Banana diet works!

Maybe it does not have to be banana, if you like different fruits. Eating fruits in the morning is very effective for digestion, because of the fruites' enzyme. Ideally you should eat only one type of fruites at the same time. Otherwise, several fruits' different enzymes fight each other.

How Asians age

Let me introduce a funny article about how Asians age.

http://iamemiko.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-asians-age.html

Asians do not change their look until 50 years old, but suddenly after menopause, they completely change their look!

Toilet exercise

Anti-Aging Women have no time to rest, even in bathroom!

During urine, it is perfect timing to training Kegel or Pelvic floor exercises.

- Start urine
- Stop the flow of urine by tightening urinary sphincter (muscle that controls urine flow) for a few seconds.
- Start the flow again
- Repeat the same

By training this part,

- Avoid light bladder leakage
- tighter butt
- enjoy more during sexual act!

If you cannot convince your kids about food safety, maybe he can help!

Ganbanyoku

Ganbanyoku (Gan-Ban-Yoku) means ‘stone bath’, or ‘stone sauna’ in Japanese. It is a method of cleansing and relaxation that involves lying down on a heated slab of rock that is embedded in the Ganbanyoku room floor (or on a Ganbanyoky bed) without using hot water. It is also referred to as "stone-bathing", but there is no bathing or water involved. It has been very popular in Japan in the past few years, and word is now spreading to the rest of the world.

The Ganban (stone) used at stone-spa parlors contains a lot of minerals and emits far-infrared ray. At such places, the rock is heated up to about 40c (105F) and you spread a towel and lie on the rock for 15 minutes. After taking a break for 5 to 10 minutes, you will repeat the same set for 3~4 times.

The effects of Ganbanyoku use are numerous and both aesthetic and metabolic. The detoxification process improves general bodily functions, blood circulation, alleviates pain, jump-starts a flagging immune system, deodorizes, and yields visible skin improvement, lending one a healthy, robust aura. The treatment also improves basal metabolism, making the body more efficient in utilizing energy, resulting in sustainable weight-loss. Prolonged proper treatments have also revealed the undeniable anti-ageing benefits of Ganbanyoku.

Tweet

Gold pack mask

Electric micro current is going around your body. Gold pack helps activate the current, which gets slow with age. By activating the current, your skin turnover (rejuvenation) and blood circulation becomes more faster.

I tried it in Kanazawa, Japan, where 99% of gold in Japan is produced. Gold pack mask is famous here, but I am not sure the effectiveness though...

Don't believe cosmetics claims of quick fix-over night change

Some of your cosmetics might say, "wrinkles disappear right after applying" or "skin gets younger over night," but that's too good to be true!

Your skin cell's turnover rate is every 28 days. This means that the cells die and are re-born every 28 days.  (If you are 40 years old+, your turn over might be every 40 days in general.)

Your skin may become improved by cosmetics, but it takes at least 28 days to see the results.

In addition, skin cells in different areas have different re-born rates.  So taking these differences into account, it's said that it takes 3 months to see results from new cosmetics.

If you see big difference too quickly, that's just because of the formula's synthetic ingredients, like polymers. That doesn't mean that your original skin gets younger overnight.

Don't rub your eyes- It may cause wrinkles

The skin around your eyes is the thinnest and most sensitive. If you have a habit of rubbing eyes often, try not to do too many times and do gently when have to do.

Rubbing skin can damage epidermis (top layer of the skin) and that leaves many small wrinkles and dark circles around eyes.

Confusing warnings on cosmetics package

- "For Professional Use Only"
By using this phrase, companies do not have to include some chemicals, which should be included in the formula.

- "Hypo-allergenic"
Neither the FDA or any other organization regulates the use this word on packages, which means that if the company thinks this is hypo-allergenic, the word can be on the package.

In summary, it is important for you to know the facts and evaluate products yourself! 

Don't wash your face with hot water.

Facial skin is very thin and sensitive and hot water damages the skin easily by rinsing away necessary natural oils.
Without natural oils, your skin becomes dry and more sensitive.  The oil on your skin is very important and protects your skin.
Also, hot water evaporates faster than room temperature water. To make it worse, the hot water evaporates WITH your skin's moisture too.

When you wash face, try to use water which is almost the same temperate as your body.

Japanese pizza

Okonomiyaki

The name for Japanese Pizza means, "As you like it!" which sounds perfect for me.



Japanese pizza is a healthy dish.

Ingredients are cabbage, egg whites, flour and I added fresh seafood. That's it! Very delicious!

I choose healthy toppings and avoid mayonaise based sauces.

Ecology Humidifier

I use this Japanese humidifier, which is made from special antibacterial paper!!! 

