The Shintaro Higashi Show - One Meal a Day

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

For change of pace, Shintaro and Peter are talking about a new diet Shintaro has been trying out: one meal a day! Why did he start eating only one meal a day? How did he actually go about doing it? What are some of the benefits he's seeing? What are some of the challenges? Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

welcome back to the shintaro higashi show with peter yu today we're going to mix it up a little bit and then do sort of a diet related thing i kind of want to mix it up not just judo related content so everybody has something to listen to and be interested about you know i'm an interesting guy right peter you're very interesting i love hanging out with you yeah so we're talking about diet today one meal a day that's like sort of the thing that i'm kind of on one meal a day diet you you told me like uh like yesterday or something that you started doing this yeah yeah so what is it even like well it's a one meal a day you used to we really just eat once a day is that what it is so there's many forms of intermittent fasting it's super popular right everyone's fasting these days you know

like the 16 8 where you kind of like eat in the eight hour window so you like don't eat breakfast you just have lunch and dinner that's what i do yeah that's generally like kind of out of it laziness though yeah and then there's like the five and two where you eat five days a week and then you fast for two things like this and then there's all sorts of different forms uh but you know i don't want to get into like what everyone already talks about you know different forms of fasting like science behind it autophagy like i don't want to talk about that right everybody does it already right you know like sticking to it right the benefits of it in my experience is sort of unique i guess so that's that's what i want to kind of get into today it's more like a day straight practical

side of things like what you're going through by doing it yeah yes yes okay so let's just get us started off like why did you even start doing this like well what why so i mean the hype of intermittent fasting right that's always something that i was always into and listening to and all the physical you know fitness guys are kind of teaching this but there's a guy really close to me george you guys all know george as my uke on youtube and he is a freak of nature this guy is probably one of the most disciplined human beings i've ever met in my life oh yeah i haven't i haven't seen anyone who sticks to a diet plan or anything like this yeah yeah this guy has not had a single carbohydrate in about like six years something crazy yeah he one day gave up drinking like seven years ago he's like i haven't had a drink since doesn't eat candy doesn't eat sugar doesn't eat bread carbs pasta he

keeps fully ketogenic and eats once a day and he's the most jacked human i know he's like he it's not like he avoids all those gatherings he still goes out to dinner with us he still goes out you know like to bars and clubs and he'll just drink that's right yeah yeah i've been to a bar with him he's having a great time talking to people dancing you know you shred it to the bone right and it's like all the questions like oh if you don't eat enough like carbs like glycogen stores and all these questions that you may have when you talk to someone who only eats once a day it's like you know he's living it he's living it he's doing it and then you know it's like i would like to emulate you know what his body looks like right yeah so he inspires me yeah yeah i teach him judo and i'm like all right let me hear about your diet

and it seems very very super disciplined and i was like oh man i love that right right all right so and all this inspired me and then you wanted to get all the benefits that george is seeing right so yeah yeah so what's your give me the details of your your one meal a day diet like what do you do do you only eat breakfast lunch or dinner or what do you do dinner so like after reading a lot of stuff on the internet about this it's like it's very hard to like eat a big big lunch and then like you know function the rest on the internet about this, it's like it's very hard to like eat a big, big lunch and then like, you know, function the rest of the day. Right. Right.

So it's like, you know, I eat a big dinner and that's it. You know, and if I have no judo, it's usually six o'clock. And if I have judo, it's after judo, which is at 10 p.m. And sometimes I overeat and I'm uncomfortable when I go to bed. But like, we'll come up with that because I've been on it for about almost a month now. Okay. Okay. Okay. I've been on it

for almost a month and that's something that most people are probably interested in the results of kind of seeing. And we'll get into that later too.

Yeah. But usually I eat either at six o'clock on non-judo days or 10 p.m. on judo days. So, and then there's no,

it seems like you don't put a limit on how much you eat for that meal? whatever I want. Okay. so my new philosophy on dieting and being in good shape is this you can eat when you want but not what you want okay what you want but not when you want well you gotta eat if you eat when you want and

what you want uh you're just gonna be a mess right but what you want to do is you eat when you want, you're just going to be a mess. Right. But what you want to do is you eat when you want, but not what you want. That's right. If you feel like eating whenever you want, but you can't eat what you want. It's like, I want to eat cookies. You can't eat it.

