Losing Weight by Eating More

Add edamame to everything!

I used to be very overweight, and the extra weight did terrible things to my self-confidence. Already naturally shy, this part of my life was very painful, so I did many reckless things to try and resolve it. These tactics included going days eating only salad, cutting out my favorite foods, or dependence on things like “superfoods”, in hopes that I would quickly become thin.

But the salads I ate didn’t fill me, were plain to taste so they were “as healthy as possible”, and I would always feel hungry, tired, and groggy. Cutting out my favorite foods just made me feel guilty, and I would feel terrible about myself when I thought about enjoying ice cream or a cookie. “Superfoods” didn’t help either because I didn’t really like the taste of goji berries or bee pollen — to me, these ingredients were difficult to obtain and difficult to use. So it should be of no surprise that after each new tactic, I would just quickly return to my unhealthy food choices, and I would go years without any progress on my health goals. I almost believed it would never happen for me.

So it was surprising when the first time I made any actual progress on my goals, I was probably eating the most I had ever been. I was back in Japan during the summer, staying with my grandmother. I didn’t have access to my usual “healthy” snacks or diet meals, and instead was eating whatever my grandmother served me. She loved loved loved to feed us, and would always bring home new ingredients she found at the…