet is simple—eat slightly less e.g, never stuffing yourself, a principal known in Japanese as hara hachi bu (stomach 80% full); getting at least 30 minutes of exercise a day and finally, drinking five cups of green tea everyday. All of this combined should help me reach a weekly weight-loss goal of 1 to 2 pounds per week. It’s important to note, that I didn’t say I was radically changing anything in my diet, other than the addition of the green tea, so not exchanging a hamburger for a salad for example.

So how is the green tea weight loss study going? After this first week, I can honestly say, I didn’t meet my goal of 1 pound for this first week but instead lost about half a pound. So where did I go wrong?

First I can say, I did cut back on the amount of food being eaten which is probably responsible for the half pound lost. Where I went wrong though is not actually drinking five cups a day and this is where it’s good to analyze stuff like this so you can avoid any obstacles you may have in reaching your goals.

As a working stiff, a majority of my day is spent at work and there wasn’t a way to make hot tea, nor did I have a thermos to transport hot tea to work. Today I remedied that problem with the purchase of a thermos. Buying pre-bottled green tea would also have worked but the green tea diet should be cheap and at $1.40 per bottle, that adds up.

For the food consumed, I really only have choices when it comes to breakfast in dinner. Lunch is provided by my company and here in Japan, it’s bad manners to not eat all of your food. On the plus side it’s Japanese food so that means lots of miso, nori, and rice and such. Japanese food also has lots of root vegetables which I think is supposed to be healthy. Breakfast is usually eggs and toast or toast with homemade marmalade. Dinner has been pretty standard American stuff, chicken and dumplings, pasta alla carbonara, homemade pizza etc. The only difference is that instead of eating two bowls of chicken and dumplings, I’m only eating one.
Originally, I thought my commute to work by bicycle was going to be enough as far as exercise go but from here on out, I’m going to try and add thirty minutes of using my Xoot Street to supplement the commuting. This will provide several benefits: Besides the extra aerobic exercise, with the addition of a backpack and a couple water bottles, I can get some strength training. Secondly, I gain in proficiency in riding the Xootr which will be a plus when I use the scooter for traveling. Hopefully too, my wife will start to feel as perhaps the Xootr just might be worth the money I spent on it, instead of some stupid nerdy toy. Finally, since I did write an article for this site reviewing the scooter, it’ll give me a chance to update that article on how well it’s holding up.

So to sum up, week one was either a failure or less successful than hoped. Analysis however, reveals the solution is very simple and so going into week two of the green tea diet, I feel hopeful. As it stands, the diet is: eat less, exercise 30 minutes a day (Xootr Street) and five cups of green tea. It’s very likely that there won’t be another update of my progress with the diet as constant updating is a bit geeky to me. The purpose of this post was to instead take a look at obstacles to meeting your goals and finding ways around those obstacles.