@jacf29  I would imagine he would be happy to rent that far in advance, worth a shot if you were interested. Ya, I stayed in the bunk one, its pretty tiny but for me (I'm rather small and I didn't have much luggage) it was perfect. If you like lots of space or plan to have a lot of stuff I guess it wouldn't be the best.
I believe he said he had a few other apartments, I'm not sure they are all in the same complex. I think he said he had one with tatami floors too, if your interested, hahaha.
Anyway, as for the area it is just north of the river and so its easy to get to the river valley to go for a run, ect. Because of the baseball diamonds and the school right over there there were a few kids around. And because of the proximity to shinosaka station you get a good number of other age groups around too. Mainly though, everyone just commutes through. There are a few restaurants and bars around but there are better areas in the city to socialize. (That said, christmas was awesome at the little italian joint between nishinakajima-minamigata and shinosaka, hahaha) I personally liked the area, but if you are looking to party hard every night you might want to look somewhere else.
Hope this helps, sorry for rambling!

I've been living in Japan for almost 2 years now.
I also always search for not too expensive healthy ways to eat.
Recently there was an "interesting" post @ gaijinpot. Maybe you can find some helpful infomration over there as well.
Try to stay away from packed combini food and sweet drinks as much as possible. Also instant noodles and stuff are not really healthy.
Don't eat white bread! Japanese people only seem to like white bread, there's basically no dark breakd or whole grain bread at all! (for a German like me it's horrible *sigh*)

Instead of white rice, try using brown rice sometimes.

As for cockroaches. I've never seen one in my whole life until a few days ago.
It was when the taifun came and I didn't know about it and left my balcony door open. I'm pretty sure that's when it came in. I completely freaked out as I've never seen one an didn't know what to do. I bought various traps and cleaned my whole apartment (1K anyway ...).
When I told my Japanese coworkers they seemed to be quite relaxed and told me it just happens from time to time here in Japan. Even if your apartment is the cleanest place ever, they'll eventually sneak in .... GAH!! I couldn't sleep for 2 nights (x___X)

Thanks for the link.  Reading it now. 

Yeah I can't do brown rice.  It just tastes horrible to me. 

Woodwojr, yeah that probably has something to do with it.  I know exactly how many calories pretty much I am eating every day.  The hardest part is getting down to my goal weight.  After that is done with and I maintain for a few months on the same plan, I can eat more since my metabolism will be insane from running every other day for 6 months at that point.  Of course I will continue the running as I love it.

I should also note that although running is great exercise in many ways, it's unlikely to raise your resting metabolism much; for that you want something along the lines of weight training to make more energy-hungry muscle.

~J

woodwojr wrote:

I should also note that although running is great exercise in many ways, it's unlikely to raise your resting metabolism much; for that you want something along the lines of weight training to make more energy-hungry muscle.

~J

i doubt that. running will burn many more calories. i do both cycling and weights, and the cycling turns me into a ravenous eating machine.

interesting. i hadn't heard that before.

I also think doing some resistance training is good for keeping the weight off.  I'm not very good at keeping long term training habits.  Previously I did diets & running, and I lost weight while doing them and then gained it back.  This year I started weights training 3 days a week for a few months, then got lazy again, but my weight actually continued to decrease over the past half a year without special attention.

I think the health of Japanese people is caused by:

1) One does a LOT more walking in Japan than in North America, due it not being a society based on cars. There is also almost nowhere to sit down in public, so people have to stand a lot too.
2) Food science isn't nearly as universal in Japan as in North America. Most food here is actual food, and not something cooked up in a lab. The strange exception to that is cheese - you cannot buy real cheese at a normal grocery store, just processed crap. Tons of Japanese food isn't health-food (ramen, katsu, karaage, korokke, etc), but it's not a pile of chemicals so it's not too bad for you either.

They don't have inherent genetic benefits, since iirc Asian-Americans actually have shorter lifespans than whites, and every Japanese exchange student I know (hundreds) gained a significant amount of weight when they went to Canada.

So in short, I don't think you need to knock yourself out trying to avoid carbs in Japan, since you're going to lose that weight just through normal Japanese-style life.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 October 12, 6:40 am)

Katsuo, thanks a lot.
Unfortunately I live in a really small city. We don't have any of these huge department stores and please believe me when I say that I searched for whole grain bread almost EVERYWHERE already.
The only option I'd have it to order it online, but that's quite expensive.

I somewhat found an alternative, though: genmai bread
Although it's not the same.

Last edited by chochajin (2009 October 12, 7:21 pm)

I should probably clarify.  I am getting carbs in from breakfast (cereal) and vegetables.  In Japan I will just substitute rice in for breakfast.

bodhisamaya wrote:

I mean, don't people know the guy died of a heart attack from being obese?

He died from falling on ice and hitting his head; the claim is that at his death he was obese and had hypertension, etc.  He didn't actually die of a heart attack, though.

Food is freaking expensive in Tokyo. If you come here, learn to love 100 yen ramen (yes, even the cheapest instant ramen is over $1 American.) and every now and again Seiyu bento boxes (for variety,) if you want to eat "cheap."