2 weeks later...

Yes, tomorrow will be the 2 week anniversary of my starting to mind what I put into my mouth. Sorry if this blog isn't as entertaining or insightful as you would like, oh reader, but I do what I can. This is more for myself than anything else, after all.

Its nice to always think before you eat. Especially when you can think "Now I have to be totally honest about what I had for lunch to my mom on my blog- not even one little lie or bit of food left out" That being said, I've been having a cup of coffee almost every day mom. But not today! And been eating at least one fruit a day. Which reminds me, apples are still sitting in the fridge...

Today's meals: Breakkie - cereal and milk. Lunch- salad and a potato burger from MOS burger (its a japanese fast food place)...the rice burgers there are good too but I didn't feel like eating beef today. Incidentally, the rice burgers are where the bread buns are replaced with rice cakes! Its yummy and filling and more healthy than refined bread! Dinner-yong tau fu as usual! Brocolli and babycorn... yummy!

Today I realized to what extent exactly I'm somewhat an emotional eater. I had a rough meeting in the afternoon and when I got back to school, I thought that only a steaming caramel latte and walnut chocolate chip cookie would make me smile again. Then I realized the real resolution I needed to reach was coming to terms with things that had been said and done, and eating would just hinder and not help the situation in the long run. Its so easy to unconsciously get into the habit of eating nice things to feel better. Someone's not having a good day? Offer them chocolate. Or take them out for a great meal. Why has food become a part of the emotional healing process? Most unhelpful for those of us trying to cut back the calories. Comfort food, bah. I need my bed more... pillows, my soft toy dog Barney and cozy blanket. Sleep.


Edit: I can't wait for yoga classes next week! It is definitely the best way to stretch out your body, and the breathing makes you feel so calm. I found this video of a yoga teacher doing a headstand, she's pretty cool huh?

Step 4 - Retail Theraphy aka Spend birthday moneys on beauty and wellness products

Hola, como estas, all that good stuff....

So I don't remember exactly what I've been eating since Thursday, but I can say that I've been eating only light dinners, and on Sat I had a craving for chicken biryani so I had it for lunch. Other than that its been the normal foods, rice at lunch and tofu/milk/fruit for dinner.

Next week the fitness classes start. Going to go for cadio dance, yoga, pilates and aerobics! That combined with better eating should get me in decent shape by December!

Yesterday I was feeling a bit crazy so I splurged on some much-needed Body Shop products. Check em out:


So the seaweed range is supposed to be ideal for my kind of skin, which according to the body shop skincare diagnostic tool is "combination/oily" skin since I have an oily T-zone but the rest of my face is dry. So I got the toner to remove any excess dirt/makeup, the only makeup I wear being:
-> Ze bronzer powder which I got a month ago...its light enough to wear everyday without foundation and all that jazz...

Yeah, so I use the toner in the night after my bath to make sure all traces of the powder are gone from my skin, those sparkly particles sometimes don't wash off properly. The toner also cleans your pores and makes them tighter, thus preventing oily porey issues.

The second seaweedy item I use is the SPF15 lotion...this is the first time I'm actually using a lotion on my face since my skin is usually oily so I leave it alone. But since the seaweed is supposed to help mitigate the oiliness, and since air conditioning kills any moisture in the skin, I figured I'd try it. My skin feels rather moist right now, not at all dry, but perhaps I should use a bit less lotion next time.


Enough of seaweed, my next purchases focused on my super-dry lips (caused due to the aforementioned aircon) so I picked up the Lip Scuff, which has all sorts of natural oils, peppermint, and coarse exfoliating particles in it to help get rid of dead skin. It was great when I used it yesterday, but this morning it wasn't giving me the desired effect since the stick had become a bit dry overnight. yIt may be a good idea to keep it in the sun for a bit to thaw the oils (as if that made any sense...)

With job interviews in the near future, I realized I don't have a decent lip gloss with a bit of color, just to add a bit of a grown-up look (haha...who wants to look grown up?) Anyway, I got the Hi-Shine Lip treatment not just for the lippy in itself, but also because all revenues from its sales go towards Body Shop's Stop Violence in the Home campaign. Having personally witnessed a guy shouting at and hitting a girl on the ground floor of a housing block, I think its a great campaign to support, since the girls usually do not stand up for themselves when being abused by someone in their homes or whom they "love". What confounds me is that the girl did not even attempt to run away towards the crowded market place not a few meters away, and that a passing resident man did nothing to stop or report what was happening. Its horrifying to think of the amount of domestic abuse that takes place and nobody does anything about it.

