I’ve not forgotten …

Wow, has it been almost a month since my last post? Guess I got really sucked into the whole work scene coupled with the house renovation (which is still ongoing!). I’m now on my 2 weeks break and I’m trying to saviour every minute of it before I head back to the dog-eat-dog world.

I just got back from a week of diving in the lovely island of Sipadan and what a blast it was. I was blown away by so many things that I saw there that I didn’t want to leave! Just before I flew off for my trip I was feeling a lil’ sad because I know I haven’t been working hard enough at the gym 2.5 weeks prior to my trip. I was so sucked into clearing my work that I had pretty much no PT sessions at all. Any efforts at the gym was probably not worth mentioning. The end result was quite evident when I slipped on the new pair of shorts I bought 2 weeks before, it was slightly tight and boy was I pissed and angry at myself.

After a few consoling words from Adrian, I decided it’s time I re-evaluate my whole weight thingy and my goals. I think I may have lost sight of it and kinda gave up at the 10kg mark but the additional 10kg has never quite lost my sight, I may have just given up someways or another along the way! Now that I’m fresh (and sunburnt!) from my holiday, it’s gonna be time for me to kick my own butt in the gym again, with a week plus left before I head back to work (and with the daunting prospect of moving, ugh)

Now that I’m in KL, I thought I’d spend some time with the family and I headed out to grab some grub with my dad. We headed to Chow Yang SS2 Night Market – this night market has been here for so long ever since I was a kid. Coming back here again after a 2 year absence brought memories. I decided to treat myself to a bowl of noodles at the same shop that we have been eating over the last 15 years and it still tasted so good. We decided to burn some of those calories by walking around the night market and man I was smiling at the end of the walk (around 2 blocks). Let me tell you why …

I used to visit this night market pretty much every Thursday. I would grab a bowl of noodles or some rice dish, then as I walk around in an ‘attempt’ to burn calories, I would eat the following in succession as I walked around the entire night market and mind you, this was ON TOP of my main dinner:

• Lok-Lok – several sticks of meatball, fishball etc
• 1 cup of Lemon-Jelly drink or Longan drink
• 1 piece of french toast stuffed with roast pork meat and chicken floss
• 1 whole Uncle Bob’s deep fried chicken fillet
• some other fried stuff
• and if I was with a friend, I would top it off with a ABC dessert or something along those lines

As I walked around today, I noticed all my favourite stalls, all along the same location they used to be but I never bought anything to eat because I was stuffed after my noodles. The whole situation kinda surprised me wondering how I managed to fit all those in my mouth after my main meal. I’m glad I’ve changed my eating habits for the better now.

Have you? If not, it’s time to do it

Funny

Sorry for the lack of updates, been swamped with work and the house. I wonder when I’ll see the end of the tunnel to my housing matters … I just wanna move in so I can start cooking and eating healthily. Right now I’m eating a lot of crap as a result of eating outside everyday .. bleh.

Thought I’d share something funny. Adrian reads my food log every now and then and would scribble notes here and there, clearly I haven’t been eating clean enough so that explains the scribbles. But this one (see dinner part)  got me laughing at the changing room 2 days ago … he must be quite appalled by my eating habits  

Food Log

For the record, I didn’t mix Jello with my rice. I ate them separately but I just thought it was very funny. I guess with my eating habits, one can easily assume that I would mix it .. hur hur, wonder how that would taste like. Hmm

Recipe: Strawberry Jelly Hearts

Sorry for the delay, here it is:

Ingredients for Biscuit base:
300 gm. Digestive Biscuits or you may also substitute with Oats and others
140 gm. Melted Butter

Ingredients for fillings:
1 block of Philidelphia Fat Free / Light Cream Cheese
10 gm. Gelatine Powder
3 tablespoon of Equal Sugar (this is entirely up to you to taste)
1/2 cup Hot Water
1/2 tsp. Vanilla Essence or 1 Vanilla Pod

About 20 Strawberries – use a heart cutter to cut into heart shape

Topping:
1 box of Strawberry Sugar-Free Jello
1 1/2 cups boiling hot water
1 1/2 cups cold.