Place the decorative shaped filter into a shallow dish and add water, or you may add water based aromas.  Thats it!

Perfect for any room, office or cubicle.

     *The special paper absorbs water much faster. 

     *No electricity

     *No noise

     *Just pour water! 

Decreases dry skin, dry eyes and sore throats

Anti osteoporosis

One of the menopausal symptoms is osteoporosis, because estrogen is supposed to inhibit breaking down bones. In other words, the less estrogen, the more bones are broken down.

KAATSU training in Japan is known that it works to create more bone density. According to the Katatsu data, 15 minuites KAATSU training 2 times per day X 6 days per week X 3 weeks made 5 times more stronger bones than before.

Kaatsu training

One of the popular trainings in Japan is KAATSU training! KAATSU means adding pressure.

While adding some pressure on arms or legs to reduce blood circulation, you do light muscle training. This condition allows you to gain a lot of result just from light simple muscle training, because this equals hard muscle training.

During KAATSU training, blood circulation does not stop. It is just reduced.

When the belt is released, blood circulates amazingly fast. a lot of lactic acid is produced. This gives you a lot of growth hormone.  The KAATSU organization in Japan says KAATSU training gives you 290 times more growth hormone than regular movement!!!

90% of aged skin causes is UV!

Japanese love UV block. UV is one of the worst enemies for the skin. We use hats, umbrellas and sun glasses as well as lotions to prevent the dangerous UV rays.  UV can attack you from the ground up too. Concrete roads reflect UV at 10%, water at 10-20% and snow at a shocking 80%!

I know Vitamin D is produced by UV, but you should protect face, hands and neck from UV, and expose other areas to UV, for example arms or legs.

Age Spots

Age spots comes from various reasons.

- Too much UV exposure

   Obviously!

- Poor turn over

   Healthy cell replacement in skin is every 28 days. As you get older, this takes longer.  Some say if you are 40, your turn over is every 40 days.

- Processed food and oxidized oil

-  Too much stress.

-  Not enough sleep

- Hormone imbalance

- Rubbing skin too much or using synthetic cosmetics

How to erase age spot

If you had too much UV, there are ways to stop age spot.

- Cool down the skin

- Eat tomato or water melon!

They have lycopene to neutralize fee radicals which result from UV.

It is hard to erase established age spots completely, but do not give up! Take Vitamin C and eat anti-oxidant foods, which helps erase age spot. If skin turn over is late, you should exercise or take a bath for better blood circulation.

Good feces

You are what you eat.  A balanced diet is very important for anti aging.

Our cells are rejuvenating every day, fueled by what we eat and what we eliminate (or detox.) Our health is composed of 25% genetics and 75% environmental factors.

What you eat is really important, but in addition, detox is also critical for health.

Break down of detox (or elimination)

75% feces

20%  urine

5% hair, nails and sweat

Therefore, constipation is very very bad for anti aging.

The best feces is

- banana shape, comes out quickly, smoothly

- golden color

- not too stinky, floats in water

- when you wipe, the paper does not show anything left.

Onsen - Natural Hot Spa Baths

Japanese love onsen! Even monkeys enjoy onsen!

- The waters warms your body for better circulation

- The water pressure stimulates your internal organs

- The buoyancy effect reduces body weight to 1/10. This relaxes your muscles and mind.

Enzymes from raw vegetable to aide in anti-aging

Half of the vegetables you eat per day should be raw vegetables.

There are 2 types of enzyme.

- Digestive enzyme

- Metabolic enzyme

Digestive enzyme is necessary to digest food. If not digested well, small intestine cannot absorb nutrition.

Metabolic enzyme works to metabolize, detox, and to antioxidize body. Antioxidants are very important for anti-aging.

These 2 enzymes are composed of proteins and minerals. They are produced in body, but are in raw food and fermented food too. The amount of enzyme produced in body is fixed already, so if too much enzyme is used for digestion, the enzyme cannot be used for metabolism, including antioxidant function. Therefore, you should increase the amount of these enzymes by eating raw food and fermented food, before eating a lot of other food.

Good Oil- benetits from Omega 3 for women

Female hormones are composed of oil. Oil is a component of the cell membrane. Cell membranes takes  in nutrients, detox unnecessary stuff, and protect you from virus.

Too much oil is not good, but you need to have oil to some extent. It has to be good oil though.

The best oil you should take every day is Omega 3, which comes from flaxseed, for example.

Mixed millet as supplement- instead of brown rice

Lately, people are eating brown rice for health, but brown rice has hard bran which is hard to digest. When brown rice is digested poorly, the nutrition % absorbed is lower than white rice. Therefore, I recommend white rice with mixed millet.

