Is Takoyaki Healthy? (3 Tips For Weight Loss)
If you’ve ever had Takoyaki before then you know how delicious these little balls of battered squid are.
The first time I had Takoyaki was actually in Japan and, ever since then, I’ve fallen in love with it. Although Takoyaki is delicious, is it healthy?
Takoyaki is not the best of foods to eat when sticking to a healthy diet as it contains lots of fats and carbs which provide a higher potential to overeat on your total daily allotted calories.
However, you can still eat Takoyaki and stay healthy by understanding what its nutritional contents are and by following these three steps.
The three major facts and tips we have for you today are listed here.
What Is Takoyaki Made Out Of?
How Many Calories Are In Takoyaki?
Make Sure To Eat High Protein Foods Throughout Your Day
Let’s dive into these three steps and see what we can do in order to eat our favorite Japanese snack while still losing weight.
How To Lose Weight Eating Takoyaki
Weight loss is really the process of understanding how many calories you need to consume in a day.
The question you need to ask yourself is, “am I burning more calories than I am consuming?”
If you don’t know the answer to this question, then you need to find out before diving into any fitness journey.
Eating healthy is totally fine but real results come from knowing and understanding how many calories you need to consume on a daily basis.
If you want a more in-depth article about figuring out how many calories you need to consume and what type of workouts you need to do to get in shape, then here is an article that you can read through.
When eating something like Takoyaki, you must understand what kind of macronutrient makes up most of its calories and how many calories each ball of Takoyaki is.
The best way to do this is to track you calories through an app called MyFitnessPal or to just search up the calorie contents on google or somewhere online
When you track your calories you track how you look.
Similarly, if you make sure to consistently workout, then you will build precious muscle that will help boost your metabolism.
Simply put, the more muscle you have, the more food you can eat and still stay lean.
So, “what is Takoyaki made out of?” Let’s discuss that in the next section below.
Tip 1: What Is Takoyaki Made Out Of?
The first thing we need to talk about that makes up the majority of Takoyaki’s calories is the batter that the octopus is soaked into.
The ingredients in a typical Takoyaki batter are: all purpose flour, eggs, salt, baking powder, soy sauce, and salt.
Usually, a cup of flour makes around 20 takoyaki balls which is great because you usually only consume around 4-6 Takoyaki balls in one serving.
This means that you probably only eat a fifth of the carbs and are getting your other macronutrients such as protein and fats.
The protein that goes into Takoyaki is typically octopus but there are some places that use squid in place of octopus.
Octopus is a great source of protein as it barely has any fat mixed into it!
Octopus has 25.4 grams of protein for every 1.8 grams of fat.
This is amazing and is even comparable to chicken breast.
Seafood is usually a great option when dieting since the protein to fat ratio in meats such as fish, octopus, or shellfish is always high.
Protein is the building block of muscle and helps us grow or maintain our current muscle mass.
So, “why is muscle important you ask?” As mentioned above, muscle allows us to eat more as it burns calories at rest.
When we start to build muscle in our bodies we increase our metabolism and we can eat more delicious foods while staying relatively lean.
This sounds like a great life if you ask me. I like to think of food as something earned.
I might be a little crazy on this but I feel like I have to earn my weekends where I can indulge in my favorite foods.
The more muscle I grow on my body, the more my body can maintain a healthy weight while I still eat my foods such as Takoyaki.
I’ve been working out for 7 years now and the amount of food I can eat while staying lean is much more than when I started.
This all due to the muscle I’ve put on my body over the years and I mainly did it so I can eat all my favorite foods!
Now that we’ve gone over the importance of muscle, let’s get back on track with what else goes into Takoyaki.
Other than the batter and octopus, Takoyaki is usually fried in oil and served with Japanese mayo and a sweet teriyaki sauce.
These two sauces will definitely add some extra calories coming from carbs and fats so the tip here when eating Takoyaki is to make sure to minimize the amount of sauce you can use.