Method:

(1) For biscuit base: Blend biscuits until fine and then mix with melted butter and mix thoroughly.
(2) Press into a 10″ Square tray. Chill in the fridge to let it harden (about 30 mins)
(3) For fillings, stir gelatine powder with boiling hot water until it dissolves.
(4) Cream the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla essence till creamy, add in gelatine mixture gradually and cream until smooth. Pour on top of chilled biscuits.
(5) Arrange cut-out heart shaped strawberries on top of cheese fillings. Put into the fridge to let it set (min 4 hours to overnight)
(6) For topping, dissolve Jello in boiling water then pour in cold water and stir well. Let it completely cool completely before pouring over the cheese layer.
(7) Slowly pour over the set cream cheese filling and put into the fridge again to let it set until firm.
(8) Slice and enjoy!!!

It’s quite easy … all that is needed is just a little patience during the waiting period. I know it’s very tempting to make it all fast so you can slice and eat but trust me the waiting is worth it Enjoy! If you have any questions on this, do drop a comment and I’ll try to answer.

Who says you can’t indulge in Desserts?

Well, I wasn’t convinced that I can’t have my cakes, ice cream and chocolate (although they key is really ‘moderation’!). I have been so focused in making healthy meals in the last 6 months that I neglected my one true love – desserts and sweets.

I’ve had this idea for the longest time but couldn’t find the time to execute it. Since there was a potluck/mini gathering yesterday at a friend’s place, I decided it was time to put the recipe to a taste test!

Anyone living in Singapore would have come across this dessert called ‘Strawberry Jelly Hearts’ … or something along the similar names. I think there are 2 people on this island actually selling it but they do not have an online presence but you can also order from this number. I’ve tried it once when a colleague bought boxes for the office – it was very nice and sweet – a dessert that you can pop into your mouth non-stop and go ‘nom nom nom nom’. Here’s how the sold version (source: Flickr) looks like:

Source: Flickr

Yummy isn’t it? I googled and found someone blogging the recipe online and the first time I tried it about a year ago, I got impatient so it didn’t look very presentable but the taste was there! What happened was that I didn’t wait long enough for each layer to set so the layers were not fully separated and was mixed instead.

Now, the REAL version taste really nice because it’s using Philly’s block Cream Cheese + Jello and about 50gms of sugar to cream the cream cheese!!! So I was adamant that there would be a healthier version. Armed with the original recipe that I found online, I made several tweaks and can I just say I’ve never been happier!

My version!

Yummmm

Yum Yum

How healthy is my version? Here’s the lowdown:

• Jello layer – sugar free version, 10 calories, no carbs
• Cheese layer – Philly’s Soft Cream Cheese (fat free) – 30 calories, 2g carbs, 0 fat.
• Base/Biscuit layer – Digestive ‘light’ + butter

Ok, the base is not entirely healthy because the last I checked for 250gm of Digestive light, there’s about 60 calories and 2.4gm fat and 2.9gm of sugar. I couldn’t think of another alternative base but I guess you can skip the base entirely or substitute with pure oats. But you still need something to bind them together and that would be butter – I’d go with unsalted and light version if available. I wondered at one point if PAM Butter would work but uhm, I think that requires a whole lot of spray to bind them together so I skipped at it.

As the original recipe calls for 50gm of raw sugar – I substituted it with Equal sugar instead. This is really up to your taste test – I just added and tasted along the way until I found it to be satisfactory. As for Vanilla Essence, I skipped it and went straight for the original thing – i.e. Vanilla Pod – this gives it a more original/stronger fragrance.

I brought it to the party and they didn’t complain – it wasn’t too sweet which was a good thing. I would make this again and again! Only downside is that, this cheesecake version is a bit more expensive than a regular one because of the ingredients used but I guess if you want healthy stuff, you can’t really be skimping.

I’m rushing out now but if anyone is keen on trying – pls leave a comment.

It’s here!

The durian season has arrived and that also means trouble because I like durians although I don’t eat on the day before my PT sessions. We bought a few packets the other day and I’m totally regretting it and I hope it gets eaten up fast otherwise I’ll crave for it!

Wiki mentioned the following nutritional value per 100g of durian:

• Energy: 150kcal
• Carbs: 27.09g
• Fat: 5.33g
• Protein: 1.47g

That’s enough to kill anyone’s diet. 1 seed probably equals half a bow of rice or more I can imagine. Argh. M U S T    N O T   E A T    D U R I A N!!!!

Have you eaten any lately?

Tuna Lasagna

I concocted this over the weekend at the spur of the moment working with whatever ingredients I could find. I don’t think it’s very hard, anyone can do this and it doesn’t take long or a lot of washing up to do.

