What is a True Diet?

One major misconception that dieters have is that dieting is for reducing weight. For example, running a marathon of 42.195km (26mi) may cause you to lose 5-6kg (11-13lb) of weight. However, you are only reducing 330g (.73lb) of body fat. In short, you will have to run 3 full marathons in order to burn off 1kgm (2.2lb) of fat.

When we refer to weight, it includes everything such as fat, blood, water, muscles, bones, and so on. Trying to reduce your weight only by dieting will reduce body fat as well as muscle mass. Of course water will be the first factor when we see a drop in our weight. However, body fat cannot be reduced as easily. Although our weight can be reduced quickly, this is not a true diet.

The correct method for dieting is to reduce body fat without losing muscle mass. When you are losing weight, it is important to continue resistance exercises as well as when you gain weight. A true diet can only be accomplished when we combine both dieting and resistance exercises.

The Definition of Obesity

The real meaning of obesity is less to do with weight and more to do with having a high body fat percentage. The largest component of our body is water, which is about 50-60% of our body's composition; 8-10% of which is blood. The second largest component is fat, which is about 15-20% for men and 20-30% for women. The rest of our body is composed of proteins and minerals which are found in our bones and muscles as well as saccharides, or sugars.


Our bones are mainly composed of protein and calcium, however the total weight of bones is relatively light and only amounts to about 5% of our total body weight. We gain weight either by an increase in water or an increase in fat. When our body has too much water it is known as edema. When it has too much fat, it is known as obesity.

Make Lifestyle Changes, Not Just Diet

The most fearful situation for dieters is rebound. What can we do to avoid it? The only solution is to improve your lifestyle by adapting behavior modification therapy and developing a body that is less likely to gain weight.

Even after you successfully lose weight, you will return to your original weight once you return to your previous lifestyle.

It takes 5-10 years for the human body to be changed by both genetic and environmental factors. Therefore, we must solve the lifestyle factors that are causing weight gain or obesity; otherwise it is hard to anticipate a more simple solution.

Basics of Dieting

The basic method for dieting is to keep the balance between calorie usage and calorie intake in mind. By doing so, fat, which is accumulated in white adipose tissue, can be used up for energy.
The human body is composed of about 80% pure fat and 20% water and other materials.

Fat contains about 9kcal per gram, therefore 9kcal x 1,000g x .8 = 72,000kcal which is the amount of calories needed to lose 1kg of fat. In the case of an average Japanese man who consumes 2,000kcal a day can subtract 1,000kcal for his daily activities a day to lose about 1kg a week (1,000kcal x 7 days = 7,000kcal). If he continues to do this for a month, he will be able to reduce his weight by 4kg a month. This is just a hypothetical situation and does not always go this smoothly in real life.
The basic method of DietMaster is to burn fat effectively by controlling food intake with aerobic exercise to reduce to create a negative calorie intake. However, the fact is a real effort is needed from this point. We do not need a great deal of effort to reduce weight. Most importantly, we have to be careful of weight rebound after losing weight. The real success to dieting is to get over plateaus and prevent rebound. Let’s eat only until we feel 80% full every time we eat a meal!

Diet Communication

If you are in Japan, knowledge about dieting is very useful. Whether you are in Japan for business or even for personal travel, knowing basic topics that appeal to the Japanese are really useful to make your conversations go more smoothly.

Did you know about 70% of people in Japan are interested in dieting? If you have enough knowledge about proper dieting, you will gain popularity among the people you speak with. If you work in sales, gaining popularity and supports is very crucial in making your business successful. In order to get supporters, it is necessary to take these steps:

1. Gain supporters for yourself
2. Convert these supporters for your business
3. Get them to purchase your company’s products

These are the basic steps for a successful salesman. You may be wondering how knowledge on proper and healthy dieting techniques can help you. Dieting knowledge can work as a “break the ice” topic, something that is easy for everyone to understand and easy for you to learn as well. People will be especially impressed if you are an American outside of the US since Americans tend to have a bad reputation for poor eating habits. Not to say all Americans have poor eating habits, this is just how we are generally perceived outside of the US.

About one week should be enough for you to gain the knowledge and theories of healthy dieting. In Japan, such should be required teaching in Junior High School in a 5-6 hour lesson. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to impose such a requirement because it can create conflict with the food industry.

While discussing this topic in our office, we were talking about the differences in diet education in primary school in Japan and the US. How did your school treat nutrition and diet education? Let me know and feel free to discuss no matter what country you are from.

