out on the town

Last night a friend from Beijing was visiting, and it was so fun to see her. I had the best friends in Beijing, that were like family. Even better was a girls dinner that I went to monthly, and it was like free therapy. We would meet at a restaurant, have drinks and dinner, and dish. We called ourself the fab five - and all of us were varying degrees of working moms, career women and expats.

Having said friend in town was such a treat for me, and of course, we went out to dinner!

We went to a fab restaurant and I had looked up the menu online and planned what fish I was going to have in advance. I knew we would likely have an appetizer and drinks, so I was super cautious about calories during the day so I had some to spare for dinner. In fact, by dinner time I had only had about 435 calories.

She picked the starter and it was crab and artichoke dip, not healthy but this is life. And we have to control ourselves in it instead of avoiding it all together. So I had about 2T, plus some chips. Well that works out to about 300 calories right there! Add in the wine and my calorie count got pretty high, but not too bad. Planning for it the rest of the day really helped, and I'm pleased to say I didn't gain...

Here is what yesterday looked like.

tempting fate

Yesterday I posted before I had left the office. So yes, I had put what I was having for a snack and dinner in there and put it out there for the world to see.

I was taking charge!

But then life b*tch slapped me and told me not to count my chickens before they've hatched. Or, well, in my case, before they've defrosted...but I'll get to that in a minute.

My afternoon started to sour, literally, when I went to have my afternoon snack. I still have quite a few weight watchers mini cans of tuna in sauce from when I was doing that diet. They're not great, in fact, I secretly kind of hate them. But I decided I should use them, and they are low calorie and a good source of protein. So I packed some off to work and stuck it in my drawyer with a pack of ryvita crackers. A mini can on the cracker works out to be 100 calories, and obviously protein + hi-fiber is a winning combo.

I decided to go with the mango chutney tuna, I was feeling tangy, you know how it is. After a few bites, it struck me that this looks like cat food, so I took a picture for y'all. You're welcome. But then I started thinking that this tastes worse than I remember it... Choking down another bite, I tell myself that I'm just being paranoid because I've gone and thought about cat food!


I'm now nearly half way through forcing down my Ryvita and I pick the lid of the can up out of the trash. That's when I discover the tuna expired in June 2010. So, perhaps that's the sour taste.

You'll be proud of me, I didn't gag at my desk. But I threw the rest out. So my snack moves down from 100 calories to 50 rancid calories!

I took the opportunity to check the rest of the tuna cans, and don't you know, the rest are all good until 2012, so I picked just the right one.

As if this wasn't enough, I called my husband in the afternoon to ask him to take a chicken breast out of the freezer for me. I bought two fresh ones the other day and stuck them in there, and he was supposed to be out for his class that night so I decided I would just make some grilled chicken when I got home. Boring, but super healthy, and I always lose weight when I make it. Mr Supportive starts telling me that he can't see it in the freezer, but there is already one on the counter defrosting.

This sends alarm bells off for me, it means our nanny has taken it out of the freezer and is likely planning to stir-fry it for my dinner. Such a great thing that she is thinking of cooking for me, but at the same time, she will use a quarter cup of oil on that one breast. So I ask him to put her on the phone, but he says she's upstairs napping. So I ask him to please tell her that I'll just grill it myself when I get home as I'm trying to be healthy. She supports this and will totally understand.

But as I hang up the phone, I don't feel quite right about it, in fact, I feel a bit cranky but that could be because I just ate half a can of rotten tuna, who knows.

Well work gets busy and I don't leave the office till 7:15, which means I'll get home at 7:45 if I splurge and take a cab. Not wanting to eat too late, I do just that. The hubby calls me on the way home, while he is headed to his class and tells me that X (our nanny) had stir fried the chicken already by the time he saw her. Really... He then helpfully tells me that if I'm trying to eat earlier I should leave work earlier.

So, I had a small portion of stir-fried chicken and a quarter cup of rice for dinner, with some broccoli cooked in soy sauce. Just to make sure that yesterday wasn't the day I dealt with the sodium issue. (I looked it up, and a T of soy sauce has pretty much your daily max amount of sodium. Awesome).

