Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

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!”

That’s not entirely true, of course. Aside from sumo wrestlers, there are some Japanese people who are fat — but at least in my two-week trip to Tokyo, they were pretty hard to find.

Seriously: in America (including my hometown of Guam), you could walk around and half if not most of the people you see will be at least a little overweight. Many are outright obese. But in Japan, everyone is thin it seems. I could go a whole day without seeing a fat person, unless it was a tourist.

This is not groundbreaking news, I know — 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. But here are the reasons the Japanese are not fat, in my opinion:

1. They eat a lot of seafood and veggies. It’s true that they eat red meat, and sometimes it’s fried. But red meat or poultry doesn’t seem to be the main staple of their diet as much as seafood, rice and veggies are. Meat seems to be eaten in smaller amounts (usually as a seasoning, not a main dish), or if it’s eaten in bigger amounts, it’s not an everyday occurrence. This is a generalization, of course, as is everything in this article, so there are many exceptions. Not everyone in Japan eats the same way.

2. They eat smaller portions. This is very striking, actually. While in American (and Guam) restaurants, the food is piled high in huge portions, or supersized in fast food restaurants, in Japanese restaurants the portions are … sensible. Not tiny, but definitely not large. You might get a bowl full of soup with some noodles and seafood (or meat), but if you take just the solid part it’s not a huge amount. Or you might get some seafood with rice and pickled veggies and miso soup — small amounts for each of those foods. The smaller portions is probably more important than the type of food they eat, in my opinion.

3. They walk and bike more than we do. This was pretty striking as well. It seems like everyone uses the subway stations and walks, every day. Their kids walk a good part of the way to school, instead of being dropped off by parents. And a LOT of people ride bicycles, everywhere. Usually not the kind you ride for exercise or training for races, but everyday, riding-around-the-city type of bicycles with baskets for a bag or two of groceries. This is all in contrast to us Americans, who ride cars everywhere, even to the corner store. (This is a generalization, of course — you my lovely readers are exceptions.)

It’s a combination of the walking, biking, eating smaller portions, and eating more seafood and veggies, that leads to the Japanese being pretty darn healthy in general. Any one of these changes would be a big improvement for most of us in America.

How I Lost 5 lbs. on My Summer Vacation
In just two weeks in Tokyo, without dieting or fasting, I lost 5 pounds and slimmed down.

I’m still not quite at my Leo vs. Bellyfat Challenge goal yet, but I’m getting there — I’m 17 lbs. lighter than I was when I started my challenge, all told. But the fastest fat loss during this challenge came in those two weeks.

And here’s the kicker: I wasn’t trying to lose weight!

Here’s how I did it:

1. I walked. For hours. Every day. My family and I walked all over Tokyo for two weeks — that’s me and Eva and the six kids, including one who rode around in a stroller. We walked about 15-20 minutes every morning to the subway station, then up and down stairs within the subway system (often transferring trains once or twice), then would walk for hours and hours exploring a new part of Tokyo. Then we’d repeat the subway trip and walk home, exhausted. Sometimes we’d walk for 10-12 hours in a day. Of course, we rested in between walking — stopping to enjoy a park or have a meal or a snack, or browse through a bookstore — but most of the time, we were walking. Great distances. Often hauling a 3-year-old toddler, a stroller, or a bag or two. Up and down lots of stairs and hills. It was an amazing amount of exercise, and by the end of the two weeks, my family and I were in great walking shape.

2. I ate moderate amounts. I didn’t stick to a meal plan, as I did early on in my Bellyfat Challenge, nor did I fast, as I started to do just before my Tokyo trip. I think both methods work great. But I decided to take a break from those methods during my vacation, and I didn’t worry about what or when I ate. My only thing was to eat until I was just full — to never stuff myself. I had desserts, I ate French fries (once in awhile), I ate white rice (I usually eat brown). I still ate fairly healthy most of the time, as I enjoy fruits and veggies a lot and fried foods kinda make me queasy, but I didn’t watch what I ate. I just ate moderate amounts.

