Eat, Drink, Run

Hey folks,

In January this year, I had one goal and that was to lose 5kg this year. I know it's only mid Feb and 1.5 months since I started eating less sweets and carbo but I have seen very, very little results. Honestly, I was hoping to see drastic changes but it's not happening. Yet. So far I have lost 1kg. It's not even a firm 1kg. I would consider 500g as a firm loss. The other 500g? It keeps screwing with me, creeping back now and then.

I have made some major changes to my diet. Like blockbuster major.

The biggest change? I have completely cut out all sweet tea and all sweet drinks. You know how much I love my sweet tea. But they were becoming such a problem as I just kept drinking them. I had no control. Sweet tea was my drug. I went cold turkey. Just like that. It was really hard the first week. I was shaking and speaking gibberish. It's much better now.
 

I no longer crave my sweet teas. I needed something to replace the tea so I switched to herbal and fruit flavoured tea. I don't add any suger or honey to these tea so that's like healthy, right? I drink 2 small pots a day and I would be like very, very angry if I wake up one day and find out these tea contain a lot of calories. Surprisingly, I am starting to like these tea and I surprise myself even more when I found Japanese green tea the most "delicious". I never liked green tea in the past so that's progress. I am so ready to explore more caffeine free and unsugared tea. Btw, the passion raspberry tea above? It sucks when warm but so good when cold.

When I go out to eat, I find it hard not to buy sweet drinks. So I resorted to always going out with a flask of water. My flask can keep warm water warm and cold water cold. It's a little bit old-lady but this is a free flask and it works.

Cutting out carbo completely is out of the question. I don't think I can survive without carbo. But I managed to reduce my intake or find substitutes.

For breakfast, I eat porridge oats instead of bread. I cook it plain but add grapes for my sugar fix, chia seeds and unsweetened cereal. I do this for 5 days and for 2 days I eat peanut butter and banana sandwich. I time the peanut butter banana sandwich on Wed and Fri as these are my workout days at the sports center.

Lunch and dinner are when I am liable to screw up. If I cook, I can easily limit my carbo by cooking less rice or noodles. If I eat out, I have to eat the full portion of whatever I bought. The best I can do is avoid topping up with soup and drinks.

Below you can see the food choices I made when I ate out since Jan. As you can see, I am still feeding myself very well. Ahhhhh!!!

 Fish burger with tom yam soup noodles at The Union. The portions are small.

Salmon with gyoza and rice at Osaka Ohsho. The portion is perfect but I think it could be less oily.

Fried chicken with salad at The Manhattan Fish Market. A terrible choice - the chicken is unhealthy and didn't even taste good.

This is Nara Thai and I love the food so I eat everything. If I eat at Nara Thai it means no watching of calories. Not that I know what watching my calories mean.

Bonchon's fried chicken is my weakness. Fortunately there's only one outlet and it's far from my home.

Seafood noodles at Orange Language - a very good choice, not too much noodles and a lot of veges.

This was teriyaki chicken with rice and salad at Menya Musashi. On top of the restaurant smelling really, really bad, the chicken was FAT.

Prawns chee cheong fun and fried prawns dumpling at Tangerine cafe were not good food choices. But the dumplings were delish!

Olive fried rice and tom yum soup at Bangkok Jam. When it comes to Thai food, I give in to my cravings. I love Thai food so much!

Vegetarian gyoza with rice and toufu at Tsubohachi. I thought the food was not bad but hubs wasn't too impressed.

Tempura with buckwheat noodles at Bugis Junction foodcourt. It's semi healthy but I don't think I can eat buckwheat noodles alone without any fried stuff to go with.

Prawns with mashed potato at fish n co. I can eat this every day.


I think I need to cook more and eat out less. I am only a so-so cook so I can't possibly overeat my own food. At the same time I don't want to go so far that I deprive myself of nice food. I still want to enjoy my life. The trick is to find the right balance.

Since Jan, I have indulged twice in Llao Llao frozen yogurt. It's very, very sweet and totally hubs' fault. He said "no queue" so he had to buy it. I also ate a lot of cashew nuts, one small bag of hubs' chips, one blueberry muffin and TWELVE tiny bean pastries (totally lost control). I broke the rule and had fast food - KFC and Texas chicken twice. They didn't even taste good! And a few days ago I had my first instant noodles this year. Why??? Also, I eat at least two oranges a day. There you have it - my full confession.

Going forward, I will try harder not to snack, have any fast food or instant noodles.

Exercise wise, I think I am doing quite well. I have one Pilates class and one cardiomix class a week. I run at least once a week. I have managed to improve my stamina and can cover 7km. Yay! By end of the year I should be able to run 10km. I hope so! On days when I don't run or have workout class, I go to an outdoor gym.

These machines mostly work the joints and some upper body muscles. It's quite boring and I can only work on them at most half an hour. The problem for me is there are some days when I totally don't exercise and sit far too long in front of the computer. Ideally I would like to perhaps do a very short run on those days when I don't feel like exercising. Either that or a very long walk. Do I have the willpower? Exercising every day cannot be achieved at the moment.

Hubs showed me a new running route. It's next to the canal. Usually I go to the park and run in circles to cover 7km. It is a bit boring running in circles but I've been doing that since 2000. This canal route is slightly more challenging as it can get windy and there are 2 litle slopes. Running up slope is hell. It's a little further from my home so I don't know if I'm willing to go the extra distance. I'll probably go again if hubs goes with me.

Anyone trying to lose weight this year?