July Non-Scale Victory #1

My breakfast this morning. Beehoon, fish slice soup = 349 kcal according to Nutrition.com.sg.

It doesn't look tasty in the picture but believe me it's delicious in reality. It's just that the food picture was taken by a super amateur photographer. ;p

I suppose to journal everything I eat, every single one. I heard many times how food journaling helps to cut down on mindless munching. But I hate counting calorie. There are times when I find it fun and there're other times when I was simply feeling unmotivated. I used to update my journal during the evening and it's hard to remember what I ate. Sometimes I get confuse with the portion and I can't get my measure right. For example, a bowl of beehoon soup could be anything from small bowl to medium bowl, depending on the size. And of course in that vague ingredient, the calories could be 100 or 1000! One more thing, I cook a lot  at home and I don't want to be bothered with weighing and measuring foods.

Do you use a food journal to keep track of what you eat? Do you use an actual paper journal or do you go digital?

Next is Non-Scale Victory. I challenge myself with this Non-Scale Victory Challenge last week. So, here are my progress this week.

NSV Challenge #1: Go to bed early and wake up early in the morning.
The reason why I want to wake up extra early every morning is because devotions first thing in the morning is perfect as this is the least likely time of day for an interruption. Morning is also a great time to have some workout. I still find myself to be a night owl. But I keep trying to get up a little earlier. Though I can't met a morning workout this week because I always woke up late, I still manage to squeeze exercise into my day. I keep the kids busy with a cute Android games, while I get my exercise done. Where there's a will, there's a way.

NSV Challenge #2: 10,000 steps every day

Track of the day: My highest score on pedometer so far.  Photo taken with super lousy camera phone 

10,000 step a day sounds simple and doable for most people. But then I realize that hitting the 10,000 goal is difficult unless part of your job is walking. I got myself a pedometer to track my steps a day. I have a sedentary lifestyle and so surprise to found out that I could only make less than 2,000 steps a day if I not exercise. The highest steps I achieved so far is only 6,521. The pedometer is a great motivational tools to keep me active, to motivates me to get up and walk when I haven't been so active, push me to exercise so I can earn points. Who would have thought that a little pedometer could motivate me?

NSV Challenge #3: Eating clean for 7 days
My eating was not 100% clean. I have fried noodle and fried rice most of the days because it's the easiet recipe I can prepare. But I haven't had fast foods in a week, except for 2 or 3 time I allow myself to indulge on instant noodles because I have a strong cravings for it. I always have carb cravings before my period. That's why I said it was not 100% clean, but I'm working on it!

I want to add NSV Challenge #4 for this week - Stop eating at least 3 hours before bed. 

So now it's your turn...
1. Do you use a food journal to keep track of what you eat?
2. Do you meet your goals this week?

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What's Your Non Scale Victory?

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've became less motivated to blog this few days. In case you've forgotten, There are 3 more days left to vote for HER WEIGHT LOSS DIARY on the DiGi WWWOW Internet For All Awards 2013. I want to thank everyone for your support.

Remember when I posted back in April that I'm back to square one? Nah, I feel that I'd never be able to lose weight, the scale has stopped moving.

Disappointed. Hopeless. 

But part of me believe that meeting my weight loss goal is still possible. After all, good health isn't always measured on scale. Non Scale Victory is about focusing on positive changes towards weight loss and building on them. This is another week to celebrate Non-Scale Victory. This post is link to KTJ Weighing In.

Last Sunday, hubs and me went to watched Man of Steel with the kids. We never go out to the movies after we have kids. I like to go on date nights, go to the movies every once in a while with my hubby, but I can't because I just hate leaving my kids with someone else. But Man of Steel sounds like a great family movie, so we celebrated Father's Day by watching the movie together. I usually don't bother to eat or drink during a movie because it's only distracting the cinematic experience. But I brought foods with me for the kids because the show time was near meal time, and in case the kids get bored. We have popcorn, hot dog buns and cup corn. This may not be the best Superman movie but the kids enjoyed.

We returned home, and my son asked for another hot dogs. He seemed to really like it, like the best hot dogs he has ever eaten. But then his request struck me. We haven't had hot dogs for almost a month now in our house! Maybe over a month, I don't remember. I realized that I've also stopped buying canned foods. But okay, last night I bought some canned tuna for the first time in 5 months.