Glycation reaction

It is important no to elevate blood glucose level. Glycation reaction accelerates aging by making inflammation which produces wrinkle, age spot, sagging skin.

It is better to reduce high GI food.

Instead of white sugar, use agave, or mirin.

Instead of bread, cookie, pizza, noodle, white rice of refined wheat, use those of whole wheat grain.

In addition,

- eat food of fiber, before eating a lot.

- eat vinegar before eating a lot or add vinegar on high GI food.

Fiber or vinegar retards sugar digestion, and keeps down blood glucose level.

Additive in processed food

Most free radicals are produced in liver, detox factory. So, it is better to give less burden to liver.

One of the free radical producers is excessive intake of food additive.

Processed food has lot's of additive because it helps lower price, easy process, and convenience.

How do you know what is additive? Additive is what you do not have in your kitchen.

Original taste- MUST eliminate MSG

Since we are used to too many additives, our taste is now crazy.

In other words, if your original taste is natural, you can taste additives by eating MSG! But, I cannot, because I've had too many additives in my diet for too long.

However, if you eliminate MSG from your diet, you will recover original sense of taste.

Good bye to Microwave?

Microwaves use a very high frequency electromagnetic wave called "microwave". Because of this high electromagnetic wave, each molecule gets friction from each other to increase temperature. Therefore, when it is done, the molecule is badly damaged and easy to get oxidized.

In addition, amino acid type changes after microwave. Amino acid in our food should be type L, but microwave change it from L to D. If you have type D amino acid in your body, you might have several disorders, for example, cataract, Alzheimer, hardened arteries.

Microwave is very convenient, but for long term health, it might be better to reduce the amount of the use.

Kaatsu training

i just found some article about Kaatsu training in English. Let me introduce some here. (info about Kaatsu training.)

Muscle size and strength are increased following walk training with restricted venous blood flow from the leg muscle, KAATSU-walk training

Low-intensity resistance training with restricted muscular venous blood flow (KAATSU) causes muscle hypertrophy and strength gain. To investigate the effects of daily physical activity combined with KAATSU, we examined the acute and chronic effects of walk training with and without KAATSU on MRI-measured muscle size and maximum dynamic (1-RM) and isometric strength, along with blood hormonal parameters. Nine men performed KAATSU-walk training and 9 men performed walk training alone (Control-walk). Training was conducted 2 times/day, 6 days/week for 3 weeks using 5 sets of 2-min bout (treadmill speed at 50 m/min), with a 1-min rest between bouts. Mean oxygen uptake (VO₂) during KAATSU-walk and Control-walk exercise were 19.5 ± 3.6% and 17.2 ± 3.1% of treadmill-determined VO₂ max, respectively. Serum growth hormone was elevated (P<0.01) after acute KAATSU-walk exercise, but not in Control-walk exercise. MRI-measured thigh muscle cross-sectional area and muscle volume increased 4~7%, and 1-RM and maximum isometric strength increased 8~10% in the KAATSU-walk group. There was no change in muscle size and dynamic and isometric strength in the Control-walk group.Indicators of muscle damage (creatine kinase and myoglobin) and resting anabolic hormones did not change in both groups. The results suggest that the combination of leg muscle blood flow restriction with slow-walk training induces muscle hypertrophy and strength gain despite the minimal level of exercise intensity. KAATSU-walk training may be a potentially useful method for promoting muscle hypertrophy covering in a wide range of the population, including the frail and elderly.
http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/01267.2005v1

Genetics testing kit

I am interested in genetics testing kit for diet. By sending some small mucosa from mouth to laboratory, you will get to know

- What kind of body type you are.

- What kind of diet you are suitable for.

Apple type

You have too much fat on internal organ.

Big stomach

You might like carb, sugar, or alcohol.

Not good at digesting sugar.

Pear type

Your lower part is bigger than upper.

You might like fried stuff or creamy stuff.

Not good at digesting fat.

Banana Type

You may be slim, but one you gain fat, you have hard time losing it.

Adam & Eve type

Life style is more important more than genetic

s

I found US version of this kind too.

http://www.inherenthealth.com/our-tests/weight-management.aspx

Small Big eater's secret

In Japan, there are many small sized but big eaters.

One of the most famous food fighters in the US is Takeru Kobayahi, Japanese guy, a member of the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE). He held the world record for hot dog eating for nearly six years, and holds several other eating records, and is ranked second in the world for competitive eating according to the International Federation of Competitive Eating.

This gal is another food fighter. She is so skinny.

By the way, what is such food fighters' secret?

In regular people, after starting eating, satiety center is stimulated, and  blood sugar level is elevated.

But their satiety center is not stimulated, and blood sugar level is still low, which means they are still hungry.

