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.

I recently bought a Xooter Street and it’s one of the coolest, yet dorky, things I’ve ever bought. Now a kick scooter, has absolutely got to do with ice cream, and so for about a month, I’ve been trying to figure out how to write a review about the scooter and tie it in with homemade ice cream. Maybe, it could be a mini ice cream truck or perhaps a great way to get to your favorite ice cream shop.

So why get a kick scooter? Well for one thing, if you live in the city, a real city and not a suburb, a kick scooter is super convenient. Were I live, in Japan, you don’t need a car at all. In a lot of reviews, the Xootr is contrasted against the bicycle, as a reason for buying. They say parking a bicycle is a hassle, having to wear special clothes is a hassle, and a myriad of other reasons why a scooter is better than a bicycle. Well that is flat out bologna, and that idea, comes more from a culture that sees the bicycle as either a toy, a hobby, or exercise equipment, rather than as an item of transportation. The truth is that you can ride to work in a full suit and not stink up the office, as long as you ride to work at a reasonable pace versus a racing pace. Where a scooter beats a bicycle, is for short distances, or where getting a bicycle out of storage and on to the street is more of a hassle than the time saved by the speed of the bike.

So what does that mean? Well for example, were I live is in an apartment building over a cram school. There are two choices for parking a bicycle. There’s bicycle parking located on the side of the building, or you can park your bicycle outside the door of your apartment. In America, it’s probably illegal due to fire regulations to park your bicycle in the entryway to your apartment building but in Japan, it’s not as regulated so that’s what a lot of people do. So to get your bicycle on the street, you must either fight your way in and out of an elevator, with the doors opening and closing on you as you’re trying to get in and out. Also, there’s only enough room in the elevator for you and your bicycle so anyone else waiting on the elevator will have to wait until you’ve offloaded your body before they can use elevator. The other option, is the bicycle parking but after about 4:00 PM, children start coming to the cram school by bicycle and so after about four o’clock it’s impossible to get your bicycle out of the parking. In this case, the scooter wins. You can write it from the front door of your apartment to the elevator; it goes into the elevator easily and you can write it right out of the elevator and on the street. For short distances, it’s also more efficient than the bicycle because a lot of the extra speed is wasted while waiting for stop lights.

The Xootr scooter is also better when you need to integrate with other forms of transportation. As an example, I own a bike Friday that I bought with the intention of bringing with me when I travel. The truth is however I have never used it for that purpose. It just seems like too much trouble to pack it into a suitcase to bring along. In Japan, cheap folding bikes abound and yet I’ve never seen a single one folded up. Xootr by the way does make a folding bicycle however, it appears to have all the problems of the bike Friday. now don’t get me w the bike Friday, is an excellent bike and I’m sure the zoo tour is to, it’s just that bicycles are convenient to take with you on a trip. On a side note, one of my fellow teachers packs kick scooter with him, whenever we have drinking parties.

So why the zoot or street? Well for one thing, being interested in electric vehicles, as well as human powered vehicles, I was already aware of the zoot or for most forms. Secondly, the street was touted as being a tank and when you weigh over 200 pounds like I do, being a tank is a good thing. The magnesium model for example has an advertised weight limit of 250 pounds, while the street, and incidentally all the other models, haven’t advertised weight limit of 300 pounds. Our streets and sidewalks, are terrible and so there was some worry about cracking the magnesium board. By the way, that 250 pound weight limit, is a lot higher than just about every other brand scooter on the market.

Riding the scooter is pretty easy and it was surprising to see how well the large wheels of the Zuber could navigate over obstacles like tram tracks and cobblestone sidewalks. To be honest, I was pretty sure I would be sending the visitor back because the wheels didn’t perform as advertised. But so far, it’s handled everything and I haven’t been thrown to the ground even one time yet. Knock on wood. I think also, that the design of the front fork, is largely responsible for the scooter’s ability to go over obstacles. It’s also a joy to use when you have to fold it up. One day, I rode the zoot or to the grocery store stepped off, collapse the handlebars, and folded the hinge, and have it slung over my shoulder in just a few seconds. An elderly man watching me set it sure is convenient as I went into the store. Another advantage, is that on a recent trip by ferry, to a nearby island, using the zoo here I was able to board the ferry and pay the lower passenger rate versus paying the near double rate for using a bicycle.

So what sucks about the zoot are? The sooner Street, looks and feels very solid, and there isn’t too much to complain about. With that said, the frame does flex quite a bit. I’m not sure if that’s a problem but it’s something I hadn’t expected. Also, because it flexes it creaks. The brake handle can also be pretty noisy but if you ride with your fingers on the lever, that cuts down the noise quite a bit. All in all, I think that’s about the worst thing I can say for the suitor is the noise. There are issues, that arise from using small solid wheels but these are really a trade-off for portability and efficiency and are really no fault of the suitor. These issues, are things like the terrible ride quality and extreme vibration felt when writing on very rough surfaces. Even larger wheels or pneumatic tires could fix this problem but then you would lose portability and efficiency.

I do have a couple issues though with the company sued her. Many people who have reviewed other kick scooters will say that the suitor is very expensive but very worth it. If this scooter were mass-produced in China, I would say that it is way overpriced, but in this case there are produced on medium scale in the United States so the price fits. The issue I have with the company however is that the price of the street is listed as $279, while the Roma is listed at $239, and the Venus is listed at $259. When looking at their website, they indicate that all models, with the exception of the magnesium model, share the same chassis and so the difference in price, depends on which deck you choose. However, if you look at their parts page all the decks are equally priced at $119.95. So if the chassis are the same, and the decks cost the same price why is the street $40 more expensive than the Roma?