These are really just my two Simple Fitness Rules, but the Tokyo tourist version of them, but they work. I didn’t have to worry as much about what I ate because I burned a ton of calories each day.

I hope to continue the walking, now that I’m back on Guam. As I’ve written about before, I’ve been walking more now that I’ve moved to a more central location here on Guam. I can walk to meetings, to restaurants, to see my sister, to the beach or playground. I’m going to step that up a little. There’s no way I can walk the ridiculous amounts I walked in Japan — I have a life, after all. But I hope to walk just about every day.

And not just for exercise — it’s important to walk with a purpose. While many of us will go walking for 30-45 minutes, for exercise, I’ve found that it’s better to walk somewhere, to do something. For example, when we walked all day around Tokyo Disneyland (which is obligatory if you have as many kids as I do), we didn’t think about walking — we were trying to get to the rides! And it was a fun (if tiring) day. On Guam, I hope to walk to places to do my work, walk with my kids to beaches and parks, go on hikes, walk on dates with my wife to restaurants and movies, walk to go on errands, and so on.

I encourage everyone to consider doing the same — you’ll be amazed at how great it feels.

Read more: Our Japan travel blog, and all our Japan photos.

If I was going to search deep within my (financial) soul I’d admit that most of my money decisions are based on fear. Fear’s a negative word, and I don’t think that in this case my decision making is always a negative process.  I am often quite happy with the result.  A great example has been my investing philosophy.  A little more than a year ago I got nervous about the direction the market was headed.  I took about a third of my retirement accounts’ total out of the market and put it into cash.  Good fear, right?  That chunk of my retirement savings would have been wiped out.

But after a year, I’ve only redeployed about a quarter of that third. You could make the argument – and I do, to myself – that holding onto cash is a defensive position.  Nothing about the current propped-up-through-stimulus-and-bailout money situation of the US economy should encourage a reasonable investor to get back in…should it?  Yet again and again we’ve seen these market drops come back.  So some of my reluctance is fear-based.

I’ve written about the reasons why I don’t talk about real estate investing. I said I don’t like “investing” in a primary residence, I don’t much about real estate or the business of real estate, and that the New York market – where I lived until recently – was too competitive.  I should have added that it usually seems like BIG chunks of money are needed for real estate investing.  Fear of investing in big chunks keeps me diversified in the stock market (index funds, right?) and keeps me afraid of real estate.

Fear of wasting money is good, certainly – but at least as far as investing goes, some fear and uncertainty are necessary to have any sort of reward. I’ve always dreaded a doomsday that seems unlikely to come – a final day with money and then a penniless dawn.  It could happen, of course – but with the ability to make more money (which I have) and good health (which I hope to continue to have) and a supportive family, it seems that I won’t face that doomsday.  So the fear is something more than trivial but also less than a doomsday event.

Does Warren Buffet fear loss? Probably not at this point – he’s old enough and seemingly content enough to be free of financial fear.  Does Bernie Madoff?  I guess now he will face his own doomsday now, and learn whether that fear should have been stronger.  How do you control fear of money?  Here are the things I try to do:

1. Remember that money is infinite. YOU may not have infinite amounts of money, but there is a lot of it out there, if you can just figure out how to get it.
2. You cannot anticipate every disaster, but you only need to anticipate one success. If you invest in a property, a billion things can go wrong – title problems, a fire, a sewage plant groundbreaking the day after you close, etc. etc.  You can’t prepare for everything.  Try to aim for success, not dodge failure.
3. Fear comes from you. Fear is not an externally-caused reaction.  Sure, we all get a jolt of adrenaline when we’re jumped by a cave bear, but you can control fear.  It’s not like being poked with a stick, where you have a reaction determined by nerves and muscle reflexes.  Fear is neurons firing off in your brain, and you can control your thoughts – they are the only thing in the world you CAN control.
4. Doomsday may come, true… but let fear of that day go. I do sometimes worry about all of my index funds and various other investments going to zero… but as I’ve often told my friends and family, if my retirement portfolio, invested in index funds that span the US market, goes to nil we’ve got bigger problems that worrying about retirement.  We’ll be reverting to a currency based on canned foods and shotgun shells.  Worry about your 401(k)’s fees, or your consumer debt with 21% interest rates – things you can do something about.  Don’t worry about the end of the world.  If the aliens come, you’re not prepared anyway.