I just realized this post has been free marketing of Body Shop, but nobody reads this blog other than my mom so I doubt I can demand payment for an "advertorial" (free stuff would be nice tho...) Bloggers can earn a pretty penny doing this stuff...maybe I should consider writing a serious blog or something...hmm...

Step 3 - Step up the exercise

Greetings Earthlings! Progress update since Monday:

1. I've been eating yong tau fu soup (various veggies with tofu squares) for dinner every day, usually with an orange...my friends must be thinking I really love the stuff (and they would be right, considering everything else available at the food court is full of oil and msg)
   
   
2. Tues breakfast was a vegetable pau and milk; lunch was rice, daal, beans and sprouts
   
   
3. This morning I didn't have class so I went for a walk around my neighbourhood, did some grocery shopping (picked up an excellent jar of mixed healthy nuts and raisins yum yum) and carried 1 kg of apples, 1 litre of juice and 1 litre of milk back home...'twas heavy! So if I keep going for one-hour walks on mornings I don't have class, I'll get 5 days' worth of good old aerobic cardio exercise and a proper morning awakening every day...
   My thighs are a bit weary from the walk, but they are very happy indeed :)
   
   
4. Today for lunch I had peta bread and felafels at Soup Spoon followed by yummy (but low fat) blueberry frozen yogurt from Ben & Jerry's. For dinner, which I am now having at Coffee Bean in Ngee Ann City (leeching the internet), it's a salad and milky tea...just after getting my hair rebonded for the 2nd time! It's super-awesomely straight and shiny right now :) Updated at 7:45pm
   
   

Step 2 - Perseverance in the face of carb cravings

Day 5 of the diet and I'm doing ok. Day 1 I met up with Anjie and had Yong Tau Fu soup and fruits for dinner.

The next morning was not so healthy since it was my last day at work and I took loads of over-buttered kaya toast for everyone. So was pretty much munching on it all day long and had 2 slices for dinner. Lunch was Cecilia's treat - she even got curry puffs and veg spring rolls (I took only the spring roll at 5pm) and Madam Tan brought an eggless chiffon cake and promptly deposited it with me. Luckily I could just slice it and leave it on the table and the cake disappeared in no time! Damn these delectable bakery products!!

Saturday I woke up only at noon, and had tea and herby linguine for lunch. Ok, so I had a chocolate chip walnut cookie too, but hey I totally needed the energy to move all mine and my roommate's stuff to the 3rd floor apartment! No elevators either - but I did have help from 3 really lazy workers at my apartment complex who begrudgingly carted up the heavier boxes. No matter, dinner was 4 bananas and that was enough.

Yesterday again I skipped breakfast, went to Ikea to get a throw pillow, dustbin and storage for my cupboard and ended up having lunch of a veg subway sandwich only at 3pm. Sidenote - I found this totally cute soft toy at ikea - fabler hund, a grey hound with the body of a daschund - and since he's all suited up we named him Barney (after my fav character on How I met your mother).

My roommate landed at 5 and we went down to Great World City for dinner where the yong tau fu soup was really good. Snacked on the rest of the bananas through the day. I realised I don't drink enough water though, should make it a habit.

Its tough to keep it up when that bowl of rice goes so well with the tofu soup. But then I try not to think about it and console myself with the fact that lunch and breakfast are when I can load up on my rice/noodle/bread quotas for the day. Skipping breakfast therefore should not be an option.

Also, I'm signing up for fitness classes in the school gym. Doing yoga for sure, and pilates and cardio dance sound interesting too! The swimming pool is open once more, but thanks to the sty in my right eye, I don't think I'm going to be back in the pool for another month. Ouchie in my eye :( Just got the teramycin ointment from the clinic, its a pain in the eye literally but my sty should be gone in a day or two. Thank goodness for antibiotics and damn all tropical bacterial infections!!

Oh yeah, today I had a bit of an unhealthy breakkie - coffee and chicken sandwich - but I was in a hurry to get to class and didn't have much choice. Anyway, had 2 fruits later. Speaking of class, I get into the Service Processes seminar room and who do I find is taking the class but my old Business Processes prof who's kinda kooky and isn't ever happy with the quality of anyone's research. Well, at least I know what he's looking for now, and this time I will read the textbook every week and prepare well for the exam. Last time I just spent the entire night in the library with my group mates trying to mug up the notes just before the exam, not a good strategy at all...I totally fell sick after that exam...le sigh!