I’m not sure if this is considered a healthier version of Lasagna but I would think it has less calories than a normal Lasagne. It still taste great nonetheless. I had 2 cans of light tuna in water hanging around on my kitchen counter, so I used this instead of meat and it tasted great! I’m not the only to vouch for this but CK and my sis also said it tasted good.

Here’s what I used.

• 4 sheets of San Remo Lasagna sheet
• 2 handful of wholemeal/wheat spirals – boiled.
• 2 cans of Light Tuna in water (any brand) – drained.
• Organic Tomato/Pasta sauce of your choice
• 2-3 table spoon of tomato paste
• 1 onion – chopped
• 1 carrot – diced
• 1 tablespoon of chopped garlic
• Light Mozarella Cheese
• 1.5 cups of skim/low fat milk
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• PAM for cooking

Follow the cooking instructions behind the box of San Remo Lasagne sheet.

Spray PAM onto the pot, saute the onions, garlic and carrot. The carrots usually take a while to cook depending how big the carrot cubes are. So what I normally do to shorten the cooking time is to pre-boil it for a few minutes until it’s semi-tender. Add in the tuna and mix it around. Thereafter, turn down the heat, add your organic tomato/pasta sauce and tomato paste. If it’s too dry, you can add a splash of water but not too much! Once done, set aside.

In a separate pot, cook the cheese sauce. Most cheese sauce calls for a knob of butter to be melted in a pot. I decided against butter and instead used PAM Butter spray — sprayed til it’s a bit liquidy on the pot. Add the flour and mix it around until paste consistency, then slowly add the milk and stir. Add in shreded Mozarella cheese and stir until you get a thick consistency.

I didn’t have enough pasta sheet for 3 of us so I improvised by using wholewheat spirals to line the base of my pasta dish. Then I spread the tuna filling on top of the spirals. Then lay your pasta sheets on top of the tuna and scoop some cheese sauce on top of it. Repeat as many layers as you want. At the final layer, sprinkle some Mozarella Cheese on top and pop it into the oven.

Some useful tips

1. If you use a block of Mozarella cheese, get a small grater and grate it, that way you use your cheese topping sparingly.
2. Another supposedly healthier version is to replace the pasta sheets with sliced aubergine (grilled first) – cut length wise. I hate aubergine so that is out Maybe I might just convince myself to like it one day … maybe.
3. I’m not sure if there’s ever wholemeal pasta sheet, but if there is, use it!

I don’t have a picture of it because we finished most if before I realised I forgot to take a picture of it. Don’t eat this everyday because like every pasta dish, there’s carbs. So once in a while is ok

Breakfast Box

I’m all for cute stuff so I went a bit overboard with buying bento materials. one weekend. Thank god it was only Daiso (everything is $2 in Daiso) otherwise I would have blown a bigger hole in my bank account!

I’m supposed to rotate my carb intake and shift it to breakfast. Frankly speaking, I don’t know what carbs I should be having for breakfast. I thought of bake beans initially but I thought the fat and sodium content was a little on the high side. Besides, I don’t have a microwave in the office (don’t ask) so that’s out. The only thing I could think of and perhaps is the easiest was bread. I was tempted to buy a small jar of peanut butter (reduced fat version) to go along with it but that might just be an overkill considering how I can  eat peanut butter out of the jar.

So I got a few things and here’s what I packed for breakfast this morning. Let me just say that I’ve never tasted anything so good for breakfast for the past 3 months, even my oatmeal protein can’t beat that

Bento box & Low Fat Milk

Breakfast & Snack!

Oatmeal Squares with Organic Raisins

My bento box, doggie strap and 2 penguin bento moulds were $2 each Here’s a list of what’s in my breakfast box today.

Quaker Oatmeal Squares – 45g

Calories -  170; Protein – 5g; Fat – 2g; Carbs – 36g (Sugar: 8g)

Organic Sunflower Seeds – 31g

Calories – 176; Protein – 7.6g; Fat – 16.4g; Carbs: – 0.8g

Organic Pumpkin Seeds – 30g

Calories – 180; Protein – 7.8g; Fat 14g; Carb – 4.4g

Organic Raisins – 19g

Calories – 43g; Protein – 2g; Fat – 0; Carb – 9g (Sugar – 2g)

I’m not sure if I should be consuming cereal because the sugar content seems high. Will probably do some checks before I start eating it again. As for the seeds/nuts, they’re supposedly loaded with good fats so eating those are highly recommended.