The places in Japan allowed us to put the sauce on ourselves but, if you go to a place where the sauce is already served, just stop eating earlier than when you usually stop.
After the sauces are poured onto the Takoyaki, the balls are usually topped off with bonito flakes which are dried pieces of shredded tuna.
These are very thin and hardly add any nutritional value to the meal; however, they do add a ton of flavor and a fun texture to top the dish.
Now, that we know what’s in the Takoyaki, let’s go over the nutrition facts and the macronutrients that make up the dish.
Tip 2: How Many Calories Are In Takoyaki?
In one ball of Takoyaki there are usually 2.4 grams of protein, 4.2 grams of carbs, and 5.8 grams of fat.
This totals to around 79 calories per ball that you eat. Here are the nutrition facts for a typical Takoyaki dish.
As you can see from the nutrition facts, Takoyaki consists mainly of fats as it is the highest macronutrient that is consumed per ball of Takoyaki.
Due to Takoyaki being fried, the calories of fat definitely comes from the oil that is used to cook up the Takoyaki.
So, is Takoyaki something I can expect to be good for my fitness journey?
Well, it really depends on a lot of things. The main factors are how active you are in your daily life and how aware you are of the calories that you need to be consuming on a daily basis.
If you are someone that knows those things, then anything is really fine to eat as you know how many carbs, fats, and proteins you need to eat in a day.
However, if you are someone that has no clue about how many of these macronutrients you need to consume, then be careful when eating something so high in carbs and fats.
You want to make sure that you’re eating a balanced diet when you get your carbs, fats AND proteins in.
If you want to know a rough estimate on how many calories and macronutrients you should consume in a day, try inputting your stats into an online calculator.
This is a rough estimate and is not personalized to the individual.
So you’ll have to play around with the numbers until you lose or gain the weight you intend to.
Our recommendation when eating something like Takoyaki is to eat it on your cheat days or just on the weekends.
Takoyaki is a dish that is meant to be enjoyed with your friends, family, or significant other.
So make sure to indulge in this delicious dish, just eat it after you’ve had a good week of eating healthy foods and have been on track with your diet!
Tip 3: Make Sure To Eat High Protein Foods Throughout Your Day
The key to any great diet is to make sure to get your protein in.
Protein is definitely the hardest macronutrient to get in as many foods don’t really carry too much protein.
You’re really limited to meats and some plant based options which can get tiring to eat at times.
Since protein is really hard to consume in large amounts, our tip here is to just stick with high protein options such as fish (tilapia, salmon, swordfish) and chicken breast.
You don’t need to eat too much of these and they’re really easy to get in on a consistent basis.
Takoyaki is usually paired with another Japanese dish such as sushi or katsu don and is served as an appetizer to the main dish.
The tip here would be to make sure that the main dish, served alongside the takoyaki, is a high protein dish without too many carbs.
Japanese food is generally healthy and many restaurants out there serve high protein dishes with lots of fibrous veggies.
My personal favorite, if I were to go to a Japanese restaurant that serves Takoyaki, is to go to a Yakitori restaurant. I usually order the Takoyaki as an appetizer which goes perfectly with the charcoal grilled meats and veggies.
By doing so, I’m getting all three macronutrients into my meal and I can focus on getting that hard to reach protein in.
There are so many high protein, low carb meals in Japanese restaurants and, the best part is, they’re usually all delicious and satisfying.
There it is!
Three tips on how you can enjoy your favorite Japanese dish while staying on track with your diet and fitness goals.
Make sure to check out our other articles for fitness tips and nutrition facts on your favorite Asian dishes!
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PHILLIP PAK
Phillip Pak is a fitness expert who has been training clients for 6 years. Throughout his fitness journey, Phill has done it all when it comes to diet and nutrition. He is now the owner of Aspire Fitness Walnut where his main goal is to help those who are seeking to find the best version of themselves. Phillip is also a NASM Certified Nutrition Coach (CNC) and a NASM Certified Personal Trainer (CPT).