Fear of money – worrying about its scarcity, or its disappearance – can cripple you from making more and even more importantly from enjoying life.

Photo by DownTown Pictures

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Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead; follow him on twitter.

Have you ever thought about why you get stuck?

I’m sure you have. There are entire industries built around productivity. There are multitudes of books, seminars, webinars, podcasts, blog posts, desktop apps, email apps, mobile apps, and physical products centered around helping you get things done. They are supposed to help you get unstuck, right? Because if you weren’t stuck, you wouldn’t need any of those things to keep you going.

But what if you didn’t need any of those things? What if you could solve all of your “problems” with getting things done with one simple question?

So the question is: Do I care?

Sure, sometimes you may have to do things you don’t really care to do. You probably don’t care much for cleaning litter boxes and filing your taxes. That’s a given. But we’re talking about the big things here, like the work you devote your life to.

Do you care about it? Be honest with yourself. Do you really care?

If you don’t care, allow that to be okay. At least you’re acknowledging the fact that you don’t care. Now you know that it’s not a water-tight productivity system you need to get you motivated. What you need is work that you give a damn about.

The first step is allowing yourself to not care and being honest with what you do care about it. That’s where most people get stuck. A lot of people spend their lives working on things they don’t care about, because they think it doesn’t matter that they don’t care. They think they’re supposed to suck it up and deal with it. Are you one of these people that believes it doesn’t matter if you don’t care about your work? It’s okay if you are. I used to be this way, too.

Then I realized something.

I discovered that not only is it valid to care about the work you do, it’s absolutely necessary. I used to think that you didn’t have a choice, or that doing work you love was some kind of luxury for the retired or gifted. And you know why? Because we’re taught that we can’t get paid to be ourselves. We’re taught that we need to become something in order to earn a paycheck.

Here’s some refreshing news: That’s an assumption.

More refreshing still: Just because a huge number of people believe in an assumption, doesn’t mean it’s true.

A lot of people once assumed the world was flat. And a lot of people now assume that work and play are not meant to coexist, that life must be a struggle. But the simple fact is, your life is a gift. To spend that gift in drudgery and grim duty is a waste.

So here’s the question you might want to ask now: How can I do what I care about?

Here are a few suggestions:

• Do something amazing.
• Start a revolution.
• Learn to give up caring about all the unimportant things.
• Pull out all the mental weeds to allow room for the things you care about to grow.
• Create a legacy project.
• Do something Epic.

If you allow yourself to stop caring about the things you don’t really care about, something amazing will start to happen. Once you move out all that attentional garbage, you finally create room for the things you love to take up residence in your life.

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind.  For more unconventional ideas, grab a subscription to Illuminated Mind.

I had to mention Michael Jackson.  Flexo will explain why. It is one of those watershed pop-culture moments, whether you like him or not.  I am a fan of Elvis, and 32 years after his death people are still mooney about him.  I liked Thriller – who didn’t.  He was around even before that, with albums like Off The Wall.  I remember vividly skating around the rollerskating rink in my hometown while Rock With You droned on.  It was one of those not-quite-fast, not-quite-slow songs where you wondered whether you should do singles skating or try and get a girl to hold hands while you stumbled around the rink.  Good times, whatever else you can say about the guy, I guess.  A few links for the weekend:

Poor Money Choices Ruined My Parents’ Life:  Yikes.  Not much positive here, except that she overcame her parents’ poor choices.