My weight loss is maybe slow, but it's not about that weight loss deadline that matters. It's important to just focus on giving my body good food and trying to move more. 

What is your Non-Scale Victory this week? Share in the comments, and let's celebrate.

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Non Scale Victory: Ditch The White Bread

I'm a carboholic. I'm a huge fan of white bread. Bleached white flour, you know. I love pasta, and sandwiches, I eat rice everyday. For Asian, rice is inescapable! 

Then last week, my mom and me stopped by an organic shop, she bought to herself four loaves of whole grain organic breads, and gave me one. I started to like this whole grain bread ever since. I discovered few interesting things about this new found:

1/ More filling

Whole grain bread is low in fat but high in fibre and complex carbohydrates, which explains why you fill up quicker.

2/ Tastes better 

I love to eat (white) bread with peanut butter. But with whole grain bread, I don't need peanut butter spread anymore. It taste good alone.

3/ Improve bowel health 

If you said "yuck," when I write about bowel movement, you're not alone. Most people don't want to discuss going poop. But bowel movement is an important body function. So it's good to know how to relieve irregularity or constipation. Whole grains diets has help me keep my digestive system regular by promoting normal bowel movements.

Inescapable: Asian culture is big on polished white rice with all their meals

Making the switch from white bread to whole grain bread can be tough. But I've switched to whole grain bread, as opposed to white. I think my kids like white bread if they are given the option, but I want to introduce whole grain bread in my home and influence the whole family practices healthy diet.

This post link to Katie of KTJ Weighing In. Well, that is my one and only very small success this week. What is your Non-Scale Victory this week?

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PMS Spoiled My Non-Scale Victory

You have seen my report card. Zero result thus far. I had a very bad week. Glad my "friend" visiting me today. And that means it's the end of a bad PMS ever. End of crazy food cravings. End of severe abdominal bloating. End of terrible throbbing headache. End of of worst constipation. And now I'm ready to get back on track.

I don't have Non-Scale Victory this week. PMS spoiled my NSV. If I can called it a Non-Scale Victory, the only thing I managed to maintain is: Not using bottled sauces when cooking. It has been over 2 or 3 months since I last using them. Bottled sauces - tomato sauces, chilies sauces, barbecue sauces, oyster sauces, etc - they are one of the worst hidden sugar culprit. According to Eat This, Not That, half a cup of spaghetti sauce ought to have around 5 grams of sugar. It's just a one small step but not a bad starting point to avoid sugar addiction.

Well all this while, I have this mindset that crazy binging before period is normal and there's nothing you can do but ruin your diet before period every month. But here are 5 tricky steps I learned this month: 

How to Avoid PMS Symptom from Ruining Your Diet:

1. Always stock healthy foods while you're still okay

Thanks Miss Robin of The Mess That is My Life for the head up. Before your period, do some prep work when you're still feeling okay so they're easy to grab when you're not. Try to use slightly healthier options. When you craving for something sweet, maybe you'll eat a fruit roll instead of a candy bar. When you craving for something salty, you'll eat a couple of pickles instead of the bag of potato chips.

2. Clean up diet

Hormonal imbalance causing PMS symptom. Dr Mark Hyman suggested you increase fiber (vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains) in your diet, stop eating refined flour, sugar, and processed foods, cut out caffeine, stop drinking alcohol and eating protein (protein shake, eggs and nut butters) for breakfast to balance your blood sugar.

3. Exercise

Get moving is very important for balancing hormones.

4. Manage stress

Hot bath at night, getting a massage, doing yoga, deep breathing or meditation can also help balance hormones.

5. Supplement

Apart from taking a good daily multivitamin (all the nutrients work together),  Dr Mark Hyman also suggested these Top 10 supplement to eliminate PMS symptom:

1. Magnesium Citrate or glycinate (400 to 600 mg a day) to improve metabolic function,
2. Vitamin B6 (50 to 100 mg a day along with 800 mcg of Folate and 1,000 mcg of Vitamin B-12)
3. Evening Primrose Oil (two 500mg capsules twice a day)
4. Taurine (500 mg a day) to help liver detoxification. 
5. Chasteberry fruit extract ( 100 mg twice a day of a 10:1 extract) (Vitex Agnus-Castus) can help balance the hormones released by the pituitary gland that control your overall hormone function. 
6. Wild yam (Dioscorea villosa) and cramp bark (Viburum opulus) can help regulate cycles and relieve menstrual cramps. 
7. Dandelion Root can help with liver detoxification and works as a diuretic. 
8. Isoflavones from soy, red clover, or kudzu root improve estrogen detoxification by boosting the activity of specific detox enzymes. 
9. Flaxseed contain lignans that help balance hormone metabolism and block the negative effects of excess estrogens. 
10. Probiotics supplement (5 to 10 billion live organism) to replacing healthy bacteria in the gut to helps normalize estrogen and hormone metabolism. 

