• About
    • The Girl
    • The Blog
    • The One- Eared Bunny
    • The Philosophy
    • The FHB 12345 Challenge!
    • Giveaways
    • FAQs
    • DISCLAIMER
  • Recipes
    • Breakfast
    • Mains
    • Snacks
    • Soups/ Salads
    • Desserts/ Drinks
    • Lunchbox
      • Mealprep
      • Tools, Tips & Tricks
  • Eat Out!
    • Healthy Food Places in Singapore
    • Weekend Indulgences
  • Nutrition
    • Nutrition / Mental Health Articles
    • Mealplans
  • Wellness
    • Exercise
    • Fitness Products
    • Rest & Relax
  • Home
    • Cleaning and Organization
    • Kitchen Equipment Favs
    • Food Product Favs
  • Life
    • Travel
      • In Singapore
      • Japan
        • Tokyo
        • Osaka
        • Kyoto
    • Craft Addict
    • Personal
    • Wedding Planning
    • Social/ Environmental Awareness

Healthy Living in Singapore

January 2, 2014

Detox food? Nah- just what I eat on a daily basis :)

January 2, 2014

A lot of people have been asking me what I ate over the 4 days so I thought I’d do up a little post to share. I don’t have many pictures because I never thought that I’d be blogging about it but I’m a very happy asian instagrammer so I got pictures off my iphone and instagram etc to put together this post! Hope it helps! I wouldn’t call it a detox diet and I really hate the idea of a short term detox or diet because I feel that it doesn’t lead to a healthy sustainable lifestlye. Also, I can never fathom how anyone can feel happy regarding food as ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’, ‘clean’ or ‘unclean’, ‘permissible’ or ‘impermissible’ just because some author said so. It’s just so disordered and restrictive 🙁 I want to view food and choose to eat something because I GENUINELY love it more for it’s nourishing qualities not because I’m trying to suppress my desire for something else. My advice is just choose real food- an abundance of colourful fruits and veg, food that grows from the ground, walks on earth, swims in the sea and drink lots of water, take some walks with loved ones and you will be good to go!

Healthy living is the everyday not just a 2 week fast and then binge eating junk again. But I know it works for some people who need a tastebud reset and stuff like that, so- whatever floats your boat! :). However, I really rather you stop telling yourself you will eat better and cleaner ‘tomorrow’ or ‘monday’ or sometime in the future. Life is NOW. Make the commitment to health now. You can eat one less cookie NOW. You don’t need to binge now and start on a Monday. Life does not always begin on a clean slate. (Advice I wished I listened to when I was 18 :/)

Anyway!

This is roughly what I ate from Sunday to Thursday after the horrendous bloating. Please note that eating like that everyday will yield you great results but if you have true belly fat to lose, it’s definitely not going to take just 4 days! Weight that is lost slowly wouldn’t be put on so fast as well. So eat right and lose weight slowly and healthily! Don’t rush perfection! (Hehhheh)

I don’t have a lot of pictures but here’s roughly how it went:

I always start the day off with warm lemon water when I have lemons in the house or I remember to buy them. I feel it’s just so cleansing and really resets your tastebuds so you don’t crave sweet things. Water is hard to drink in the morning for some people as they don’t like the feeling of their stomach expanding. But I drink a lot of water everyday so it’s fine for me 🙂

Due to the renovations, I had no kitchen equipment. I had no sieve or anything with which to wash my quinoa so I laboriously washed it in this rubbishy thing I found in some cupboard that hadn’t be taped up and boxed away. It was so small and could wash so little but I was so grateful for it. *Seriously, the renovation taught me to appreciate a lot!) I also still had an oven so I baked the mushrooms and cheese.

The picture you see in the bottom right hand corner is my breakfast and take away lunch. –
One green smoothie- a blend of frozen banana, spinach, oatbran, almond milk, chia seeds for a power packed quick and easy yummy breakfast on the go (seriously, blending has changed my life- and my boyfriend’s! haha)
A lunch box consisting of- salmon spiced with chili flakes, baby portobello and cheese, broccoli and quinoa. I cooked the quinoa in low sodium chicken broth and the cheese on the mushroom is salty as well. Other than that, everything was cooked without oil or salt and so was a great balance of flavours.

If you are interested- this is how you can cook quinoa and how it looks like. I used a 3 mix quinoa.

It wasn’t easy eating my lunch while everyone else had Indian food though! I happen to really love Indian food haha 🙂 But I wanted even more this time to nourish my body with fibre and nutrients I knew it had been missing out for a week.