Start A Side Business in the Lazy Days of Summer:  Some excellent advice on starting a side hustle…and Why Everybody Needs A Side Hustle

• Worst Case Scenario – How Long Will Your Savings Last?
• Student Loan Rates Will Drop to All Time Low
• Interview With Mr. Credit Card On Personal Finance and Silicon Valley
• What Can You Expect to See on Your Credit Reports?
• This Seems Like a Bad Idea to Me
• Reader Question: I Don’t Have Much Savings So Can I Use Unused Credit as an Emergency Fund?

And a few interesting links from some blogs I haven’t linked to as often…

• What’s Wrong with The Millionaire Next Door:  Interesting take on a book I like, a lot.  I agree that it’s dry and drifts off into uninteresting areas – too much time wasted on the question of cars, for example.  Yet I find it’s a good book in terms of thinking about what a millionaire looks like, rather than what we might THINK a millionaire looks like.
• Emergency: This Book Could Save Your Life (Neil Strauss) – Review
• Two More Virtues of Owning a DogI’m not a dog person, but I’m always willing to listen to someone else’s opinion… I wouldn’t own a dog since that, on top of two toddlers, would seem like a terrible burden, but I understand why other people might enjoy having a dog.
• 3 Things that Could Cost You Your Dream House: It never hurts to be vigilant. Pay attention to the details.
• DIY: Getting Dirty with Square Foot Gardening: I aspire to gardening but we got to Florida a bit too late for planting anything this year, unfortunately.

Photo by Alan Light

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I‘ve heard it said that “once you love someone they stay in your heart forever”. I’m not really sure who exactly to attribute the quote to, so I’ll have to give it it Nita’s father in Brother Bear 2… that was kind of the theme of the film anyway, and like almost anything I hear or experience I am sure to apply it to Reiki (or apply Reiki to it, as the case may be) at some point or another and this time around it yielded a most fascinating perspective on things.

If this is true, as I’m convinced it is, that is, if once you love someone they stay in your heart forever, than that seems a most convenient place to find them, all together at any time. Think of all the people you have loved in your life, check your heart…yup… they are all there! Here’s the kicker… by sending Reiki to your own heart, you are sending Reiki to everyone you have ever loved, all at the same time! I think that’s just like one of the coolest things I’ve ever thought about. In one fell swoop we are not only giving a Reiki treatment to one of most most important vital organs, as well as the core of our emotional being, but also to everyone we have ever loved.

Taking this one step further, if you apply Reiki to someone else’s heart, you are not only applying it to their heart, but since everyone they have every loved is in there you are sending it to them as well. If you happen to be one of them you are getting an extra bonus! Try this one on for size…. give Reiki to your parents and (assuming they loved their parents) the Reiki will be passed through their hearts all the way back to Adam and Eve. Amazing, eh? Told you this Reiki stuff was cool!

Whether this Reiki is traveling through aka cords (as the Hawaiian Shamans would have you believe) through a wormhole in another dimension (as quantum scientists would have you believe) or whether Reiki does indeed make you a hand of God (as Catholic Bishops would NOT have you believe) I don’t know… what I do know is that initial testing on this has yielded some amazing results and I intend to keep right on testing it.

So the bottom line is… focus on the heart… there is more going on in that particular chakra than meets the eye… much more!!!

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Recently I’ve been receiving a lot of questions from extreme beginners. A lot of them relating to the best way to actually get started with Reiki. Where to begin… so to speak. So I thought I’d jot down a few things here for those wishing to to get you off on the right foot with Reiki but really have no idea where or how to begin.

To get started you might also want to take a look at my post on The Top 10 Things to Consider when Choosing a Reiki Teacher for some specific advice relating to getting a teacher… although finding a good teacher is not the only consideration for beginners. There are many different types of Reiki, many different types of classes, and many different types of teachers… and not all of them are created equally. So before even considering a teacher, you need to know something about Reiki.