Right, because that's what you want. Yeah, eat a broccoli. You can't eat. But if you eat what you want, I want to eat a cookie. And you just can't eat whenever you feel like eating. Right, right. Isn't're nicely packaged right there that's like my new philosophy in life so you eat when you're hungry essentially but not everything like you try to keep it

healthy if you eat when you want yeah you can't eat what you want oh i see i see one or the other i see yeah i say it again yeah say it again i'm if you eat when you want you can't eat what you want oh i see i see one or the other i see yeah i say it again yeah say it again i'm if you eat when you want you can't eat what you want or yeah yeah if you eat what you want you can't eat when you want i see i see you eat when you want and what you want you're just a mess that's just like it just doesn't work you know it just doesn't work because i want to eat pizza and cookies and burgers all the time yeah i mean i see so you got to pick one like one of them one other yeah yeah so i opted for the when when i'm not going to eat when i want yeah so now it's once a day that's it and then i know george is keeping ketogenic but i'm not going to do that because i've done it before and i hated it right so you're going to eat what you want but i'm not gonna do that because i've done it before and i hated it right so you're gonna eat what you want but i want to eat what i want on a strict schedule yeah strict schedule i see okay

the evening is nice it's like if i do social things and if i go out to eat i could still do that you know like how often do i go have a lunch situation now i don't seems like yeah you kept it simple and so that you can be consistent yeah simplicity is the key and you know the benefits of it is you know outside of like you could argue like autophagy and this and that and like insulin levels but it's like not even that just a convenience of like noon okay i gotta figure out what i'm gonna eat i'm gonna order on seamless did i prepare something what's in the fridge where am i you know like uh what should i eat making decisions contribute to like decision fatigue right that's a real thing that people scientists talk about right decision right yeah You know, like, what should I eat? Making decisions, contribute to, like, decision fatigue. That's a real thing that people scientists talk about, right?

Decision fatigue. Right, right. Yeah. You don't have to do it. You eat, you take an hour lunch, and then you're tired for an hour because you have postprandial somnolence, right? Or some people call it, you know, certain other things. What's that mean? I don't know what that means.

Postprandial somnolence, like when you eat and then you feel a little bit sleepy. Some people are much more sensitive to fluctuations in your insulin levels and stuff like that. I see. So, yeah, you eat for an hour, you take an hour lunch and you're lethargic for another hour. You lose two hours of the day where you could be functioning and doing certain things. Man, now you're really selling it to me i'm like that actually sounds very attractive to me because yeah i always think oh man preparing because i work from home now most of the time to me it's like this yeah 11 o'clock hits i sit around for about an hour and

think what am i gonna eat should i get pizza should i not get yeah i love that stuff should i do it should i not my mind is already off in the world of like what are my favorite foods what do i feel like today what should i eat what shouldn't i eat it's a tug of war for an hour right and sometimes it's like i'm at the dojo because i do an early private or something and it's like oh man i don't know it's like maybe it's raining it's hot outside i'm already here i'm in my rash guard and my shorts or whatever it is you know what i'm just gonna order seamless and i'm scrolling through seems like ah should i get pizza i haven't had this i'm gonna get burger right so that's an hour i sit down eat watch like netflix or something that's another hour and then i'm lethargic for

an hour i lose three hours okay i really do yeah i do but now it's like eating is not an option right it's not even an option now do i get hungry yeah but you know you get used to it so yeah tell me more about that now i see the benefits you know the time management side of things and you know the health benefits three hours yeah um so but like you know you i'm sure yeah like you say you get hungry or what do you do you just stick it out or you just get used to it it's almost like you're conditioned to be hungry during those times. Wow.

Because we always eat, right? Yep. And I used to do three, four meals, five meals a day, right? It's like, wake up in the morning, it's like, oh, man, I would love some oatmeal and eggs. You know? Yeah. Depending on how it feels, it's like, oh, man, maybe I'll get some bacon. Maybe I'll get a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich with some ketchup.

You know, maybe I'm like, oh, today's going to be a high-protein day. You know, I'll go to one of those bodegas and be like, hey, man, let me get a bacon egg and cheese with ketchup. I want cheddar cheese, one slice, four eggs. That's like my go-to, right? Depending on, you know, how much I've been working out, how much do I want to work out that day, right? Right, right. So it's like you're conditioned, wake up, eat something. Lunchtime's rolling around.

It's like, all right, it'll be nice to take a break, you know, at noon. Let's see what I want. So it becomes part of your ritual so automatically your body starts sending these hunger signals now all of a sudden you're getting hungry but now you know i don't get hungry at those times it's a lot less right i see because your body's used to not eating at that time yes yes and then the time that i have to sort of tough it out i guess yeah where i have to deal with the hunger pangs much shorter and shorter and shorter used to be it's like oh man it's like 2 p.m i'm starving it's not going away and then maybe like an hour later i feel like ah you know i'm okay now but now it's like oh man i'm hungry like i feel it you know uh it'll go away in 10 minutes for me now so you don't even have a snack or anything just maybe maybe water? I have green tea, matcha.

Uh-huh. Right? And I started that because I was drinking too much. We'll do another like... Yeah, the coffee thing. Gave up coffee for 30 days. I like these challenges. You know, I love these challenges.