Time to go buy textbooks, pay fees and meet the girls for lunch! Over and out!

Step 1 - The Nudge

Greetings ye who read this blog. I have no idea why I'm doing this on a blog, but I have an experiment I want to try out so stick around if you want to see the results.

So yesterday I was talking to my mom (we have a long-distance relationship going on these days) and she asked, "So did (friend-from-high-school-who-visited-this-weekend)'s jaw drop when he saw you?", referring obviously to the fact that I'm not as skinny as I was in high school. So for once I actually agree with my mom (reluctantly) that I am in bad shape and need to do something about it. Pronto.

You see, this time last year I was back home for the summer and thanks to the inspiration that is Michael Phelps, I was a total swimfreak for 3 months. I didn't lose much weight, maybe 3kgs, but at the time I was quite a healthy weight for my height and the goal wasn't to shed the kilogrammes/pounds/whatever, it was to shed the flab and have an awesomely tight swimmers body and to look good in my new Speedo.

Well lets just say its easy to swim every evening when you're living at home and have someone to do the cooking and cleaning for you. This summer was different, my job was more physically and mentally demanding and I had nobody to cook healthy meals for me everyday. I often had nothing but coffee for breakfast, followed by a lunch of Chinese vegetarian food (usually brown rice). After hours, I'd meet up with friends in town and have a pretty substantial dinner, pasta or bread-based and usually in large portions and sometimes covered in cheese.

Now the summer's ending, I have only one more day left at work (which explains my writing here, I'm lazy to finish that stupid asset list now - argh) and soon it will be back to school. There will be changes in life patterns and habits. I like momentuous moments like this. Time for a change, and what better place to start than with my corporeal form which has been under a lot of unnecessary stress and requires renewal.

Every process of change needs the initial push to get it started. Last year my health-consciousness was inspired from within myself, with Phelps as the role model and flab and lethargy as the enemy. This time the inspiration is my mom, and a desire to have my old body and self back.

Since realistically I will not be able to go back to the eat-healthy, swim-everyday routine from summer '07, this time I need a different plan. So here's the new plan, mostly suggested by my mom:

• Healthy, filling breakfast of cereal and milk and 1 fruit (a doc once told me I should eat at least 2 fruits a day- fruit juice doesn't have half the benefits of the natural whole fruit)
  
• Heavy lunch - rice/noodles with veggies and 1 fruit
  
• Light dinner - fruits/ salad / soup with a cup of milk or yogurt
  
• Lots of water, and iron and vitamin supplements everyday since I don't eat meat and am anemic
  

Being the type of person who gets snack attacks real often, loves coffee and believes that one cannot sleep on a empty stomach, this kind of plan looks like suicide. =(

But Mom's right, in the long run its going to make me feel a whole lot better than having cheesy-baked-pasta or fries for dinner. Definitely no fries at dinner! But they do qualify as a veggie at lunch =p hehe!!!

Things to avoid consuming:

• Carb-heavy dinner
  
• Coffee once in a while is ok but not everyday and certainly no more than one per day
  
• Sugary drinks
• Sugar-based candy, mints and chocolate
• Creamy creamy ice creamy - sherbets or yogurt without sugar are ok
  
• Bakery products (good thing my cupcake-obsessed friend is off on exchange soon)
• Anything with mayonnaise and too much cheese or deep fried (sniff - fries!)
  

The challenge is to follow the plan for 4 weeks and see where it gets me. While my mom swears by scales, and propounds that I'm getting "overweight" , I prefer to focus on flab, bloating and the general feeling I get in my thighs when I'm not eating right. Don't measure the success of a diet by the kgs, since scales weigh muscle, bone, organs, water and whatnot - everything except fat which, in fact, doesn't weigh as much as muscle. ALWAYS listen to your thighs is my advice.

Here it begins. I had a cup of oats for breakfast, brown rice with veggies for lunch (with Cecilia's amazingly fiery chilli sauce). What's amazing about Cecilia's chilli sauce is that you only need a small pinch of it to get your eyes streaming - unlike others which are more oil and less chilli...ok I digress.. I'm not exactly looking forward to a dinner of just fruit, so maybe I'll get the subway salad instead. Let's see if I'm still standing without carbs at 7pm. The more I think about not having carbs, the more I want them.

Peace out hombres!