For beginners, I would recommend a basic Reiki class. Either Western Style or Traditional Reiki are fine for getting started and names like Usui Reiki, Reiki Ryoho, Usui Shiki Ryoho, Gendai Reiki, Komyo Reiki are all basic Reiki classes that are the type of thing you want to start with. Styles of Reiki such as Karuna Reiki, Lightarian Reiki, Angelic Reiki, Dolphin Reiki, Violet Flame Reiki, Kundalini Reiki, etc. are all Reiki variations, and you steer away from them until you have reached a certain comfort level with basic Reiki.

You also need to make a decision between a distance attunement and training and face to face. I’d venture to say that 95% of the distance Reiki classes out there are shams with a few exceptions. Contact me directly if you’d like my opinion on a distance class or teacher. Most of these Reiki ‘Masters’ offer no support, really have no idea how to actually send a distance attunement and/or are just in it for the money. In there defense I have to say that its not their fault, they learned this way and consider their learning valid. It may very well be… but in most cases I have my doubts. In any event I would go for a local teacher and a live class if at all possible and leave the distance classes for those that are really desperate to find a teacher.

So deciding live or distance, which style you want and which teacher are the first three steps that you should not rush into. Take your time and find the right class and the right teacher and you’ll be quite happy you did in the long run.

A few other things you might wish to consider are reading a good Reiki book (I recommend William Rand’s Reiki: The Healing Touch for getting a good introduction) joining a few online Reiki forums, and browsing some Reiki Websites for some unique and interesting viewpoints. A very good idea would be to start keeping a Reiki Journal even before you get started to keep track of and help you notice changes along the Reiki Path… again, further on down the line you’ll be quite happy that you did.

Of course you are free to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have and I’ll be more than happy to help you get started. I am not teaching distance classes at the moment but I’d be quite willing to support you any way I can.

Best of luck with your Reiki practice… again, don’t rush into it… you only get one chance to start off on the right foot.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

At long last Reiki - What It All Be Like is moving out from under the WhatItAllBeLike umbrella to a home of its own. <insert SOUND OF APPLAUSE here> By the time the move is complete nothing important will (hopefully) have changed.. all the posts, pages and comments will be transferred and you will even be automatically redirected to the new site should you decide to continue typing in reiki.whatitallbelike.com to get there (here?). For those of you looking for a sneak peak you can check things out as they are underway at TotalReikiMastery.Com and please do send me comments, suggestions, recommendations, etc. on how the site can be better. The old page format was just too restrictive and the title was (admittedly) a bit odd.

In addition to sporting a sleek new look, the new site will have a bunch of new bells and whistles that should satisfy even the most discriminating Reiki palate. So take a look at it… give it a good testing and let me know if you find something that needs changed.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Have you ever noticed how some of the littlest things in life make such a big difference? On the surface I believe Reiki to be one of those little things. Of course, deep down we soon come to realize that its much, much more… but for most of us it began as something so small… almost an afterthought of something that someone mentioned during the day that we just shrugged off as more of that new age mumbo jumbo. Again, for many of us, that initial understanding, or simple introduction, festered until we just had to do something about it.. and then… oh boy… it was almost as if we were given a new lease on life… I mean, think of the possibilities! Endless miracles in the palm of your hand…

The golden gate to Reiki lies in the promises made by its healing potential. That’s usually the hook that brings newcomers to Reiki Shares and the more introverted ones directly to a private class with a Reiki Master. Whether healing ourselves, healing others, or even healing at a distance, the healing part is fascination embodied. An understanding of how it works is not necessary… just like an understanding of the mechanics involved in a combustion engine is not necessary to drive a car. It works and it doesn’t need gas… that’s all the information I need.