An interesting side note is my hubby spent 30 minutes getting to his class only to find out they moved them from Wednesday to Tuesday, so it wasn't an off-night for only me. :-)


So, here's what Wednesday REALLY looked like.



Needless to say, I felt borderline hostile last night and ended up in tears before I went to bed.

Luckily, I'd lost a half lb back this morning. Is it annoying that more than half the week is gone and I'm still up a half lb from last weigh in? Yes, but at least we have downward motion again!!

post-lose blues

So after feeling great about losing six lbs last week, I've gained 1lb back and feel awful. One, I'm frustrated because there is not an obvious reason why, and secondly, because its been a half lb gain two days in a row. The first day I could deal with, a slight fluctuation is normal, but upward motion two days in a row is upsetting.

The only thing I can think of is that I had more Asian food the last two days, both home-cooked by my nanny and also eating out. While I don't think I went over my daily calories and I don't think that I over-ate, the only thing I wonder about is the sodium. I know the soup was salty last night, but it was water (fresh broth) based, not oily, so I thought it would be fine.

Last night I got to thinking about sodium in food, as my husband and I were watching The Biggest Loser. It was an old season airing here in Asia, and the challenge was that the contestants were forced to eat out every meal for a week. This is a great challenge in my opinion, because you can't NOT eat out, and its important to know you can do it and how to still be healthy. At a Mexican restaurant, one of the contestants had a salad with grilled shrimp, dressing on the side, and a small side of black beans (made without lard). So she thought she had a healthy choice, and Jillian Michaels starts harping on her about the sodium content. I felt like I missed something. Did this woman have high blood pressure, a heart condition? Or, does sodium affect weight loss? It could not have come at a more relevant moment for me.

Of course I know you can retain water if you eat too much sodium, but I've never thought of this as being a problem for overall weight loss. I drink lots of water and I guess I thought that will flush out in a day or two. But this is something I'm going to look into, I'm not a regular viewer so I've obviously missed where they had talked about this before.

The bottom line is, nothing is worse than thinking you've done the right thing and then not seeing results. It just makes me want to know where I went wrong, so I can fix it. It's the not knowing what to fix that is frustrating.

Today, I'm cooking all my meals and controlling 100 percent what goes in my body. My hope is that I still have progress by my next week weigh in - despite this upward motion.

Oh, and I'm so focused on sodium at the moment that I swear my hands are swollen today... Paranoid? Or am I on to something?


UPDATE!!!
Tracked down a video of Jillian Michaels explaining why sodium is bad for weight loss. This is a post about how to shed some weight quickly, like how to slim down for a special event, etc. But what's interesting to me is what she says about the role of sodium on weight in general, and I bet when I have Asian food, which often has msg and salt, plus sometimes soy sauce, that I'm getting way beyond the daily amount of sodium. This of course doesn't mean that I'm retaining 50 lbs of water weight, but it does mean I could be seriously impairing my metabolism - blocking my own progress.

Here's her key points:

• Sodium slows your metabolism
• Sodium causes you to retain excess fluids
• Limit your salt or sodium intake to only 1500mg a day so you won't retain any fluid (water weight) and for an extra weight loss boost...
• Lower your salt intake to 500mg for only a few days (usually no longer than 2 days) to shed those water pounds quickly and...
• The main high sodium foods to avoid are: canned, frozen, processed, & packaged foods and...
• Drink 2 liters of distilled water each day to flush out the excess water weight you're carrying around now - Distilled water is basically PURE water with no salt or minerals in it and...

See her explain it all here.

no more snooze

In my industry, people tend to work long and often unpredictable hours. My role in the ad agency is marketing and PR for the agency itself, not clients, so it means that I am usually not as bad as some of my colleagues - these hours are not diet friendly. On a good day, I'm likely to get home around 7:30 at the earliest.

My choice is then, prepare dinner, spend time with my family or exercise.

After a long day at the office, I'm ravenous, and I want to spend that next hour before my daughter's bedtime, with her.