Keep yourself on the top. So, yeah. So I'll do like a black coffee in the morning. I'll do matcha in the afternoon. You know, and this is the thing with me. It's like I can eat forever. Mm-hmm. Right? So it's like if I have a little bit of something, I'll destroy the whole know, and this is the thing with me. It's like I can eat forever. Right. So it's like if I have a little bit of something, I'll destroy the whole thing, whatever it is.

So it actually takes less discipline for me to stick up to this and to like eat a little bit and then not eat the rest of it. So I'll talk a little bit more about that when we talk about the challenges of this diet. I see. Yeah. But the time, the duration in which I feel those hunger aches is getting shorter and shorter and shorter i see so for dinner that means well you do have to think about dinner right because now that's the only meal of your day and then you said you eat what you want yeah you know so how do you how do you plan the day whole day around it like yeah like do you cook a lot now or

yeah i cook i'll go anywhere and eat you know out or anywhere right however i feel like whatever it's like it's almost on a whim you know and it's kind of like how i do a lot of the things that i do but there's sort of structures in place you know if i'm feeling healthy i want to try to start off with the vegetables first so i get that in at least right and then it adds a layer of protection right for your cookies yeah that's right if i start off with cookies i'll eat you know 180 cookies and then i'm done right and i got no nutritional value out of that meal so i'll start off with vegetables and i'll go with the proteins because i definitely want to hit a certain gramage of protein just to stay you know strong right so i try to watch out for my macros i try to keep us cover your macros first yeah vegetables macros vegetables proteins first and then i eat

whatever i want i see nice yeah yesterday it was like literally like grilled chicken yeah i had like four of them had a huge salad yeah huge salad but like i kind of like went a little bit fancy on the salad you know it was like a mixed spring green situation right a little bit of goat cheese tomatoes cucumbers carrots balsamic vinaigrette stuff like that oh i like that dry cranberries you know i take like the little omega nut packets uh and then all over it all over it. Yeah, it was good. It was a huge bowl. Massive, massive.

Ate four grilled chickens. And I was like, you know what? I deserve it. And I had, you know, vanilla Oreos. How many? Probably like 15 of them. It's 130 calories, two of them. But you're sticking to your rule, though.

You eat what you want, but not when you want. I probably had about 700 calories worth of cookies. But you know, this is the thing. Normally, I would feel really guilty about that. I would beat myself up the next day and work extra hard in the gym. But right now, zero guilt. No guilt. Because you're stuck to your plan.

I'm stuck to my plan, yeah. And then, you know, some days it's like, do I lose weight? No. When I was younger, I tried this, right? When I was in my 20s and I went berserk. Like I would not eat all day and then 6 or 7 p.m. came around, I would eat like crazy, like overeat. You know, because like my maintenance calories 2500 calories a day so if i'm gonna go over that right i'm gonna gain weight uh so there is sort of this mathematics behind it

yeah even if you eat only one meal a day i mean it's about the calories if i do 2500 calories for my maintenance if i burn 500 calories at the gym earlier and if I burn another 500 calories at the dojo, that's 3,500 calories where I can eat in peace to stay net neutral. Right, right. Right? So if I go over that, I'm going to blow up. If I stay under that, that's good. But to eat 3,500 calories in one meal after I have my veggies and proteins. That's pretty impossible.

It's hard to do. You know what I mean? Unless you eat a lot of ice cream or cookies, I guess. Yeah, I mean, you know from my days of like, you know, I would eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream a night. That was a thing. I can't eat under a pint. That was my thing for the longest time.

I remember that. Yeah, I remember saying that at the dojo and people would be like, that is disgusting. No, I was just amazed because I can't really eat that much. Easy to do. I'd have like six or seven pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the freezer. Yeah. It wasn't good though.

But this was like, that's a thousand calories right there. Right. So you're seeing a lot of benefits. You know, are you becoming more like George? You know, I lost weight. So I was seeing a lot of benefits. Are you becoming more like George? You know, I lost weight. So I was starting at 210. I've been about on it for a month and I'm already about 200. Oh, nice. Nice. Right. And then I have like a body fat scale. Right. So, you know, a lot of this time is not very accurate. Right. But when you're on the same body fat scale the whole time you could see sort of

the trending trend yeah the delta the change right so that's what you're looking for the delta so it's sloping down you know it's slipping down you know my muscle it measures your muscle mass too and it's kind of slowly incrementally rising almost okay yeah so it's good it's definitely going in the direction that i want it to go right And my advice for people who are going to do this is you have to weigh yourself every day. But you can't really get too crazy on like the intraday fluctuations, the day-to-day fluctuations. Because if I had a really salty meal the night before, I'm going to retain water. Yeah, yeah. Right?

