The Sushi Diet

It’s no secret that actor Jonah Hill has lost a lot of weight over the past year.

Jonah Hill’s work in “Moneyball” earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, recently spoke with ABC News.  Apparently, the secret to his remarkable weight loss was a diet of mostly sushi.  “It was just mostly diet,” Hill said. “I wish there was some crazy thing that I did, like a pill or a genie or something, but it wasn’t, unfortunately, I went to see a nutritionist, and he told me what to eat to change my habits and stuff.”

For years, my husband has been telling me he wants to go on a sushi diet.  Have chopsticks, will travel.  He loves how he feels after he eats it, never heavy or bloated and he knows fish is incredibly healthy.  Honestly, I’m not sure an all sushi diet is practical (or affordable), but incorporating sushi and other Japanese foods in your diet isn’t a bad idea at all.   Sushi is made from combining small portions of rice (carbohydrates) with protein and omega -3 filled fish and often some nutrient filled seaweed.  Drink some healthy green tea with it and you have a filling meal with lots of beneficial ingredients.

Homemade Sushi Recipe

Of course, you will want to avoid maki rolls with added fats.  No mayonnaise, cream cheese or fried tempura rolls.  They don’t eat cream cheese in Japan.  Spicy tuna and salmon usually are made with mayo and California rolls sometimes have a mayo sauce, too.  Keep it zen and go easy on the soy sauce.  In Japan they dip the fish not the rice which soaks up all the sodium your body doesn’t need.  Adding avocado is okay, the healthy fat from their complements the fish.  Basic tuna or salmon rolls are 140 to 180 calories, and the calories vary widely by size.

Weight loss is all about calories in versus calories out.  A sushi diet is just another way to get you to think about what you are eating.  Say sayonara to those extra pounds!

Here is another recipe for Vegetable Sushi and here is one for a slightly different take on sushi – Sushi Salad.