What this means is that my only time for exercising during the week, is in the morning before work. This means getting up at 6:20 to go for a run. I HATE getting up early - which is surprising considering I'm a morning person. My ideal day? Getting up around 7:30, going for a run, checking some emails, grabbing a quick shower and making a healthy breakfast. Then being online for the day by about 9:30. I'm solid from about that time, until 2-3 in the afternoon. Then it becomes a struggle and I count the hours till I'm done. And I LIKE my job....but I digress.

The point is, I'm a master of planning to go for a run in the morning, setting my alarm, and either falling victim to the eternal snooze game or somehow, managing to sleep through my alarm whilst clutching it in my hand.

I've tried everything, laying out my clothes by the bed, texting with virtual running partners, as I don't have anyone around me to run with. But I've always found an excuse or a reason to not get up, arguing (as any parent can) that I need the sleep.

But the Couch to 5K running program requires 3 spaced runs a week. So two have to fall during the work-week, which means that I've got to break my vicious cycle and get out of bed earlier.

This morning is the first time I've had to do my morning run, since committing to my healthier life last week.

Last night, as I lay in bed agonizing over how I had to get up early, I started trying to pump myself up mentally so I wouldn't blow it in the morning. I knew that it was crucial, that I do it right the first time and that would really set the stage for me either succeeding at this new lifestyle, or falling victim to my history of 'two weeks of any plan'. Then something really simple occurred to me, how much am I really getting out of an extra 40 minutes sleep?

This seems so obvious, its embarrassing.

Needless to say, I went through my normal thought-process this morning at 6:20...

Devil: What!? ALREADY!! No.... I'm so tired.
Angel: No, I have to. I'm already awake now.
Devil: Why? I could just go back to sleep for an hour. C'mon, it would feel so good to just fall back asleep now.
Angel: If I don't go today, than this could potentially send us down the wrong path, back into our bad habits.
Devil: I can go tomorrow and run, its only Tuesday, it doesn't have to be today!
Angel: All this arguing means I'm already awake, and what good is 40 more minutes going to do?!

So I got up, and started the next installment of my running program. And it went well. And I got to work on time.

And I've officially turned over my new leaf.



Exercise - 33 mins (18 interval walk/jog) - week 3 of C25K program

Breakfast - 200

• 1 cups of coffee with low fat milk
  
• mila with 98.9% ff plain yogurt, 1 handful of blueberries

Lunch - 475

• mixed salad with cucumbers and tomatoes, vinegar
• roasted chicken (skin removed)
• 1.5c rice

Dinner - 600

• salad
• fish head soup (questionable if this is lean or fatty, and it was pretty salty)
• bread

Total - about 1300 cal

a case of the mondays

Monday, January 10, 2011

So today was one of my first days back in the office. Over the holidays, we moved offices - so try not to be jealous. As if moving 3 times in a year wasn't enough fun, moving offices is also a super way to ring in the holidays.

After standing in the elevator shaft yesterday morning for 20 mins (a new door lock system was implemented while I was away) to the realization that there are no Starbucks in walking distance of this office, I can say a "case of the Mondays" were in full effect by 9:30am.

While I had managed to pack a small salad for lunch with leftovers, it really wasn't enough to suffice as a meal, more as a side. So when colleagues asked me to lunch, I jumped at the chance to not have to 'explore' the neighborhood in the rain, but follow people who have been here for two weeks already.

We went across the street to a small food court type place, but its a sorry excuse for a food court. While I was secretly nervous about the limited healthy options a five stand outdoor food court would present, my colleagues quickly comforted me.

"This place is nasty," they said. "But its raining, so we don't want to walk 15 minutes back to the old office."

The old office had business centers on all sides, with everything from Subway, to small cafes, Starbucks, coffee bean, a small deli stand, noddle shops, etc. In short, you could easily go healthy if you wanted...not that I totally took advantage of that at the time!

So looking at the four stands of greasy noddles and deep fried meats, I saw a chicken rice stand! Diet saved, I thought. Chicken rice stands are immensely popular, the best part is that most of them offer a steamed chicken option, which is just steamed chicken over white rice. So I step up and order, only to find out they are 'sold out' - which is a term loosely used in Asia that can mean anything from 'we've never had it' to 'we're truly sold out today, sorry' to 'we will never serve that here'.

So, I went for what I thought would be the next best thing, roasted pork over rice. It's roasted, that's gotta be healthier than fried chicken or pork, and better to have a small serving of meat over steamed rice vs greasy noodles, right?

When my plate arrived, I realize the term 'roasted' had a different meaning.

what roasted pork looks like (although this is double my portion)

It was basically cuts of pork that had the lean meat, the fat and the crispy skin on on one piece. Tasty of course, but no one in their right mind would call it a healthy choice. It may have been the lesser of evils, but it was a far cry from diet friendly.

Luckily, it was a very small portion. Probably 3oz of meat total, and I only ate half my rice. Unfortunately, I was left feeling guilty for a bit over this dilemma.

But I shook it off, this is part of a long-term plan to turn my body/health around. And real life means situations like this.

And anyway, I'm pretty sure food guilt makes you gain weight on the spot, so who needs it!

Exercise - rest day

Breakfast - 350
1c noodle soup w fresh spinach and 1 egg
coffee w/ low fat milk

Lunch - 500
side leftover cous cous salad (1/3 c), and lettuce mix
roasted pork 2/3 c rice -

Dinner - 530
stir fried chicken with carrots and yellow pepper
1/2c white rice
1/2c cucumber in vinegar
chocolate - 90 cal

Total daily? Your guess is as good as mine! But approximately 1380.

hawker center hunt

Sunday January 9, 2011

Today we were meeting our good friend for lunch, and we were looking for cheap and cheerful, so decided to go to a food court. Singapore is famous for their foodcourts, also called hawker centers, which have little stands offering everything from Chinese to Japanese to Korea to Western, Indian, Thai and even more.

photo online that shows some of the standard food court options

While this sounds like you are spoiled for choice, and you are, they are a dieters worst nightmare! Eating at food courts means you are getting primarily oily rice or noodle based dishes, soup noodles, sizzling plates of meat, curry, etc. There is a severe shortage of things not-fried, drenched in sauce or carb heavy. It's great hangover food, but its not so awesome of your waistline.

For the first time, I'm committed to losing weight without dieting, but through common sense. I've found that I can do anything for two weeks. Live on cabbage soup? Sure. Cut out meat? No problem. Wait, now only eat meats and fatty cheese (hello Atkins!), can do. Oops, try low fat and reintroduce heart-healthy carbs? Sure. Ohhhh, its about the right kind of carbs (southbeach diet), I get it... I can have anything within my points, great, and so on and so on. From doing every diet on the planet, I think it boils down to just having enough common sense, often enough, to make a difference.

I want this to be sustainable. And it is unrealistic to avoid real life, so I don't want to not eat in food courts, because that would be missing out on a part of Singapore. That being said, it's so unbelievably hard to pick something good, so I had to plan my day around it. I had a late breakfast of just fruit and coffee, because I slept in today. Then I had a medium dinner, in fact, I would have had a larger portion at dinner but I wanted to compensate for the fact that my lunch could have had hidden calories.

I chose Korean at lunch, because Korean food is generally not oily like Chinese food, and the Japanese stand wasn't sushi, it was teriyaki, deep fried squid and shrimp, etc. The other possible choice was a Western stand that served italian style pasta, which may have been ok.

I got thin sliced beef on raw cabbage (hooray for something green!), with plain white rice. It was good, and I hope not too naughty..,because -tomorrow is weigh in day!


Exercise - C25K week 2: 33 mins (20 min interval training)

Breakfast - approx 55 cal

• 1/2 c fresh papaya
• coffee with skim

Lunch - approx 550 cal

• Korean stir-fried beef (4oz, lean) over 1/2c fresh cabbage
• 1/2t soy sauce
• 1.5c rice
• 1t kimchee

Afternoon
diet coke

Dinner - approx 475

• 1c whole wheat pasta with garlic, shrimp and fresh basil, mushrooms and tomatoes
• mixed veg salad w olives, 10 cal dressing
• 1 piece dark chocolate w chili - 25 cal

Total Calories - about 1080
(This is actually a bit low, but since we ate lunch at a food court with a friend today, I specifically ate low-cal the rest of the day as I can't be 100 percent on the calories at lunch. This could be higher on the amount of oil or sauces used).

