What's the vision of the inhabitants of Okinawa with regard to eating habits and lifestyle?
Eating pattern
A balanced diet with sufficient variation of nutritives is essential. There are even guidelines for the Okinawa diet. For instance: adults are advised to take fifteen different nutritives a day.
People following the Okinawa diet tend to eat a lot, but they quit eating before they are "full up". They stick to the "80-100" principle, which they call "hara hachi bu", which means: eat slowly and be entirely aware of what you eat; chew well and never entirely finish your plate; always leave something.
This is important, because the stomach will send a message to your brains that it's full, but it takes about 20 minutes before your brains have actually dealt with this message and give you the indication that you should stop eating.
So, if you continue eating until you feel full, you will take about 20% more food than you needed. As a result of that, your stomach will stretch itself a little more, every time you eat more than you need, in order to get the same feeling of satisfaction.
Lifestyle
On Okinawa, people have a different attitude towards life than we over here. They are relaxed, positive, helpful, take sufficient exercise to keep their body in shape, and often practise yoga, tai chi or meditation.
OK, we have to admit: they live on a beautiful island with palmtrees, in a lovely climate. But that does not mean that "we over here, with our rain and cold and hectic lives" should just stay in our comfortzone; on the contrary: it could be a challenge to try and achieve the same results, despite our "more difficult" circumstances!
