About this Blog

For a better life

Every year, without fail, losing weight would be on my list of New Year Resolutions.  Decades of experience (haha) have taught me that I can lose weight on any diet at all - fundamentally, all it takes is discipline and most of those diets are low calorie regimes anyway.  The biggest problem is keeping the lost weight away.  The most complicated issue to work through is my relationship with food.  I enjoy eating.  I like variety.  I need tasty food.  A bad meal sends me snacking in search of satiety and satisfaction.

Common sense says that lifestyle change is the best way to ensure long-term and sustainable weight loss.  I tried the best known platform that seeks to help you achieve behavioral changes, Noom, and it didn't work for me at all for the following reasons:

• The daily readings and brainwashing were tiring.  At some point, it felt like virtual naggings.
• The assigned coach churned out stock guidance and because it was a group approach, I didn't feel he could connect or understand how to help me.
• The diet options and suggestions were not Asian cuisine, my preferred taste.

After seeing another year of yo-yoing weight, I decided I needed a different type of intervention.

I started seeing a dietitian in September 2020.  In the last quarter of the year, 1 lost 5+kgs and ended the year with a net weight loss versus same time 2019.  During this period, I continued to enjoy most meals, found new recipes, and also weaned myself off a heavy carb palate.  

I'm not at goal weight yet.  There's probably another year to go to reach my goal.  In the meantime, these are some principles that have helped me make key lifestyle adjustments:

• I've to eat like what a person at my goal weight eats. I've never thought of it this way.  I've usually followed diets restrictively.  But what does a person at my goal weight eat like?  We'll discover that when I reach my goal weight.
• Greatly reduce carb in my diet - therefore this blog as a record of my recipes. Out of 14 lunches and dinners in a week, half of them carb-free or super carb light.
• Breakfast is when I can have a fist size carb meal if I want.  This would include rice congee, a meat bun or some oats and so on.
• Baseline 3/week exercise.  I do 2 strengths and 1 cardio, with a stretch goal of 1 more cardio per week.

This is my new template, which my dietitian worked out with me based on my daily life.  You might wonder what happened to fruits.  But since I didn't talk fruit to my dietitian, he figured I don't enjoy fruits so didn't enforce fruits.

And so, sitting here at the beginning of January, I'm taking stock and starting to record the various recipes I'm building for the evolution in my lifestyle.