Changing What I Eat

My recent annual physical exam didn't have good results. My doctor didn't scold me for being at the ceiling of what's normal, but I know it's time for me to change my diet so I don't overboard especially with cholesterol and blood sugar.

The summary report suggested I avoid eating meat, including chicken, and to eat more veggies. For over a week now I have been eating fish everyday and I'm keeping a diary of vegetables I eat everyday.

It's been an eye opening experience since I've been finding new dishes to try. I also rounded up my seafood recipes I've made through the years. My next grocery run will include more seafood in the list. 

It's been a week and the most noticeable change is I'm able to sleep faster. My doctor said the body aches and cramps I'm experiencing is due to the heat and humidity. I just need to be better hydrated and stay out of the sun (gardening time has also moved to a later time).

I lost about a kilo already, but I'm not counting that as a permanent change. I'll consider it as weight loss if it stays for another week.

#BeKind #StaySafe

My B.A. Program

With the kick-off of the local Biggest Loser show today I thought I'd blog about what I've been doing to be more healthy. A few years back I was this thin -

And I was actually thinner when I graduated. I was only 85 pounds and I already had a kid! Unbelievable huh. My metabolism was just unbelievably fast and I guess my heart condition also worked my body hard. After my surgery I lost a lot of weight and was just about 105 pounds. My doctors then told me, "Eat!"

Well... I ate too much! Haha! Now they want me to shed off about 10 kilograms. Boohoo. (Just look at my header to see how much weight I've gained!).

My metabolism slowed down since my surgery. My housemate in Singapore said, "That's because you are a normal person now!" Yeah, 100% blood flow = you now have the capacity to exercise and burn those excess fats. After surgery I told myself I was going to join a run this year. Maybe run 3K. I've been listening to my body and it's telling me it isn't ready. The most I could do is walk 1.5km before I start panting. So here are the baby steps I've taken to stop gaining weight and slowly lose some.

(1) Installed MyFitnessPal on my phone to watch my calorie intake. When I started I still ate what I would regularly eat, but learning more about what I was eating slowly helped me change my eating habits. As Coach Jim Saret said, "You shouldn't eat mindlessly. You should think about what you eat."(forgot the exact words he said). It took me months to change my eating habits and I think I'm just about halfway into understanding better what I should be eating, but at least I'm not overeating and my weight gain trajectory has stopped.

(2) Watch what you eat and drink. This is easier said than done that's why I installed an app. I did not know that beverages can contribute a lot to your weight, i.e. milk tea, coffee, juice, soda. So I cut down on "colored drinks". I can't live without coffee, but I've managed to wean myself away from high-calorie coffee drinks and now just drink sugar free instant. For food, I also learned to eat smarter because of the app.

(3) Research about food! I'm a picky eater and I like sticking to my favorite food. From watching what I eat though I realized that I needed to change what I ate since I was always going over my food quota. In my research I found out that there was a study made about eating based on your blood type. It said that there are some food that could be poisonous to your blood and may be the reason why you are always getting sick. In the last few months I've been having cough and colds often and I was sick of having to go for a check-up again and again. My immune system is just not at its prime so I thought maybe I should eat the food that's good for my blood. So I've been eating more veggies and fish in the last few weeks and my body feels so good.

(4) Exercise! Ugh! I'm not a sporty person. I've always been sedentary. I'm not pushing myself too much since I don't want to overdo it so I've been counting my steps everyday. I walk at least 3,000 steps everyday and that's already a lot of exercise for me IMHO. The most I've walked in a day in the last year is 10,000+. According to Coach Jim though if you walk only 5,000 per day that means you are sedentary. Oh okay... this is something I need to work on. I've taken a liking to walking around our compound every night lately so this helps a lot.

(5) Cook the right food! Ahhh, I recently bought "The Sexy Chef Cookbook" and I've been using it in the last week. This way we're able to measure better the number of calories we're eating since it's included in the cookbook. And I could say that I've increased the number of daily searches I do on Google because I research about food almost everyday (even on my phone!).

(6) Get a B.A. buddy! Yup, it's easier to lose weight when you have partners in crime. For me, it's Sweetie and Bagets!

These are the tiny steps I've been taking to get back in shape (hopefully in time for summer!). I hope I don't get a big scolding from my cardio when I go for my check-up!

Palate Change

I think someone stole and changed my tongue while I was asleep! Or maybe someone hypnotized me and successfully killed my meat-loving taste buds.

