So you’ve made the decision to love
yourself and fuel your body right. You’ve got a plan and you’re all
fired up (don’t you love new beginnings 🙂 ) but… where do you start?
Here’s 10 things I recommend:
1. Clear out all the nutritionally empty food from your kitchen cabinets/ fridge.
Be
heartless. take a large trash bag and get rid of everything in your
cabinets and fridge that wouldn’t provide your body with the nutrition
it needs. This can be your large stash of potato chips, chocolate bars,
sweets. Keep the wholegrains, the clean proteins like eggs and meat and
fish, the vegetables and fruits. If it isn’t there, it’s much easier to
eat healthy.
2. Learn to read labels.
There
are a million websites on the internet dedicated to teaching you to eat
well. The number one thing i really advise you to steer clear of is
sugar. When you are ready, you can read articles on the web about high
blood glucose levels and their contribution to obesity, heart disease,
diabetes etc. Understand that it’s not just white sugar alone but white
products such as white flour, bread, rice that all raise your blood
sugar levels without any sort of nutritional boost at all. Learn to read
labels to steer clear of any kind of High Fructose Corn Syrup or
chemical additives that end with ‘-ose’ like dextrose and maltose. Also,
if you can’t pronounce it on the ingredient list, it’s probably not
good for you. The best would be to eat food that don’t even come with a
label. Zucchinis, apples and oranges are eat as it is. No packaging, no
labels, just fresh wholesome food just as nature intended.
3. Make wise choices
Want
to eat Bak Kut Teh? sure! Laksa? Sure! Just eat a smaller portion or
make healthy swaps such as brown rice for your Bak Kut Teh instead of
the white rice. Swap sugary drinks for green tea and plain water or
naturally flavoured water just a lemon water etc. Always try to choose
wholegrains, fruits, vegetables, lean meats. You should ever feel deprived or starve yourself. This is not a diet. It is a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life.
4. Learn to cook
The
only way you would be able to control what you eat is if you know what
is going into your food and only you can control that. No need for fancy
dishes. Learn to make omelettes, hardboiled eggs. learn to use the rice
cooker to make brown rice, learn to fry up vegetables. It’s as simple
as heating up a pan and watching the veggies get smaller and smaller in a
few seconds. No culinary degree required. Search the internet for
healthy recipes and healthy swaps and make healthier versions of your
favourite food.
5. Bring a lunchbox with you
In
line with learning how to cook, bringing a lunch box out with you helps
you to regulate what you eat. The food in Singapore, while
yummilicious, is really high in (bad) fats, salt and sugar. A meal at a
hawker centre can weigh in at almost 700 calories, of which is made up mostly of empty carbohydrates. (think meepok)
6. Learn to assess your meal in terms of nutritional content and composition
A
typical meal in Singapore is way too carb heavy. Take for instance my
favourite meepok. It is 50% simple carbohydrates (noodles), 40% un-useful fat
from the bakchor and 10% protein. (percentages are my own eyeballed estimates). This is great if you are going to do a
highly aerobic intense exercise after but if you are just a desk bound
student/ office worker, it’s just going to raise your blood sugar levels
and make you feel sleepy and drowsy post meal when your insulin crashes
after. If i eat meepok, i normally half the amount of noodles I eat,
add more meat etc to rebalance the composition of the meal. I try to
make every meal 40% complex carbs (vegetables, wholegrains etc), 40%
protein (eggs, meat, seafood, legumes) and 20% fat (olive oil, avocados,
coconut oil) It is important not to cut out any of the food groups and
terribly important to eat fat. if you want to lose fat, you HAVE to eat
GOOD FATS. i cannot stress this enough. Coconut is my favorite source of
fat though I love avocados as well. Steer clear away from the fat/
sodium in instant noodles or fried food and load up more on the good
kinds of fat from salmon, coconut, nuts and oils.
7. Drink water
Drink
lots of it. It’s really good for you and keeps you from eating
mindlessly when you are not really hungry. Your body sends you hunger
signals when you are really thirsty. So drink water first. and lots of
it, through the day.
8. Stay strong and believe in yourself.
Only
you alone know what is good for your body. No diet book or plan or blog
can tell you what’s best for your body. There will be an overwhelming
amount of information out there in regard to what’s good for you. There
is the paleo lifestyles that advocates butter and bacon and cutting out
all carbs and legumes, there is the only carbs diet, the no fruits diet,
the lots of fruits diet, there are a million things out there and it
can get very scary but only you know what’s good for you. Experiment a
little. see howyour body performs. For myself, i cannot live without
carbs and while lots of people say the fructose in fruits is terrible, I
eat lots of fruits and wholegrains and lean protein. Do what works for
you, trust yourself. Also when you start eating healthily, everybody is
going to have something to say. They might give you well meaning advice,
like cut out ALL CARBS. Or they might pressure you to eat a bit of
chocolate and not be a spoilsport. Going to grandma’s house might be
tough because grandma is going to be heartbroken you no longer wolf down her
shrimp tempura like you once did. I have been asked on numerous
occassions “wah! why so healthy?!” when i pile my plate high with
fruits, yoghurt, wholegrains and eggs at a buffet table. Does nobody
else think it’s a bit funny that I shock people when I eat healthy but
nobody gets any comments when they don’t eat healthy? Shouldn’t it be
the other way round?! So stay strong, believe in yourself and understand
that sometimes a piece of chocolate is what your soul needs (or maybe not).
9. Understand that it’s not “failure” when you eat a “forbidden” food.
There
is no such thing as a “forbidden food”. Stop categorizing food and
cutting out specific foods. Eat them if you want to, don’t eat them
because you don’t want to. And you don’t want to because there is so
much gorgeously unprocessed food out there for you though if you do want
to.. why not? Just make a mindful choice and enjoy whatever you choose
in a moderate portion
10. Reward yourself
Don’t’
reward yourself with food. you are not a pet. Indulge yourself with
some shopping, a massage, a movie, time with friends. Have fun with your
meals, Enjoy life.
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