Hopefully next month and months to come, I'll be more than ready. I marked my calendar and make sure PMS will never ruin my diet and my NSV anymore.

What is your Non-Scale Victory this week?

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Have You Had Your Non-Scale Victory Moment Yet?

Good bye April. Welcome May.

It was like only yesterday I wrote an opening post for April, and now it's already May. How time flies. Nothing much happened in April.

I got an F for April's report card. F for fail on scale.

My weight keeps fluctuating between 70-74 kg throughout the month. Honestly, that 4 kg variance is solely water weight, and make no difference to the obese me.

Recap from April Strategies:
Goal #1: Exercise at least 10 minutes (the more the better) everyday except Sunday.

End Month Report: So determined and dedicated the first two weeks, but the motivation starts fading pretty quickly as week goes by. I barely workout now.

Goal #2: Avoid foods and drinks with hidden salt, sugar and fat!

End Month Report: Not a complete victory, but I did most of the time.

Goal #3: Create a deficit of 1000 calories per day. The calorie deficit calculator, estimates that I eat 1,200 calorie per day to creates the deficit. 

End Month Report: I tracked my foods with fatsecret.com but always over calorie :(

Goal #4: Stop greasy takeaways, fast food; cut out bread (my favorite), chocolates and ice cream.

End Month Report: I don't remember the last time I took greasy takeaways and chocolate because every time we're eating out, my choice are mostly noodle soup and steamed tofu. Never get bored with that. But carbs like bread and rice which I try to cut out in April are simply irresistible. Have lots of them. And I had ice creams this week.  

Goal #5: Weigh myself once a week, every Monday to track my progress. 

End Month Report: Fluctuating numbers on scale is seriously frustrating me. I stopped weighing myself altogether until I see some improvements in how my clothes fit.

In a positive spirit, I still got a few number of victory to celebrate.

1) Avoiding foods and drinks with hidden salt, sugar and fat!
Not a complete victory, but I did most of the time. And when I go grocery shopping I am no longer fill my trolley with junk foods and instant noodles. 

2) Not leaning on fiber supplement

3)Not treating myself to greasy takeaways, fast food and chocolate. 

This post is link to KTJ Weighing In. Your non-scale victory is not necessarily related to weight loss accomplishment. 

Let's celebrate together, what is your Non-Scale Victory this week?

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Non Scale Victory on a Bad Week

It's been a bad week for me. I gained weight on my diet and it's the worst feeling in the world. Now I'm taking Laurie comment into consideration, and trying to decide what day to weigh in. Monday might not be the best time to weigh-in because I’m most likely go off plan on the weekend. Weighing myself on Wednesday or Friday may gave me time to correct my eating if I'd slightly gone over at the weekend. However weigh-in on Monday morning might motivate me to eat and exercise better on the weekend knowing a weigh-in was in the near future.

What do you say, what is the best day to weigh in?

Though the number on the scale this week drive me mad, I still have a better reason to celebrate. If you read my previous post, you'll know that I'm kind of "addicted" to fiber supplement. Fiber supplements has a number of health benefits, including normalize bowel functions but I use it to 'undo' a splurge.

I certainly feel discourage after realize that I have eaten more than I planned on fun outing last weekend. I don't want to deny that it's really tempting to take another shot of fiber supplement. But I want to be less dependent on this laxative to lose weight. I haven't bought fiber supplement beginning this April, and I didn't either buy one when I tempted so this week. I simply go back to healthy eating. Victory!!!

I hope you guys are having a great week! This post is a link up to KTJ Weighing In.

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Non-Scale Victories: No Victory, and Using a SWOT Analysis to Achieve a Weight Loss Goal

My Non-Scale Victories this week is NO Victory.

Linking up with KTJ is honestly something I'm looking forward to every week now. This linking party is like a motivation for me to work hard throughout the week so I can report something positive, thus to hold myself accountable to my goal weight.