Since that creepy night in Baguio you can count in one hand the number of times I ate pork/beef. The mound of bacon at a meeting didn't even tempt me at all. I love pork! I always eat pork and beef. I had to just eat pork and beef for a good five years because of my allergy to chicken. But as my cardio told me six months after my surgery, "The age of indulgence is over."

In the last few months I've been watching closely what I eat. I still ate pork and beef a lot, but my weight just kept going up. It was a surprising problem to have since my metabolism was always fast. It seems that with 100% blood flow my body's telling me that I need to be more active to burn whatever I eat in excess.

My trip to Baguio did something to my taste buds. I told myself since I'm visiting the salad bowl of the Philippines I was just going to eat veggies. Eating at "Oh My Gulay" showed me that eating healthy doesn't mean you have to give up all of your favorite food (well except fast food). I've been researching online for healthy recipes and I started with the vegetables I bought from the Baguio Public Market.

Here's what I have managed to cook so far from recipes I found online:

Cheese Broccoli Soup

Vegetable and Kani Tempura

Adobong Kangkong

And then I bought the "Sexy Chef Cookbook" from National Bookstore while hunting for Miguel's odd-sized sketchbook. It's a treasure trove of healthy recipes! Here's what I made in the last few days:

Oven Baked Chicken Fingers (tasted like the one from Friday's!).

California Maki Pinwheels which I made last night. It's probably going to be one of the things I'd be making regularly since Sweetie hasn't been eating rice for about 65 days now and has missed eating maki.

And for dessert I made no bake strawberry cheesecake using low-fat cream cheese.

I've been feeling much better in the last few weeks since I've been eating more veggies and fish. My sinuses haven't been acting up and I'm really happy about that. I've also been losing weight but I hope to lose more in time for my check-up.

Excited!

We didn't plan what to do this weekend since we just wanted to just hang out at home. Our only priority was to complete some of Miguel's school requirements (a.k.a. hunting for a B4 sized sketchpad and other school stuff). We didn't find the right sketchpad after visiting 4 bookstores (professor requirements drive me nuts sometimes), but we found this cook book --

So tomorrow's schedule is: hear mass, visit Mom, go to the grocery and then cook!

Weeeee!

How I Work-out

I always wondered how my Mom managed to keep slim all her life. I never saw her participate in any sports activities like my Dad. She doesn't go walking every morning. And, mind you, there are times she eats more than I do! All along I thought it was her metabolism and I hoped that I inherited it. Unfortunately, my metabolism has slowed down a bit and there are days I have to do some extra activities so I don't go beyond my weight limits.

I used to play badminton and tennis, but both are extreme sports for me now so I try to stick to my weekly malling regimen. My doctor thought I played bowling and burst into laughter when he realized that I meant mall-ing, the act of walking around the mall and window-shopping all day. He said I was his funniest patient. Due to some health restrictions I realized that the best way to keep slim is to be my wriggly self all day in different ways. Here's what I do:

1. Cooking - when I was still living with my Mom I did not have to do any chores at home, save for the occasional days I had to wash dishes. But now I turn into Cinderella at 6 in the evening when I have to prepare dinner for my boys. It takes me an hour or two to cook dinner depending on what dish I'm making. I rarely turn on the fan in the kitchen when cooking so I could sweat a bit. Cooking exercises both my arms and legs.

2. Dish Washing - may be strange for some, but I love washing dishes. I hate bringing out stuff to the sink, so Miguel does that for me. My kitchen is small so I have set-up different drying areas for pots and pans and that forces me to walk around. More exercise for my arms!

3. The Laundry - doing the laundry allows me to carry around the dirty clothes bin. I first roll it down the stairs (hehehe), sort the clothes into separate bins and then carry them to the laundry area and pop the clothes in the washing machine. They come out almost dry so hanging them gives me a chance to do some stretching.

4. Sweeping and Mopping - I don't usually do this, but my cleaning lady has been sick for more than a month now and I don't trust anyone else to come to the house to clean for me. I do this by area since I'm allergic to dust. Aside from a complete workout, the best thing about doing this is taking a long cold shower after.

And the best work-out for me...

5. Garden Weeding - I have a tiny garden and my Mom insisted I plant some grass on it. I thought it made sense since grass kinda helps cools down your house (versus pebbles!). My Mom's gardener has been MIA too for awhile now so I had to cut the grass myself too and do some weeding. I spent two hours in the garden the first time I did some weeding. I could barely get up and I was drenched with sweat (kinda like how my boys are sweaty after a run). I was really surprised but liked the workout since I was being productive at the same time. And that's when I discovered what my Mom's secret is at keeping slim. Weeding and gardening!

