This is Optimal Health Daily, episode 2467.

While you almost never see a fat Japanese, or how I lost five pounds in Tokyo, by Leo Babouda,

of zen habits.net, and I'm Dr. Neil Malik.

Welcome back to Optimal Health Daily, where I read to you every day covering the best health

and fitness blogs, with permission from the websites,

of course, and always with a bit of my commentary at the end. And with that, let's get right to the

post as we optimize your life. Why you almost never see a fat Japanese, or how I lost five pounds in Tokyo by Leo Babouda of Zenhabits.net.

One of the most striking things about my trip to Japan was how thin everyone was.

I kept saying to my family, there are no fat Japanese.

Now that's not entirely true, of course. Aside from sumo wrestlers,

there are some Japanese who are fat, but at least in my two-week trip to Tokyo, they were pretty

hard to find. Seriously, in America, including my home country of Guam, you could walk around

and half, if not most of the people you

see, will be at least a little overweight, and many are obese. But in Japan, it seems like

everyone is thin. I could go a whole day without seeing an obese individual, unless it was a tourist.

I know that this is not groundbreaking news.

It's long been known that the Japanese are among the healthiest people on earth, with one of the

lowest rates of obesity among developed nations and one of the longest average lifespans.

But when you actually see it in person, it's almost shocking.

During my stay in Japan, I formed some theories, and these won't be groundbreaking either, but I think they're worth reflecting on.

Be aware, of course, that I'm not an expert in any related field here,

and my observations are based on a two-week stay in Tokyo, and therefore are very, very limited.

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