Jackie's Japan Journal: Struggling

This time it's my weight.

I go up and down the same two kilos. This seems to be normal for me, then my weight goes down a kilo and the same thing happens. For the past few months, I have been between 94 and 95 kilos. In the past week however, my weight has gone up, only a kilo but if I don't do something I know that kilo will call its friends, then I'll be in trouble.

I know what to do, stop sugar, cut carbs and fatty foods, stay away from processed foods, eat more vegetables, low-fat protein, and for a sweet treat have fruit.

I don't believe in diets, every time I've tried diets I've put on weight as restricted eating isn't sustainable. I tried the Atkins diet put on 5 kilos and got gallstones!!

I'm trying to be mindful of what I eat! I don't count calories as I don't know how many calories are in certain foods in Japan. Hannah checked how much rice I can have, because of my diabetes,160 grams per meal, which is more than I usually eat!

The problem at the moment isn't to do with knowing what to eat or even the motivation to eat healthy, the problem has to do with the price of food.

I understand that the harvest this year has been bad, all types of vegetables and fruits are a lot more expensive than usual. The extended intense heat we are experiencing isn't helping at all!

For example, two small cucumbers were 400 yen, the usual price is 100 yen, and lettuce that had about ten leaves was 300 yen, twice the normal price. Fruits are even more expensive, a bunch of grapes cost 1300 yen. About 7 pounds!

So instead of buying vegetables, I've had to buy more carb based foods, things that are filling and cheap, and have vegetables as a small side dish. We are eating a lot of rice, noodles, and bread. I would love to have a chicken salad, with a load of fresh greens, but to make that for me would cost the same as I pay for a meal for all of us! So instead I make chicken sandwiches, that way I can spread a few vegetables out more.

I'm trying to make overnight oats for my breakfast, that helps. For other meals, I try not to eat too many carbs but there just isn't enough vegetables to fill me up. Once this heat stops I can start making soups and stews, one way of making vegetables stretch further.

Until then I guess just try to make things that are lower calories but filling. I've been using a lot of tofu recently, those fluffy tofu with chives that I wrote about before have become a favorite!

Also I must start to exercise again. I've been doing a few stretches but not consistently. I was shocked at how much pain I was in after walking around on Tuesday. According to the app I have I did just over 9000 steps. Surely doing that many steps shouldn't leave me feeling like I had been hit by a truck! So I'm going to get back into my chair exercises. I think between that and all the work with moving I should be able to maintain my weight.

One exercise I am getting is chasing the cats! They still manage to get into things they shouldn't! But of course, they are cute.