Food taken goes into stomach, intestine, and taken out as feces, so quickly. She does feces 6-7 times per day!!!

In her feces, 2-4 times more bifidus than regular people was found. 

brown fat cell  is cell to burn energy. When you feel cold, your brown fat cell starts burning energy to increase heat. In her case, while eating, her brown fat cell increases very highly.

How can we copy such brown fat cell function?

Train your brown fat cell, by repeating cold and hot shower! 

How to make Bento

Ingredients for Bento
(serves 1)

- Potato Salad -
40g Potato (1.41 oz)
10g Carrot (0.35 oz)
400cc Water (1.69 u.s. cup)
1/2 tsp Salt
4cm Cucumber (1.57 inch)
A pinch of Salt
1 tbsp Sweet Corn
1/2 tsp Vinegar
A pinch of Sugar
A pinch of Black Pepper
1 tsp Mayonnaise

1 Cherry Tomato

- Chicken Karaage -
50g Chicken (1.76 oz)
2/3 tbs Kimchi Base
or 1/2 Soy Sauce + 1/2 Sake + Grated Garlic
1 tsp Potato Starch
Frying Oil

- Honey Glazed Pumpkin -
40g Pumpkin (1.41 oz)
Honey
Toasted Black Sesame Seeds

1/8 Apple

- Onigiri -
140g Fresh Steamed Rice (4.94 oz)
Noritama Furikake - Egg & Seaweed
Yukari Furikake - Red Shiso Leaf
2 sheets of 19×5cm Toasted Nori (7.5x2 inch)

- Spinach Tamagoyaki -
1 Egg
40g Spinach (1.41 oz)
1 tsp Soy Sauce

1 Vienna Sausage
1/2 tsp Oil

**Trick to make bento in the busy morning is preparing the ingredients the night before or using premade ingredients from the market.

** Recently, bento regained its popularity in Japan for its safe and balanced diet and many Japanese bring their own bento to school and work.

Tweet

Basal body temperature

Recently, people's basal body temperature has been becoming lower.

Ideal basal body temperature is around 36.5C, 97.7F.

If it rises by 1C, 33.8F, your immunity gets 6 times stronger!

BUT, if it gets lower by 1C, 33.8F,

immunity gets weaker by 40%.

basal metabolism gets lower by 12%.

enzyme function gets weaker by 50%.

If it is below 35C, 95F, cancer cell can be born.

Therefore, it is important to keep your body warm.

- Do not drink too much cold drink.

- Wear enough all the time.

- Do not eat sweet too much.

- Do not use air conditioner too much.

- Exercise enough.

What is not in cosmetics

When you choose cosmetics, what is not in is important.

Basically, skin is supposed to to egest old stuff out, which is called skin's turn over.

In addition, skin has barrier so that foreign object does not penetrate in the skin.

Therefore, topical treatment by cosmetics is less important than balanced diet.

The best cosmetics for you is your natural blood which carries  necessary nutrition, which comes from your food intake.

Nowadays, there are so many cosmetics including synthetic stuff, which destroy the skin's natural barrier function. One of the worst ingredients is "Synthetic Surfactant". There are 2000-3000 kinds of this, so impossible to distinguish what is what? in ingredient list. So, the best thing you can do is to find trustworthy cosmetics brand.

These are demonstration about how bad synthetic stuff in cosmetics is.

How to make Miso Soup with Seaweed

Let's make Miso Soup with Seaweed. Miso includes phyto estrogen, which is great for menopause.

- Miso
- Dry Seaweed
- Dashi powder
- Tofu
- Veggies (your choice)

Boil water

Add Miso

 Add Dashi Powder

 Cut vegetables

 Add Tofu

Add veggies














Add more veggies

 Add dry seaweed

That's it!


Tweet

Taking bath is good!

Japanese love onsen (hot spring)! Even monkey take onsen!

















Let me introduce some funny types of bath.

If you do not have bath tube, use drum!

If you do not have water, use sand!

Japanse Stone bed spa (Ganbanyoku) is now availabe in Las Vegas Aria Resort and Casio too!

3 features of taking bath!

- Warming body reduces fatigue.

By warming body, it delates blood vessels, to make the blood flow smoother. So, this removes waste matrial and lactic acid, to reduce stress and fatigue.

HSP*, Heat Shock Protein, is also expected.

(* HPS is proteins whose expression is increased when cells are exposed to elevated temperatures or other stress. HPS repairs damaged cell, strengthens immunity, and slows down lactic acid incidence. In other words, HPS is good for anti aging.)

- Better circulation by water pressure.

The water pressure in bath pushes up blood from legs and stimulate heart activity.

- Buoyance effect reduces body weight to 1/10. This relaxes your muscle and mind.