Thunder Thighs, How I'm Trying to Loose the Excess Fat

No, I'm not going to post any photo of my thunder thighs. I have unfortunately gained so much weight because of my trips (Zamboanga + Iloilo + Cebu + GenSan), plus Christmas food and too much milk tea and Starbucks Peppermint Mocha Frap! All the excess food have deposited themselves in my thighs.

The same happened to me a few years ago and my thunder thighs only went back to normal when I had pneumonia. I'm trying to loose some weight before it's too late again. I'm not allowed to do any strenuous exercise so this is my action plan:

1. Walk. When I'm just home I just end up in front of the computer most of the day. I visit my parents everyday in the afternoon so that's about half a kilometer a day. When I'm out for meetings I try to walk from Greenbelt to EDSA and according to Jay that's about 1.5 to 2 kilometers and sometimes I walk from Ayala. Not bad.

2. Less Milk Tea. Drew and I are addicted to milk tea and I absolutely love adding condensed milk whenever I make a glass. I did this everyday last December and the milk definitely contributed a few pounds.

3. No More Peppermint Mocha Frap! Thank God Christmas is over and it's going to be 11 months before Starbucks offers it again.

4. More Veggies, Less Meat. Argh, this is the hardest thing to do. I also started a small vegetable garden so I could harvest fresh, organic veggies everyday. My mustasa is almost ready for harvesting later this month! Yumyum!

5. Lots of Water to flush out the toxins and sleep early as much as I could.

I hope my trip next week wouldn't add to my weight again! Good luck to me and all my friends who are trying to loose weight.

Oh and to keep track I have re-positioned our weighing scale at the kitchen doorway hehehe.

No Frills Diet

I guess I haven't really gone out for sometime now and I surprised a couple of friends with my weight loss. I'm not sure how much I've lost in the past few months since I never really track my weight. I just know I lost weight coz my skinny jeans are now baggy jeans! (Great excuse to go shopping lah!).

Anyway, Fritz asked me to share my secret especially since it's summer and we all have to bring out our bathing suits (bikinis even!) and parade in the sun. 

The way I lost weight is probably not something you'd like to try, but here are the factors that contributed to my weight loss:

allergies

allergies

allergies

For some strange reason I've become allergic to chicken, crab and chocolates! (And cockroaches, but I don't eat roaches!). I did not realize that chicken is a huge part of my diet and that everything that I snack on has chocolate in it. 

And then my parents left to vacay at my Kuya's place, I had to feed myself and since I don't cook I ended up eating take-out and having food delivered.

And then I found myself in my doctor's office begging her to make me well since my allergies got worse. 

She only said, "Eat healthy food."

I was in denial for a few days until I tried eating healthy and I realized I actually felt a whole lot better. I'm still adjusting to my new diet, but here's a list of the stuff I'm not eating anymore:

everything from my favorite fastfood restos

anything fried

less mayo

less cheese (I eat cheese like a mouse!)

no more processed food (goodbye longganisa!)

junkfood

And since it's Lent, I've given up drinking Coke.

It's hard, but I'm discovering all these new places I can dine in! And I can say that if you want to follow a strict diet (to lose weight or just to be healthy), you really have to be disciplined. If I slack off, I'm sure my allergies will whip me when I do.

That's it Fritz, my little secret. 

The Best Diet of All

For some strange reason I always gain weight towards the end of February. Last year I gained 7 pounds when I went to Jakarta and Singapore because when you eat at McDonald's the smallest softdrink size is already our largest! And the same thing happened this year, so I really looked like a siopao when I went to Puerto Galera early this month.

Anyway, right after gaining so much weight is Ash Wednesday and me and my Mom go on Lenten fasting. No Coke! Believe me, I think we should be a major stockholder already because of our softdrinks consumption. Anyway, since I was a kid we'd try our best not to drink Coke for 40 days. The first 2 weeks is usually the hardest. Withdrawal!

My metabolism used to be so fast! I was just 85 pounds when I graduated and now, um, er... never mind. Anyhoo, I realized that the best diet I've put myself into is - no softdrinks! And I've influenced some of my friends with Winnie the Pooh tummies not to drink softdrinks anymore. And it's working! Oh! And complement this diet with less rice, you'll be ready for the beach in no time.