When I was in Junior High in the US, I took Home Economics which taught some diet and nutrition. Although, it was an elective and the only reason why I took it was because I had transferred schools and so was late in registering. It was the only course available so I had the impression it was not a very popular course. I wasn’t required to learn about nutrition until High School and it was something I could have taken at any time as long as it was before graduation. I’m not sure how the school systems are like now.

Japanese Prison Meals Treat Lifestyle Diseases

Recently in Yahoo Japan’s Science News, it has been reported that meals provided in Japanese prisons improve conditions of diabetes. Meals provided also promote liver health and are great for dieting.

In the past, many people released from prison left with a better figure than when they entered. Currently a certain famous man appears to be dieting in a prison in Nagano prefecture. Most Japanese may know who I am talking about. During his two year sentence, he should lose about 20kg (44lb). This certain man has mentioned in his blog that his current weight is 91kg (200lb).

“Pearl barley [as a substitute for rice], one of the major prison meal components helps improve diabetes.” The doctor who monitors the health conditions of prisoners in the Fukushima prison analyzed the data of those who have diabetes and confirmed that eating pearl helped to improve their diabetes. It is speculated that this is a result of the high fiber contents of barley.

This doctor provides his report on this issue at conferences with nutritionists and doctors to facilitate prevention and improvement of diabetes. In his analysis, 92 people out of 109 were found to have improved conditions.


We at Diet Academy have recognized the health benefits of meals served in Japanese prisons five years ago. We received recipes of menus served in Japanese prisons from the Tokyo Regional Correction Headquarters and developed our own cookbook to share these benefits to those outside of prison. Our Prison Menu Cookbook is designed with a daily caloric intake of 1400-1500 Kcal for men and 1200 Kcal for women in mind. These figures are based on average basal caloric intake needed (the minimum our caloric intake our bodies need). Those with an active lifestyle need to consume addition calories (approx. 1000 kcal to keep your weight consistent) to balance their activities.


The Japanese version of our menu has over 300 single serving recipes which covers a 90 day meal plan. Currently we have 15 of these recipes translated into English which are available in both metric and volume based measurements. You can download a pdf of our translated recipes for free on our Prison Menu site. For those who understand Japanese, more sample recipes can be found on our Japanese site.

The Functions of Parasympathetic Nerves

Autonomic nerves are divided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve. Mainly, the sympathetic nerve works during the daytime and facilitates energy consumption. When night comes, the parasympathetic nerves start working. Energy consumption slows and the body works on fixing damaged cells.

Dr. Shigeki Shibazaki, a Ph. D. of Nippon University has concluded after his investigations that BMAL-1, a sort of protein which takes part in our body's rhythmic clock (circadian rhythm), has a close relation with the accumulation of inner fat.

The BMAL-1 is hardly generated during the daytime but is produced during the night time. Based on this fact, researchers try to conclude that gaining weight can be avoided by not having meals late at night.
It is reported that BMAL-1 is generated most actively between 10pm and 2am, which is 15 to 20 times more than what is produced around 3am (Asahi Newspaper on September 2005).

The level of BMAL at different times 

based on a 24-hour clock. 

There are many areas that have yet to be researched in our body functions as well as diet theory. However, it is evident that going to bed right after eating contributes to gaining weight and more and more researchers tend to think the reason is because of BMAL-1.

For more information, please contact DietMaster New York Inc. We are open to International inquiries as well.

Let's make a proper diet schedule!

It's difficult to reduce your weight by 10-15kg (22-33lb) in a short time, but you will notice that it isn't difficult at all if you take 3-6 months or even a full year to accomplish it. Of course I understand how anxious most of us are to lose weight in a short time. However, skipping meals or taking diet pills will easily result in rebound. Also, it will cause our bodies to become unhealthy. Please remember that reducing your average calorie intake by 300kcal a day should be enough to reduce your weight by 1.25kg in one month.

300kcal × 30 days ÷7200kcal = 1.25kg (2.75lb)

The best way to achieve this is to set up a proper schedule for your diet. We need to expend 72,000kcal in order to reduce our weight by 1kg. Power walking for 20 minutes a day consumes 100kcal. Avoiding drinking one beer or not eating ice cream saves 200kcal. Not drinking 180ml of Japanese sake or not eating one rice ball (onigiri) also saves 200kcal.

Combining power walking for 20 minutes plus reducing the intake of one of the above items will save 300kcal. Continuing the practice for one month should lead to a reduction of your weight by 1.25kg (2.75lb). Three months leads to 3.75kg (8.25lb), six months to 7.5kg (16.5lb), and in one year to 15.2kg (33.5lb).

The calculation is based on someone with a BMI around 30. I hope this information helps you set up a schedule to reduce 2-3kg (4-6.5lb) of your weight.

For more information, please feel free to contact us.