Category: Diet & Fitness

Post Weight-Loss Experiment (I Was Right About Gluten)

It’s August. A year exactly since I lost 12 kg and weighed 73 kg. The bad news is, since January 2013 I have gone back to a fairly normal way of eating, ingesting things that I was convinced was bad for me, but nevertheless wanted to prove myself wrong the second time around.

Boy was I right the first time around. So I don’t weigh the svelt 68 kg anymore, but the good news is, I still weigh the same as I did a year ago after having lost 12kg. The miraculous part is, I have been stuffing myself like Empress Dowager for the past 7 months and been working out way too little.

It is a wonder I am not back to being the 85kg fatty. God has been full of grace and good to me.

So how do I feel about that? BAD. Very bad. I don’t mean the guilt of putting back 4kgs on since November 2012 (although there is some of that), but physically, I felt really sick being back on a diet that includes refined carbs, gluten, and msg-laden Asian food. “Unwell” would be a better word to describe how I felt back on the common diet.

I wish it weren’t true. I wish I could eat all the French pastries as long as it’s a little morsel and go back to being a foodie, and everything will be fine as long as I watched my portions. Bullpoop. The thing with refined carbs is that one bite is never enough, and you just want to eat more and more of it. I’m sure the devil was given rights to wheat.

I think if I don’t have full-on Celiac disease, at the very least I have a very visible form of gluten intolerance. The kind that a croissant a day can causes 3kgs of weight gain in a week. The kind that makes me bloated, unable to offload my bio-cargo normally, produce enough gas to power a village, and feel downright nervous, moody, anxious and just sickly.

A few days ago, I saw these long Chinese fried donuts Youtiao or Cha Kuay at a local stall, and I just had to have it. It’s crispy on the outside, and chewy on the inside, and it’s absolutely wonderful with a bit of coconut jam spread in between. What happened?

5 minutes of pleasure, 4 days of suffering!

My stomach bloated like an African child with beri-beri, and I had to do a detox on day 4 just to get it out of my system. You know what? Instant relief after I got it out.

How could I have eaten so much of something that acts like a poison to my system? Why are such delicious things so bad for me?

WHAT’S THE PLAN NOW?

Well, it’s clear I can’t take wheat products without paying for it in the form of thunder thighs, pot bellies, and mood swings. So I will go back to what made me feel really good.

A clean diet that is abundant in fresh fruits and vegetables (70% raw), with organic sources of protein. Sans-wheat and gluten-free. I’ll also step up with the exercise as I don’t feel good physically when I feel weak.

There is a renewed private goal. This time around, I know what works and doesn’t work, and I’ll share that with you as I go through my journey.

Wisdom: Believe in good things, be gentle with yourself when you mess up, get back on track, and do your best to live the life that makes you happiest. 🙂

August 12, 2013
Real People, Real Voices: Q&A with Keith Dumpangol

Ladies and gentleman, I want you to meet my friend Keith Dumpangol from Keningau, Sabah, Malaysia. He’s the male recipient contestant of the Breeze Magazine CORE’s Get Fit Challenge 3, where he was voted to be put on a fitness program for 3 months to get healthy at Core Fitness. I managed to steal some of his time to ask a few questions about what he hopes to achieve on the programme. So let’s all cheer him on!

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1) How do you feel about being selected for the Core Fit Challenge?
A: I feel excited! I think I’m in a ‘moment’ now where I’m mentally and physically ready for this challenge.

2) What was your highest weight?
A: I was at my highest at 164kg! That was almost 4 years ago. Worst. Feeling. Ever.

3) How much do you weigh now?
A: As of yesterday I’m at 132.6kg

4) What did you do to lose weight before?
A: I signed up for a gym membership and just started eating healthy. My first trip to the gym lasted me 10 minutes. Literally. 1 minute walking from my car to the gym, 5 minutes walking on the threadmill ( before I thought I’d pass out), 3 minutes of rest and 1 minute walking back to my car..LOL. And at the same time I started eating my Mickey Mouse diet.. you know, where you picture Mickey’s face on a plate. Fill his face with veggies and fill his two round ears with equal amount of carbs and protein. That’s how I started.

5) What do you hope to achieve with Core Fit Challenge?
A: For this particular challenge, since it’s only for 3 months, I’m planning to push myself (without going overboard lah) to lose as much weight as I can. I’ve basically set a goal of how much I want to lose so I’m going to work on that. If I reach my target, great and if I don’t, it’s still progress At the same time I hope to inspire other people who are dealing with their own weight problem to take that first step and take control!

6) What’s your goal weight?
A: I have never set a golden number on that to be honest. In the future, I might but for now I just want to go through this journey with a sense of achieving something.

7) What is the most difficult thing to overcome personally?
A: I guess consistency is pretty much on top of the list. A friend said to me fitness is not just a goal, it’s a lifestyle. Needless to say, I’m still working on that.

8. What drives you to get healthy?
A: Besides looking and feeling good? Well unfortunately I have family who passed at a relatively young age. And I myself am a diabetic. So I’m trying my best to break that chain. That’s what motivates me not to just lose weight but to BE HEALTHY

9) Who do you look up to and why?
A: Too many to mention!!LOL. In terms of weight loss though, I’ve been following this guy Jon Calvo. He lost over 180 pounds on his own based on his own method and sheer determination.
10.

10) Favorite quote and why.
A: One of my favorites is simply “You cannot change what you refuse to confront” because it ain’t be any truer. If you don’t like it, change it!

About CORE’s Get Fit Challenge

Borneo’s premiere lifestyle magazine, Breeze together with Core Fitness have started the 3rd year of the CORE’s Get Fit Challenge during a launching ceremony at Core Fitness, City Mall. The challenge is an event that pits a chosen male and female to go through a complimentary 3 month intensive workout course at Core Fitness to get in shape with top-notch coaching and to gain a healthier, more active lifestyle.

Beginning in June, starts the vigorous sessions to help two worthy contestants reach their goals. The number of entries were small but all the finalists were excellent candidates. After an intense voting process, followed by an interview session by a panel of 3 judges, Keith Dumpangol and Noor Amy Binti Ajak emerged as the chosen single male and female that will go through the challenge. Keith and Amy will be monitored by their assigned Core Fitness personal trainers and Breeze on a monthly basis to keep track of their progress and continue to give them support to carry on through the challenge. Updates of Keith and Amy’s progress will be available to the public via copies of the latest Breeze magazine and also at Breeze magazine’s facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/BreezeMagazine.

June 6, 2013
Getting Measured for Bust Size (Mabuhay from Manila!)

I’m in Manila. It’s not important why I’m in Manila, but it has been awesome for the past 13 hours. The city that I once passed by on my way to Honolulu has changed a lot since. 🙂

For one, we went midnight shopping at Resorts World last night, and I stumbled upon a La Senza, a Spanish lingerie shop.

Since losing all that weight, I haven’t actually changed my brassieres and panties. For one, there was no real need to because I had bought a whole bunch earlier last year and they’re all in amazing condition. For seconds, I just don’t do “Ah Lian” lingerie, which is the only type they sell in Kota Kinabalu unless you go super-luxury.

The bras at La Senza in the Philippines are on sale at 495 Pesos each (Approximately RM36), and I couldn’t resist myself. I was looking for my old size, then reeled back, realizing I’m now a different size. I told the sales girl that I’m not sure what I should wear anymore, because things have changed.

“Do you want me to measure you?,” she asked.

I agreed, and she pulls out a measuring tape. She looped the tape around my chest area below the bust-line and it read 33. She then, looped it over my bumps and it read 37 with my bra on.

“You need a 36B,” she said.

“Really? Okay, I’ll go try it on for size.”

Fits PERFECTLY.

So I am now a 36B and wear small sized undies. I guess that means I have lovely lady lumps and literally, a small ass.

Old Habits Die Hard

The weirdest part about the the window-shopping process is that I naturally always go look for L sizes. But after holding it up against by body in the mirror, they just look like clothes for pregnant women on me. It’s been weird to see that even some M sizes are too big on my new frame.

How does it feel?

FANTASTIC.

Because I used to stress out about not being able to find my size, because actually, (here’s some insight for you) there are just as many women who wear L and XL sizes as they are Ms.

More significantly, it feels great because now all of a sudden, I have more choices of clothes to wear. I can now look at something and say, “Oh that looks soooo cute. I wanna try that on.”

And when I do try them on, it actually looks good.

It is not all bent out of shape to follow a figure that desperately fights hard to no be out of shape. When I was 85kgs, I was round, but I had shape. But the clothes desperately tried to make me look as good as possible, and sometimes it would fail.

Now, the clothes brings out and shows my figure.

In the past, the clothes hid my imperfections. Now clothes celebrate my assets.

So are you going to work in a 30 minute workout today? Because that can make all the difference! 😉

January 17, 2013
Hi-Protein Strawberry-Banana-Orange Smoothie
Some people wonder how in spite of having gone back to eating foods for earthlings, I am able to maintain my weight. You should know that for every plate of food I eat, I am eating half or less of the portion. (I’ll share more tips in time to come). Most importantly, two of my 3 meals a day consists of extremely healthy choices like this smoothie.

Hi-Protein Strawberry-Banana-Orange Smoothie Recipe

2 SERVINGS
- 5 frozen strawberries
- 1 frozen medium banana
- 1 cup fresh orange juice
- 1 tbsp whey protein powder
- 2 ice cubes
- Some ice water (to control viscosity)
INSTRUCTIONS

Make orange juice separately in a juicer. Then add all ingredients in a blender (below), blend on medium to high speed.

P/S: Add water to control desired thickness and sweetness.

VOILA! Drink it with a straw immediately.
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This smoothie has potassium from bananas, vitamin C from the oranges and strawberries, and flavonoids that have anti-cancer properties.

This is perfect as a light meal replacement, but you can’t only drink this 3 times a day for a whole month and expect to be a superfit superhero. It doesn’t work like that.

Keeping a healthy diet is all about feeding a variety of different foods to your body, at the right time, in the right combination, over a period of time!
January 12, 2013
3 Tips on How To Avoid Eating Foods That Are Bad for You

One of the most common factors that people tell me about why they fail in their weight loss campaign is that they find themselves in situations where they’re busy, hungry, and need food immediately. So they end up reaching for what’s convenient.

The key to your success is to be prepared. Here are 3 tips on how you can avoid eating foods that don’t help you reach your goals.
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1. Identify Shops That Sell Healthier Food Options

The single most important factor to your weight loss success is knowing what to do when the hunger pang hits while you’re out. Choose shops that serve healthy foods in areas you frequently visit.

For example, (if you live in Kota Kinabalu) let’s say you’re at Citymall and your stomach starts to growl.

Instead of going for kuih and fried gluten sticks at the famous Malaysian chains, Natural Green House has some healthy lunch and dinner options.

Kudos is a great restaurant (albeit a little pricy to go daily), because they use all fresh and natural ingredients in their food, and there’s no nasty MSG in anything they serve.

There’s also a little convenience store on the ground floor that sells fresh cut fruits. Giant hypermarket also carries all kinds of fruits and handy nuts.

If you’re at Damai, instead of going for the bread shops and noodles, consider eating fruit or organic snacks that are healthier.

There’s a cut fruit store a few doors down from Tong Hing, salads at Coffee Bean, and two organic food stores. Know where your “healthy” options are, so you won’t cancel out all the effort you put into your Zumba class.

2. Make & Bring Your Own Snacks

Prepare your own snacks and meals if possible. Here are just some of the snacks I take with me.

Mixed nuts
Savory kinds are more tasty, and sweet types have dried fruit in them. Almonds are high in magnesium and phosphorus, and walnuts are high in omega 3s, with makes for a really nutritious and delicious snack.
I started making these for traveling. These are great to keep in a ziplock bag and in your handbag to take with you when you’re on the go.

Oat Energy Bars
I used to buy commercial energy bars, but never found a bar that suited my requirements and tastebuds. Commercial bars use trans-fat, preservatives, sugar, or sweeteners like maltose, and high fructose corn syrup which is a no-no to me.