But this week I lost track of my juice diet plan. I ate crap. I slipped up on my exercise plan. How shameful.

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Okay, I'm being too dramatic. The world’s still turning. The sun’s still in the sky. I got to pick myself up, and dust myself off. Start all over, again.

Today I make a simple SWOT Analysis to confirming my weight loss goal. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. A SWOT analysis is basically a strategic tool used in business (and many other fields) for so many years. I was thinking that perhaps I can use this tool to help me with my goal setting so far and focuses on the steps necessary to achieve my weight-loss goal.

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1. Weight Loss Mission and Goals

Resetting a goal is important because it provides me direction and purpose. I have 101 reasons to lose weight but my top reason to lose weight is for health. I need to lose weight to prevent diabetes. I want to lose weight so no one will ever ask me about my "due date" anymore when I'm not pregnant. This has been an embarrassing things happen to me all the time! And as a matter of fact, we're planning for baby no.3 so it is very important to get a healthy body weight before I get pregnant.

2. Strengths

I can be a persistence exerciser like seriously? No, if I'm in a mood to jump up and start exercising, I'd better start right away and I can be very good at it. Only under one condition, exercise session with no interruption or I'll stop and quickly lose my momentum.

3. Weaknesses

I'm kind of person who like delaying doing something. That's a bad habit!

4. Opportunities

I am a stay at home mom. So I cook a lot at home which means I have a full control over the ingredients and portion sizes at my table. I have more flexible workout schedule. I just need to make time for it.

5. Threats

First off, I am a facebookaholic. I realize I'm on facebook way too much, which stealing away much of my time. Secondly, as a SAHM and have fully access to foods, I tend to have cheat meals. Cheat meal usually tends to turn into a cheat day, and then a cheat week, and that is how I went completely off the wagon this week. I just can’t find the motivation to get back on track!

6. Reflections and Strategies

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It's so hard for me to wake up extra early in the morning. I use to hit the snooze button and return to sleep. But morning is the only time I can fit exercise in. Usually after I send off my husband and daughter to work and school, I would take a morning bath. Showering in the morning gets me clean, makes me feel fresh and also wakes me up!

I have a wonderful feeling to begin my day after a fresh morning bath. I can catch some crazy momentum with exercise. And if I have a good workout in the morning I will less likely to cheat and eat fatty junk food at the end of the day because I simply don't want to ruin my weight loss effort.

7. Action Plan
Wake up extra early in the morning to build a strong level of momentum. I believe if I start the day productive, I will tend to continue the day with that same disposition. So when the alarm clock rings in the morning, get out of the bed immediately. Just get straight up and take a shower.
Plan B: 'assign' hubs to pour a bucket of cold water on me if I continue to sleep after turn off the alarm clock. He can go back to his sleep after that.

This photo has nothing to do with this post. I just think it's funny.
Image found on Funny Junk

Have you ever done personal SWOT analysis for goal setting? How do you set and achieve your personal goals?

  

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Non-Scale Victories: Make Time for Fitness

Yay! I just finished my workout today. The second workout for this week. Not big but that is my Non-Scale Victories this week.

Working out at home can be so tricky, with the kids pulling your leg (they thinks it's funny) and climb behind you to play cowboy riding a horse. That's why morning is the best time to exercise for me. The only problem is I am not a morning person. Perhaps I'm lucky today. I make the kids busy with drawing and coloring, so I managed to finish a short 30 minutes walking workout with Leslie Sansone and 10-minutes dumbbell workout. I have to get up extra early tomorrow morning to exercise, or I am going to miss another fun workout.

Actually it's easier than you think to sneaking exercise into your busy day. You only need to be a little creative. Women's Fitness Magazine gives me some idea and am glad to share with you here.

1. Use your TV time wisely

Get off the sofa  to change the channel, exercise bike while watching or try some simple exercise during commercial breaks.

2. Do the workout math

If you only have 10 minutes spare, do a few sets of fast, explosive exercise such as jumping lunges to boost your metabolism. I love BeFiT on YouTube channel and subscribe to them. They offers 10 minutes fat blasting workout videos that you can try.

3. Get organised

Track your time over a few days to see gaps where you can squeeze a quick workout. You'll be shocked at how much time you can save by cutting down your shower time from 15 minutes to 10.

When is your best time of day to exercise? And why?

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