If your glycogen is depleted because you work out, right? And then you're not eating anything all day and then you eat way too many carbs you're gonna fill those stores and you're gonna hold on to a lot of water all right so like water levels are really gonna fluctuate and really water weighs a lot so those things so you can't really get too discouraged there's days where it's like i gain a pound you know lose two gain two pounds lose one and it's like oh boy but you gotta look at the trend line yeah that's right yeah it's like goes up and down but it's kind of trending but you gotta look at the trend line yeah that's right yeah it's like goes up and down but it's kind of trending downward so you know that's an important thing to keep

right in mind nice yeah what do you uh i'm i'm very uh you know keen on this too now yeah the thing george said yeah that really like made it relatable. Cause nothing about George is relatable to most people. Like a Greek God. He's like a chisel Greek God. Yeah. And he's like super smart. Yeah. You know, he's an insanely smart guy.

I worked in finance. Now he's like chasing his dreams of being an actor. Yeah. And he's good at judo. He's tough. He's just like a nice guy. Like nothing about him is like really, he's like a Superman.

Yeah. I mean, but the thing that he said was like people would always ask him like how can you be so disciplined you're so disciplined yeah yeah no real discipline is like having one cookie at lunch and then not having you know eight more i can't do that i can't do the moderate moderation is like real discipline he did tell me about that yeah yeah and then i really that really hit resident it's just like i i was like oh man you're right like that's harder to do if you just it's a lot harder for me to do to have a little breakfast

pick a nice lunch say no to the the stuff that i really want to eat want to eat versus when to eat um so now this is like you know and then my advice is like 3 4 p.m if you're sitting around doing nothing yeah your mind's gonna go just eat something right right because we're designed for that yeah we've evolved to eat you know you have to distract yourself leave the house you know for me it's perfect because at the dojo you're in the basement teaching judo people are rolling in asking you questions yeah there's no time yeah right there's no time to like yeah hold on let me just grab something right so nice yeah that's my situation with the one meal a day it's been amazing for me i hope you guys try it you know but talk to your doctor first right i'm not a doctor or a dietician or a personal trainer or physical that i'm none of

those things i'm just a judo person that likes to kind of mess around. No way shape or form an expert on this stuff. Judo, yeah. This is all his experience doing it. So a lot of times when you're trying to do something new,

it helps to gather some data points. Yeah, sure. So maybe I'll give this a shot because i it's annoying for me to prepare lunch you're gonna have a hard time because i know you're at home working on your phd right so 3 p.m 4 p.m comes around you're gonna be like holy moly i gotta eat something but that's a good time to structure your walk for your dog yeah maybe i'll walk my dog at three o'clock right right right and then four o'clock you know what i'm gonna go to the gym that's the one thing that was hard for me if i work out earlier in the day

11 a.m you get hungry right post anabolic window that people talk about yeah i'm not feeding myself when i'm supposed to feed myself and i found all these excuses not to keep it right it's like oh i should have a protein shake after i write right because it's something that i do and you know you're supposed to do that right though that's an excuse so you got to keep things simple so that there's no room for excuses really yeah it's like you know the goal is like stick with it for two weeks at least yeah right then what do you lose yeah you can go back if you don't like it go back if you don't like it you could always go back it's just two weeks yeah one more consult your doctor though cool all right well anything else no man one meal a day yeah i think i covered that you know i kind of wanted to break up the judo content

reach out to us if you're watching to if you like some of this stuff that's non-judo related, you know, maybe we'll do, I was thinking maybe we'll do like one-on-one-off judo, non-judo. You know, people who are listening to this are interested in stuff like this, right? Diet, fitness, all this stuff is related. Yeah.

Anything, yeah, just, yeah. Send us with suggestions. Send us suggestions. You know, they don't have to be related to judo we're trying to spice things up and i'm sure you guys are maybe getting a little tired of all the judo stuff you know so we'll like maybe mix it up and i'm sure you guys have questions too when you listen to this like people are going to probably the number one thing people are already out going to ask is like how do you feel during judo if you

haven't eaten all day yeah yeah so you could reach out to us and ask that you know i probably won't respond my notifications are turned off on social because it could be endless yeah i could spend all day responding to messages because they roll in all the time so but then you know we'll pick it up but sometimes yeah i i re-comment on reddit like um and i'll do my best to respond. I do. I try. But it's hard. At least Shintaro will notice a trend. And if a question keeps coming up, we'll cover it. We'll always talk about those things.

All right. Well, one meal a day. Thanks for listening, guys. Judo Shintaro NYC on Instagram. You can search me on YouTube. Also follow Peter on Instagram, right? Ask him questions yeah people have been following me so you know i i i don't get as many notifications i i respond

yeah business inquiries too also you could send it out to peter yeah on his instagram cool all hours of the day that's right i'm available i don't do anything all right all right guys uh thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode