Hi, I’m Jackie. I’m a livestreaming multicultural chef, former restaurateur, and digital entrepreneur.
I spend most of my days trying to balance my love for world cuisines, with being fit and healthy. Food to me is very personal.
I’m really passionate about clean eating, and organic living. I try to keep things in check by doing what I think is the world’s hardest workouts for foodies like me, a.k.a. Crossfit.
What diet are you on?
There’s no satisfactory label I can use to describe my lifestyle. Some people would call me a flexitarian, reducetarian, or part-time vegetarian. For weight loss, I’m more inclined to follow a paleo, whole 30, or keto diet. Problem is, they always leave me feeling totally spent.
I have a natural affinity toward plant-based, and while I would love to be that idealistic vegan, I’m also extremely practical about nutrition. By practical, I mean, I put my health above all else. If I can get my nutrients eating liver, I would.
I am your typical cliché
Every health and wellness website with a weight loss focus tend to feature a certain type of person. Blog owners often tell stories of how they were born with “fat genes,” and like me, how driving pass a K.F.C. and catching a waft of friend chicken scent instantly grows a double chin for us.
Like them, I have a genetic predisposition to get diabetes and heart disease. Like them, I have some kind of nasty story about a long line of ancestors who died prematurely due to the above. Like them, I often feel like I have to work 10 times harder to see a quarter of the results that “normal” people see when they try to get healthy.
Like them, I have been prescribed diabetes medication even before it happened, just so that I can lose the weight. Like them, I have a host of metabolic disorders that cannot be cured, but only managed through a lifetime of suffering.
There are plenty of people who can tell you how it makes them feel helpless, depressed, and utterly hopeless when it comes to getting their weight down.
Well, I don’t have time to dwell on that.
And so I thought. You see, I’ve been told all my life by people that I was “made-that-way.” That I should just accept that I’ll always be a big girl, that I have a big frame, that it’s genetic, and there’s nothing I can do about it because I was… you got it… MADE-THAT-WAY!
Granted it was because these people loved me and wanted me to be happy, but I wasn’t satisfied with that.
No matter how much I exercised and dieted, nothing seemed to work… not for long anyway. I would deflate and inflate like a balloon according to the season and it would be as easy as a few big meals and all of a sudden I am 10 lbs heavier. It was frustrating!
I had the most painful experiences growing up as a teenager. Once in class, a boy took one of my pictures and drew a pig sitting in exactly the same manner, and put it on my desk. I’m not sure if I was being sensitive or that was a really awful thing to do to a 13 year old girl but nonetheless, that’s what happened.
Though it hurt, I never let it take away my confidence, but it did something to me; it made me sad. I was now a lot more aware that people generally viewed me as FAT, CHUNKY, PLUMP, THICK, CHUBBY and BIG-SIZED. Yes, I’m not afraid to say those words now.
I am and was and still am the same person regardless of my changing sizes over time. Same core essence, same spirit, and the weight is just that… some padding. But throughout my life I’ve realized how people treat me differently based on how much I weighed or looked… particularly in Asia.
And that really annoyed the heck out of me and saddened me.
This blog is about how I decided to take on a personal challenge to find out what was wrong and how to correct it. I started losing weight out of anger. Angry at the fact that I was MADE-THAT-WAY! I was angry at God, society, guys, gals, anyone who talked about weight or looks. It killed me every time someone talked about being fat when they were not, because what do they know about being fat?
I was angry I was born to a diabetic mother and had insulin resistance and hypoglycemia, among other things.
That anger turned into intellectual curiosity. I began researching and reading over 100 books on diet, health and wellness. I read articles, scientific journals, all sorts. There was a time I was so perplexed with my inability to lose weight I turned to neuroplasticity and even studied into gene expressions.
I was hoping the research would reveal to me that the genes that were causing me to be fat could be turned off, ending the very annoying experience of hearing yet another aunty tell me I’d look better if I lost some weight!
In those health and diet books, I found some common themes and then adopted what I thought made sense, and abandoned what I didn’t think was right for me.
That anger took away 15kgs in 6 months (that’s 33 lbs). Thankfully, I did it naturally and I’ll tell you all about it later. Now that I know it’s possible, I’m going to stop being angry and start enjoying the process because it’s a beautiful journey.
I worked really, really hard to get from 85kgs to 69kgs. My goal weight is 60kgs. This time, I’m going to do it with a huge smile on my face because it’s not true what they say, I’m not MADE-THAT-WAY.
Misinformation made me THAT-WAY, and I’m going to share what I now know with you.
Don’t give up, love yourself always. Keep going!
P/S: SAY HELLO TO ME, and let me know what you want to read from me!
Peace and love,
Jackie