Energy bars are also expensive in Asia as they are usually imported from the U.S. and Australia and marked up so the importer and vendor makes something.

So to cut the long story short, I bake my own low GI oat bars using all-natural ingredients like pure butter and raw honey.

The entire family eats them, my dad takes them on the road and travels with them.

It’s so popular I’ve even serendipitously started a little bakery that sells them to customers who are health conscious or diabetic. (P/S: If you live in KK and want to order, you can email me at jackiemiao.my[at]gmaildotcom. They start from RM55 per tray).

Fruits
Choose easy to bring fruits like apples, oranges, bananas and the like. Otherwise, you could always just cut up any fruits you like and put them in containers to take it with you.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Make Special Requests

You have a life, and sometimes you have to eat lunch and dinner with your friends — they want normal food and that’s okay. If you find yourself in that situation, remember you can always make special requests for your food to be served the way you like it.

For example, when I’m at the wildly popular Bomber’s Burger, I tell the good chef to just serve me the beef patty with a side serving of salad. So my burger doesn’t come with the bun or fries.

Or when I’m at a coffee shop that serves noodle soup, I stay away from wheat-based products as much as possible and tell them to go easy with the meehoon or kuay teow portion.

I also tell them not to put MSG in my soup, and don’t make it too salty.

This may seem demanding, but it’s my body and I’ve decided I’m not going to bomb my organs with chemicals and salt and then act all surprised when cancer shows up.

I’d rather take the healthy route, and I hope that for your sake you think the same! 🙂

December 14, 2012
It’s Not Only About the Weight But Body Fat Percentage

As you might have noticed, I updated the design of the blog to include more categories as I’m a big believer of the mind-body-soul connection in the maintenance of health and wellness. My weight loss might have put into motion the starting of the site, but I’m not really only about losing weight, but living consciously and being healthy all the days of my life.

On to other things. I have one of those high tech weighing machines called Tanita. In addition to telling you how heavy you are, it measures things like bone weight, water weight, visceral fat, and body fat percentage.

When I started my health and fitness campaign, my body fat percentage was at a whopping 36%.

I was pretty disgusted with the readings, since I didn’t believe that I was made up of 36% lard (like chicken fats) and 64% everything else. But that’s what the machine read for almost 2 years, no matter how hard I exercised.
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Body Composition

So today I want to talk about why it’s more important for me to change my body composition instead of focusing on getting lighter only. When I lost 16kgs, I shed a mix of fats, muscles, and water weight which all contributed to the shrinkage.

But over the last 2 months, I only managed to maintain and lose a total of 1 kg. Why is that? For one, I believe it’s because I’ve added strength training to my routine, and though I am shrinking in size I’m not really losing that much weight because I am building muscle.

Body Fat Percentage

Today my B.F.P. is at 30%. The ideal B.F.P. for a normal woman is said to be about 25%, and of course if you’re a fitness freak, that number is more likely at the 20% mark.

Anyhow, I just want to bring it down to 25% for now, which I’ve been told is a pretty hard thing to do by fitness pros. It’s supposed to be harder than losing just the weight, because you have to build the muscle to replace the space that the fat took.

I’m going to try anyway!

I took a journal shot today (see above), just to see how I look in a gown. Been doing push-ups and sit ups as part of my X45/Crossfit workouts and I think I’m toning up slowly. I had very little sleep the night before and didn’t bother with makeup, hence I look a little tired so excuse the lack of grooming.

There are a few things I want to share with you.

Rewarded Myself With New Gear

Firstly, I bought these fabuloso new 1080 V2 NB runners and have been taking them out when the terrain isn’t wet like a swamp.

I’ve been wearing these ASICS for 2.5 years that I got from Melbourne and it’s time for an upgrade. I tend to use those on softer ground because the soles are not absorbent as they used to be. So if you want to save your knees, you gotta be smart about the life of your shoes too and I have a tip for you… get proper running shoes!