Posted this on instagram that day! Haha! #storyofmylife indeed. Most people often ask me how I deal with being anti social if I bring my own food. WHY MUST BE ANTI SOCIAL?? You can still eat your food with them! The conversation around that table wasn’t any less or I didn’t feel bad or anything. Don’t worry, nobody is really judging you except yourself 🙂 At most, you’ll get some good natured jibes and curious looks as you open your lunch box. haha Lots of people also ask how I can eat my ‘plain’ food while they eat such good rich food and I must admit, I used to love such rich food but honestly, I don’t find them indulgent these days anymore. My tastebuds have changed so much that eating a lot of such food is honestly quite torturous so I really don’t feel left out eating my own food. This is from a girl who used to eat 3 fast food meals a day! Everyone has hope! 🙂

As for the rest of the week, I’m sorry I really don’t have many other pictures but I would eat meals from cedele, and my family had a meal out at a czechar place. I would just go along and eat but just a smaller portion of rice and veg and beancurd and the pork ribs I took only 1. I’m used to a lot of food though because most of the food I eat take up a lot of space in my tummy but are not calorie dense so when I eat too little, I cannot sleep! To curb it, I drank my green smoothie blend to up the fibre for the day when I felt like I was not getting enough nutrients. I also continued to bring out a lunch box for lunch and/or dinner. OH OH! and if you go to the hawker centre with friends and you don’t want to feel left out when getting a drink- oolong tea is my drink of choice other than water because it has zero sugar in it. Zero calories! Tea by itself has no calories and a whole host of benefits so when you drink canned tea like the pokka green tea, you’re basically just drinking a lot of sugar!

Some homecooked wholemeal pasta, green juice, (I try to stay away from the very sweet pure fruit variety) and no sugar soya bean are a couple of my favourite drinks aside from water (my ultimate favourite)

Fortune Centre at Bugis is a great place to find low salt, low oil food in Singapore 🙂 Slightly higher than hawker prices but not very wallet busting as well 🙂 I was lucky to be around that area that day.

If you noticed, these food are not low in calories but they are big on nutrition. I can eat 1500- 2000 calories of good nutrition vs 800 calories of poor nutrition (chips, fried rice etc) and feel better than the low caloried diet. Seriously, if you are on a restricted low caloried diet, come off it now- it will only destroy your metabolism.

I can’t just do a small salad a day to detox because they are honestly too little for me and I will crave and binge (especially at night :/). However, only veg and fruits can give you a reasonable amt of nutrients so I always make sure to blend up a nutritious and filling veg smoothie drink in the morning (unpictured because it’s such a habit) It was all I could do as my kitchen was still unavailable and I only had a blender to work with. As my taste buds resettled and my appetite got smaller (gosh, hawker food makes you crave so badly), my stomach shrank back to normal and my facial glow came back as well.I also drank lots of water and ended the night with a happy calming blend of hot goodness 🙂

The only place that I felt marketed itself as ‘healthy’ but I felt was not healthy at all was surprisingly, Soup Spoon. This is of course, my own humble opinion. But would you please look at the sad sad state of that wrap? And what’s with the paltry salad leaves? 🙁 The pumpkin soup was also surprisingly salty (?!) I am sorry to say but while I feel that the concept of the place is really good and while I love that the chef creates it herself and offers Singaporeans fresh healthy options, this is one place I would not be going back soon again. Food cannot just be ‘healthy’. It has to be nourishing for both the body and the soul. Real food should make you feel alive and happy and ready to take on the world. A couple of wet leaves and a dried out falafel in an obviously reheated- by- microwave- wrap does not qualify on my list as ‘nourishing’ no matter how ‘healthy’ it might be.

Alright, so this is what I ate for the 4 days and actually, what I usually eat. Basically thick oatbran vegetable smoothies in the morning for a nutrient punch, then a homemade lunchbox for lunch, snacks will be fruit or leftover from my lunchbox and dinner was probably cedele or some other healthy eating place. It was such a relief for my tastebuds honestly. I instagram what I eat on a daily basis but I’ll try to collate it during the weekend for people who don’t have instagram. Really hope this shows you that healthy eating is not about restriction and eating as little as possible. Real food, eating a wide variety, lots of produce, some meat, reasonable portions, less salt, less oil and time spent doing worthy things in life, getting enough rest, drinking enough water, – it’s a whole sustainable package!

Keep healthy and loving!

Grace 🙂

Posted by grace 8 Comments
Filed Under: Mealplans, Nutrition, Physical/ Mental Health Articles, Uncategorized Tagged: Detox, Eat!, Healthy Eating Places in Singapore, unchbox Ideas, What I Ate Today

May 28, 2013

Onaka at Alexandra Retail Centre (ARC)

May 28, 2013

Onaka stands for ‘stomach’ in Jap and is short for Optimum Nutrition And Kitchen Arts.

It’s not often I say this but Onaka is a restaurant after my own heart.

Why do I love this place so much? Because it’s exactly how I think eating should be. They have a ‘No White Bread, No White Rice, No White Sugar’ policy and
every plate presented to you is about the texture, the color, the taste,
the presentation backed by a clear understanding of the nutritional
value of the food. The restaurant’s philosophy is all about Conscious Living- a sensible, pragmatic approach to eating. No counting calories, no weighing, nothing. Just beautifully tasty nutritious food, totally nourishing- just how food should be!

