Have you heard of the “Blue Zones?” They’re regions of the world researched by Dan Buettner because they have the longest lived people in the world. Dan studied the lifestyles of people in the Blue Zones to find common patterns in an attempt to back into what he believes are the keys to longevity.
I was so intrigued by his work that I traveled to a Blue Zone in 2019: Okinawa, Japan. A tiny island in the southern part of Japan that no one really visits since it doesn’t have the action of Tokyo, the history of Kyoto, or the winter sports of Hokkaido. But off I went because I wanted to see for myself what life looks like in Okinawa and learn about (and of course taste!) the foods Okinawans eat every day.
What I observed in Okinawa matched with what Dan described as common themes across Blue Zones:
(1) People walk everywhere. I saw the most adorable elderly Okinawans, even if they had walkers or canes, walking to and from the market each day to buy food.
(2) People eat less. Their food is served in smaller portions on smaller plates. Built in, automatic portion control. And they have a culture where everyone stops eating when they’re 80% full. They even utter a mantra for this before every meal: “hara hachi bu.” Beyond this, they put food onto their plates in the kitchen, not at the dining table. They do not put large serving dishes on the table where it can be tempting to keep refilling our plates.
(3) People don’t “diet” or worry about calories or macros. Their food is very high carb, and they don’t shy away from rice or their delicious black Okinawan sugar. Their diet includes tons of soy and vegetables and is mostly low in animal fat. They do eat pork occasionally (I saw much more pork used in their traditional dishes than I saw seafood), and when they do use pork, they use the entire animal and mostly stew it. They make their vegetables taste satisfying by using a combination of Okinawan sugar and then something with umami, such as soy sauce, miso, or tiny amounts of pork.
(4) People are friendly and helpful. There’s a strong sense of community. I went to food stands where elderly Okinawan were excited to give me free food so I could try it for the first time.
What’s common to all of the Blue Zones is that their environment seems to set them up for success. They don’t go to gyms or workout classes. They don’t count calories. They don’t try different diets. And yet people are living so much longer than we do here in the states where we obsess over these things. That’s how powerful being in the right environment is.
Most of us can’t up and move to a Blue Zone, but we can design an environment that nudges us to live more healthy.
Using the examples above:
(1) Live somewhere that enables you to walk, rather than drive, to where you need to go every day. When I moved to LA, this was a key criteria for me. I needed to live walking distance from my grocery market, gym, and coffee shop where I work -- the three places I go to most regularly during the week. This built hours of walking into my life every week without me having to discipline myself to go on a walk every day.
(2) Portion control seems to be one of the problems clients tell me they struggle with most. Rather than rely on our willpower here, we can do what the Okinawans do. We can say “hara hachi bu” before each meal to remind ourselves that we need not finish everything on our plates. And, more importantly, we can own and use only small plates and bowls at home. Donate large plates and bowls so you don’t even have the option of using them. I only own and eat off of bowls or plates that would be described as “cereal bowls” or “salad plates.”
(3) While in America we can’t control the quality of the food that surrounds us at restaurants or on food delivery apps, we can surround ourselves with only health-promoting food at home. So that every time we open our fridge or pantry, our only options are foods that will help us feel our best. If you must have some unhealthy snacks or desserts on hand, stash them out of sight; don’t leave them on a counter.
(4) Make friends with other people who value wellness. This gives us a support system and helps us pick up healthy new information and behaviors. We become like the people we spend the most time with. And these days, we can make health-conscious friends fairly easily at group exercise classes, at work, or online.
The power of healthy environmental design was a guiding principle when I designed Methodology. It’s actually one of the reasons why I chose to name our service “Methodology” rather than something foodie.
Methodology is a system that changes our home environment to nudge us to eat healthier more consistently. So we don’t have to constantly worry about healthy eating or rely on willpower.
I struggled with yo-yo dieting for years in my twenties. And the change that helped me finally wrangle control over my diet was changing which foods surrounded me at home. When I stopped buying chips and pizza home, I stopped eating chips and pizza all the time. When I started filling my fridge each Sunday with healthy, pre-prepped meals, I started eating healthy pre-prepped meals all the time.
This worked because it got to the root cause of my struggles: what was in my fridge and pantry at all times. My home environment.
Lastly, the most powerful part of improving our food environment at home is that no matter how busy, tired or motivated we are, it will be easy to eat healthy regularly.
Parents of newborns, people going through a divorce, people starting a new company have all emailed me telling me that despite being insanely busy and having little to no time or energy to deal with food, thanks to Methodology they somehow got into the best mental and/or physical shape of their lives.
We don’t truly understand the power of eating healthy consistently long-term until we do it.