Don’t just go for Nike or Reeboks coz’ you think they look cool. Really go and get fitted for your foot arch, strike, width and pronation. It’s pretty important if you’re doing a lot of running that you get the right shoes so you’re not hurting yourself and causing permanent damage to your joints, because every one’s foot and pronation are different just like clothes are.

I wore and threw out about 5 pairs of Nikes before getting fitted to Saucony for four years, then switched to New Balance and Asics several years back because they were just a much better fit for me. Ain’t about the brand but the fit!

Inspiring People Doing Amazing Things

Secondly, Nadzifah, a lawyer from Kota Kinabalu shares her weight loss story and won herself a 1-year gym membership from Core Fitness. This lady sounds like she went through a lot of pain with her weight, and her triumph at losing over 40 kg is just so inspiring. I wish her the best in her future!

Read her story here!

A Bit of Looking Back

Thirdly, I looked at some of my pictures earlier this year and it still amazes me how much I’ve done in such a short period of time. Take a look at what I looked like in Jan and last Saturday night!

I really have to get used to accepting the new-looking me, because to be honest, I’m still trying to adjust and get a little shocked when I see myself because I’ve been in the big state for a very long time, and only a few short months looking the way I do now.

So freaky!

(In a good way of course.)

November 27, 2012
The Importance of Strength Training For Weight Loss

I have to admit. I ~~hate, hate, hate~~ hated, hated, hated doing weights. I believe women were created to be graceful beings, and carrying heavy things just makes my face twists like godzilla in pain.

Which is why I did little or no strength training to lose my famous 15kgs of lardy baggage. But when you go from an inflated 84kgs to 69kgs, your body shrinks in size but the envelope doesn’t shrink at the same rate. The result is soft, saggy and untoned excess skin.

The bigger you are and more rapid your weight loss, the more saggy your skin.

So after consulting my friend Sam who owns a gym and is an ACE certified personal trainer, he told me the only way I was going to achieve my goal of having a tight little sexy body is to do strength training. No exceptions.

Ahh, really?! Do I really have to? Ughhh.. fine!

Because I want that tight little sexy body, I began to do some strength training (hated every minute of the first week of it).

So after about two weeks of working in some weights, pushups, ring rows, etcetera, I started to see the flappy tightening.

And the truth is, I’m beginning to love that I’m getting physically stronger too (in a graceful way of course), so naturally am enjoying the training now.

I wanted to show you what I look like today after 2 weeks of strength training (see above). Whaddya think? Tight little sexy body coming soon?

Oh, and if you live in Kota Kinabalu and are interested in learning the proper techniques or start a personal training program (you see faster results), you should definitely give Core Fitness a try. They have a 7-day trial, which gives you a pretty good idea on what you’re getting yourself into.

Here’s an article on how to lose weight without getting saggy skin. Don’t lose weight too fast (I was pushing it a little, which is why I’m slowing it down), or your skin will not be able to get back to its tight form.

So that’s it for my second tip of the day!

Have a GREAT WEEKEND folks!

November 3, 2012
When Your Legs Are Called Elephant Trunks

Remember that story I told you about the boy who drew me in the form of a pig? It was really to accentuate how big my legs were. So I went looking for that picture in the photo albums, but couldn’t find it.

Instead I saw these beautiful pictures of my mother’s legs (right)… phewwit!

Famed for her pair of hot legs, my late mother was (as she used to say) Miss Peter Stuyvesant… one of those models who wore mini skirts and served you a tray of cigarettes in the 1960s.

Well, I wasn’t born with her legs.

At least that’s not what it looked like ever since I was a little girl and as you can see on the left, I can’t even bring myself to show you the full picture of what I looked like a year ago.

Mine weren’t even in the leg category. They were called elephant trunks, pythons that swallowed footballs, and pork trotters.

But today those dreadful elephant trunks started to show signs of being lovely lady legs.

And actually (no disrespect to my mother’s famous legs), they’re looking like they are on their way to being some strong sexy legs with all the squats, skipping, and dancing I’ve been doing.

I can’t wait to see what they look like a month from now.

Maybe then, I can start to pretend to walk like a sexy-legs girl.

November 1, 2012