Other plus point would be the extremely great service and friendly staff! This is one of the very few restaurants in Singapore that I’d be happy to dine here everyday, all day! Thumbs up for Onaka! I’m in love with the place!

The menu features a thoughtful selection of appetizers, mains, desserts
and drinks using all natural ingredients without chemicals, MSG,
transfat, flavouring and artificial additives. (score!) About half of
the menu is also vegetarian and are helpfully marked out for the
customer if they are looking for Gluten Free or vegan options. A quick
scan through the menu made my heart all aflutter- absolutely everything
here was something I would be happy to try. Everything seemed a well
thought out, balanced and nutrient- rich combination! 
They also had a whole page dedicated to Superfood Smoothies (right up my alley!) and Healing Teas!
I had the Chamomile and Vanilla Tea to start and MHMM. I love the smell of vanilla. Just so calming and soothing.
Roasted Mushroom Tea ($7)
I was a little thrown off because I expected it to be a ‘tea’ but it was really more of a lightly coloured mushroom broth. Still yummy, if you weren’t thinking ‘tea’. Haha.
Watermelon Sashimi
Sous Vide watermelon, agar wasabi “tobiko”, daikon and tamari dressing.
Hats off to the chef for creativity! This is totally vegetarian but really looked like sashimi! ANd the “tobiko”! Made from agar? Impressive!

Totally doesn’t look like watermelon right? It actually tasted fishy as well (though when you bit into it, it still tasted of watermelon) I was so intrigued I had to ask the waiter how it was done. He described the steps and said slow cooking a watermelon makes it look like maguro! It was unique and really novel and worth a try but I’ll likely not reorder this again the next time I go. Nothing against the food, I generally don’t like strong fishy tastes.

I had the Happy Executive Set Lunch which, in my opinion, is really value for money! $18 for an appetizer, main, and a choice between the drink of the day, organic coffee or their Healing Tea selection
I chose the Pumpkin Sea Bass which was a S.E.A Sea Bass crusted with roasted pumpkin seeds accompanied with a haricot vert salad, spicy smoked tomato puree and pumpkin mash. JUST SO GOOD. Love it also that they bother to source their produce and meat from sustainable sources.
My dining companion had the Duck Pancake which tasted light a lighter version of the usual Peking Duck. Yummy, too! I liked it that the protein to carb ratio was right and it wouldn’t send my sugar levels crazy. Also the sauce was sweet, like the usual Peking Duck sauce but not saturated in the roll so you could choose how much you wanted on it. Very important for people like me!
Finished the meal off by sharing an avo-choco mousse dessert. Banana? Avocado? Chocolate? ALl my favourites! The dehydrated banana chips were too sweet for me (and my dining companion!) though, so I didn’t finish them. I supposed they were to balance out the flavour of the mousse (I keep typing ‘mousse’ as ‘mouse’). The mousse on it’s own is a dessert I would be happy to eat forever. Thick, creamy, natural tasting and not overly sweet.
So that concludes my first dining experience at ONAKA. Will definitely be back to try out the rest. Go try too! Nothing will make me happier to see places like Onaka thriving and inspiring others to eat better!
ONAKA@ARC
http://www.facebook.com/Onaka.at.ARC
460 Alexandra Road #01-32
PSA Building Singapore 119963
Tel: 62702012
Opens: Mon- Fri 11:30am-10pm
            Lunch last order: 2:30pm
            Tea: 3pm- 5pm

            Sat & Sun (10am-9:30pm)
            Brunch till 5. Dinner from 6pm

Nearest Mrt: Labrador Park
Parking available at PSA building

Click Here for more pictures of food from ONAKA’s menu.

Posted by grace Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Eat Out!, Healthy Food Places in Singapore, Uncategorized Tagged: Healthy Eating Places in Singapore, Onaka@Arc

Hello There!

Hi! My name is Grace
and I live in sunny Singapore! :D Welcome to Fithealthybunny.com where I share my love for exploring, healthy eating, mindful living and everything in between

Should you have a question
or need a listening ear,
fithealthybunny@gmail.com
will always be open for you :)

xoxo

Top Posts & Pages

  • The problem with the Singaporean Diet
    The problem with the Singaporean Diet
  • Healthier options in Singapore's Hawker Centres
    Healthier options in Singapore's Hawker Centres
  • 67 Places to Get Your Health Food Fix in Singapore
    67 Places to Get Your Health Food Fix in Singapore
  • Saving the Sharks and Recommended Wedding Dinner Venue: Park Royal on Pickering
    Saving the Sharks and Recommended Wedding Dinner Venue: Park Royal on Pickering

FHB on Instagram! :D

This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Error: No connected account.

Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to connect an account.

‘Like’ FHB on Facebook!

‘Like’ FHB on Facebook!

Theme by 17th Avenue · Powered by WordPress & Genesis