Saturday January 8, 2011

My husband and daughter returned home (we live in Singapore now) from an extended stay in England after Christmas. I've had half a week of being home alone, being healthy and exercising. It's easy to do when its just me. It's significantly harder when my husband is around.

Not that he isn't supportive, quite the opposite, he believes in what I'm doing. But that doesn't mean that he wants to do it, all the time.

Yesterday morning I woke up to him suggesting we go out to breakfast. How sweet is that?! That never happens, and I was excited about it. If we were at home in Florida (where I'm from) or in England (where he is from) I would have jumped at the chance. I could easily order and egg white omlette (which I love) or something healthy in most cafes. But where we live in Singapore, the option is the food court at the bottom of our road. Coffee made with condensed milk, white bread with butter and sugar and 2 soft boiled (runny almost raw) eggs. That's the traditional breakfast, of course I could also get a bowl of greasy noodles...

traditional Singaporean breakfast - Kopi (coffee), kaya +butter toast and runny eggs

My husband was devestated that I expressed concern, here he is being spontaneous! Oh, and he'd been up with our daughter since 3am, both of them extremely jet-lagged, so he was ready to get out of the house. I suggested I eat first at the house and go down with him and just have a coffee, which he told me would 'ruin it'.

So I suggested I cook a big family breakfast for everyone, and English breakfast! Baked beans, eggs, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, the works. This was more exciting than the food at the food court, but significantly healthier (just don't tell him that).

So...here's my day!

Exercise - none, it was a rest day

Breakfast - approx 300 cal

• 1.5 egg scrambled with peppers and onions
• 2 T baked beans
• 1/2 slice wholegrain toast
• 2T grilled mushrooms and small tomatoes
• coffee w/ skim

Lunch - 325 cal

• Subway 6in roasted chicken breast (no cheese), all vegies and mustard

Afternoon snack - approx 200 cal

• 3 peanut m&ms (leftover from christmas!)
• 2 fresh vegie and meat dumplings, steamed
• small green apple

Dinner - approx 520 cal

• 2 bites of mac n cheese with vegies and chicken that i made for my daughter!

• 4 oz pan grilled red snapper
• 1 c cous cous salad (altho most is tomatoes with probably 1/2c actual cous cous)
• vegie salad with salad dressing spray (10 cal)
• 2 glasses dry white wine
• 1 square dark chocolate

dinner is served!

Total - approx 1200 cal

Friday January 7, 2011

I've already realized its not enough for me to just blog about my journey toward meeting my goals, I actually need to hold myself publicly accountable.

So I'm going to post my daily food and exercise diary.

Exercise
34 mins total (20 mins run/walk intervals - week2 couch to 5K plan)

Breakfast (about 300 calories total)
(unfortunately woke up at 4am a bit jetlagged, so had two breakfasts....)

• 1/3c fresh papaya
• 2 cups of coffee with skim
• mila with 98.9% ff plain yogurt, 1T fresh passion fruit, 1 handful of blueberries

Mila is an extremely low cal, hi-fiber seed. One scoop (which makes a small bowl) is 70cal

Mid morning snack (er, at 9:30 am given my early morning)

• 3 fresh steamed pork & vegie dumplings

Lunch (guessing around 450 cals)

• small bowl of leftover couscous and salad, with 1 strip leftover grilled salmon
• small, homemade turkey sandwich on wholegrain bread, with vegies and dijonaise

My leftover couscous and 1 strip of salmon wasn't enough for a whole meal, but was probably too filling to be a side? Oh well, will compensate with lighter dinner.

Afternoon snack - approx 100 cal

• diet coke
• 1 chicken wing (why? because they were cooked fresh in the kitchen in a yummy sauce. This my friends, is actually what spurred me to do the diary. Because that was mindless eating, eating it because I was offered it and I wasn't even hungry. I was in there to get more water).

Dinner - around 380 cal
2 skinless chicken wings
1/4 cup white rice
1/3 cup chinese spinach
1 square of 70% dark chocolate

Total calories roughly 1430... not awesome!

I have to say today was very hindered by being hungry all day due to my day starting so early. Here's hoping tomorrow is better.