Reiki energy is also unfathomable in its mechanisms, but it works (and it doesn’t need gas) and that’s good enough for me. As we delve deeper into the mysteries of Reiki, one of the first areas of interest is Reiki energy. It so fun to play with and exercise, that we don’t need a book to tell us how powerful or how special it is.

Spiritually speaking, when Reiki comes to most of us, we are not really looking for a new spiritual discipline. For many, that never really even enters into it. But for quite a few its almost like a calling. Something familiar, yet so strange. Something amazing, yet so ordinary. And before we know it we are namaste-ing all over the place (at least in the countries where it is legal).

In these three areas of healing, energy and spirituality there is something for everyone, and room enough to grow our own Reiki practices into something special and unique. Practicing Reiki truly does give us a new lease on life… and there is very little else that compares (except perhaps the receipt of a Reiki treatment from someone else).

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

I‘d like to take a moment and offer my condolences to the family, friends and students of the remarkable Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois, one of the great spiritual leaders of our day, who passed away yesterday at the blessed age of 93. Pattabhi Jois was the creator of Ashtanga Yoga and is one of those responsible for reviving and popularizing the lost practice of Yoga.

As a student of Ashtanga Yoga, Pattabhi Jois holds a special place in my heart and it was long my desire to go to study with him in Mysore. Events kept me from doing so and now I will not be able to study with him as I planned… at least not on this plane.

I highly recommend his book Yoga Mala for anyone interested in expanding their awareness of Yoga. For me, there is quite a bit of overlap between Reiki and Yoga, and once you get to the higher (spiritual) levels of either, they look remarkably similar. Both are first and foremost, spiritual paths… so I guess its easy to picture these paths leading to the same place.

In closing, here’s a short video of Pattabhi Jois covering a few of the finer points of Yoga… notice how so much of it is quite similar to Reiki. R.I.P. Guruji!!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!

Quite a few people believe that thought is not really necessary in Reiki… that it has its own intelligence and even if you did try to tell it what to do, it would do what it thought best regardless. While this may be true, far be it for me to mess with people’s beliefs, and it may actually work (one of the finest Reiki Masters I know actually teaches this and his Reiki abilities are extraordinary) in my own experience, however, I have found something that works better… allow me to share it with you.

A lot has been said and written on the power of positive thinking and I think that basically, its probably all true. As Henry Ford is attributed to having said, “Whether You Think You Can or Can’t, You’re Right” and this has its place in Reiki as well. I believe that most Reiki Masters teach you to set your intention at the beginning of the healing, draw your symbols and stand back and let Reiki do the rest. As I said above, this works… and if your current level of Reiki effectiveness is enough than you don’t even need to read this. If you’d like to up the ante a bit though… read on.

I have found that focusing on the positive things in my life tends to attract more positive things. The lowest times in my life were when, for whatever reasons, I was focusing on the negative… and in return, like a magnet, more negativity ensued. How this works with Reiki is that while you are performing any type of healing, attunement or meditation, if you remain doggedly focused on your desired outcome, there is a higher possibility of achieving that outcome with the least possible resistance.

For example, if you are healing a toothache, remain focused on healing the toothache… on restoring the energetic balance needed to relax and enjoy that health. If its for yourself, focus on the pleasure of chewing your favorite foods or the enjoyment of dining out with friends. Notice in all of these images there is no negativity at all. DO NOT focus on NO PAIN, or any other negative image as the mind has a very difficult time processing negatives. Tell a five year old to NOT eat a cookie, for all intents and purposes is exactly the same as telling him to eat a cookie.

So you need to conjure up positive thoughts and focus strictly on them with no interference of any kind by any negative thoughts. Reiki may be intelligent, but sometimes while it is in search of a healing for the highest good it neglects to consider the pain that accompanies that search. This technique shows it exactly what you want, and nine times out of ten it will connect the dots and give you what you want.

For your next healing try this and see if you can feel the difference. It requires more effort… but I think the results are well worth it.

For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!