Some of the guys mentioned that I’m eating rabbit food or food that their hamsters would eat I was quite stuffed after the cereal and 1 box of milk that I didn’t eat lunch after my workout.

Rotating Carbs

Quick update — will be trying a new diet menu tomorrow. Well, uh, not exactly new “new” but I’m shifting some stuff a bit (mainly carbs) and I bought some new foods to add to my diet. Not sure if it’s the right one but I guess we’ll see.

Getting used to the daily grind …

So far, I’m quite used to hitting the gym everyday. Although I will admit that lately I have been feeling rather lazy and when those lazy days are here, I try to shrug it off and drag myself to the gym. Once I’m there, things are pretty much on autopilot.

I’m starting to get really bored of the treadmill so I’ve been using the stepper (aka stairway to hell) quite often lately. Alternatively I also use the cross trainer. Now I also supplement those “lazy” days with RPM — ok it sounds ironic that I’m substituting my lazy days with RPM. Fine, it doesn’t make sense or sound right but I’d rather go for RPM than do my cardio on 1 or 2 machine for an hour at best.

The other daily grind which I’ve been getting used to is taking Myoplex Protein Shake after workouts or as snacks. I’m used to the taste  now so it’s like drinking chocolate milk to me unlike how I first blogged about it here.

The one part where I have greatest difficulty is my dinner meals. Before I go there, let me share with you what I eat on a daily basis:

Breakfast:

• “Sludge” aka Oatmeal Protein – 1 mug
• 1 Myoplex Protein Shake — optional unless I have PT in the morning.

Lunch:

• Usually sandwiches – tuna with no additional dressing on wheat bread; or
• Baked Salmon/Dory Fish @ Pink; or
• Salads; or
• Soup – quite rare.

Snack:

• 1 Myoplex Protein Shake (usually the case since I also workout in during lunch); OR
• 1 or half a protein bar (I’m trying to cut this out now because it’s damn addictive).

As I’ve mentioned that my biggest difficulty is Dinner time. Dinner is when both CK and I are off work and in most circumstances he normally compromises his dinner choice for me. I have been very picky with my food and more so of late so I think it gives us that added stress just to decide on what to have for dinner. Previously, we would just go and grab burgers or some hawker fare as dinner but not this time. The easiest meal and perhaps the most perfect one would be to have something to do with Fish. I’ve come to a conclusion that I can’t be eating Fish every dinner (although it seems like it from my food log), so I open myself to the likes of chicken breasts and sometimes lean beef. I’d rather cook so that I can control what goes into the dish but there are days (like the past 2 weeks) where we just work  late that it’s too tiring for us to cook. Sometimes I get frustrated with trying to choose a good and healthy dinner meal which is not easy to find in Singapore. Oh and I forgot to mention that I eat JELL-O pretty much everyday after work. It makes me happy after a long day and you should try it

So I’ve asked myself this during shower today — what’s going to happen when you’re off this diet programme and personal training? How will you adjust yourself again?

I think it’s a very valid question and one which I do not have a direct answer to at the moment. Right now, I’m under a “supervised environment” – i.e. Adrian, my trainer checks on my weight, does my training and checks my food log. So technically I can’t run foul of all this because I’m being supervised. Will I be able to maintain that same level of discipline once this whole thing is over? I certainly hope so.

I think I need to start coming up with my own food alternatives. Like I don’t think I can sustain eating oatmeal protein after this whole thing is over because the oatmeal protein that I take  every morning is not readily sold in supermarkets.  So I’ll need to start coming up with alternatives to help me adjust back into eating normally and healthily. Those bento boxes I bought should come in handy as I’ll have mini/bite size foods available to keep me from starving. I should start planning this soon.

I have 22 more PT sessions to go but I’m still short of my goal so I will be signing up for more PT sessions. I really hope I make some progress, I’m starting to become impatient and this is probably not a right attitude to adopt.

Donuts, you like?

Everyone who knows me well enough will know that I am a huge Donut fan. For lunch every other day when I was a kid, I was given donuts. When I’m at the bakery, the first thing I look out for is Donuts — I love ring donuts which is also why I have a huge fascination with Bagels because they look the same except without the sugar sprinkles.

Malaysia was deprived of good donuts (we only had Dunkin’ Donuts) until about 2 years ago, a copy of the famous J.Co opened in KL called Big Apple. The menu of donuts were exactly the same. I bought a dozen donuts from Big Apple pretty much every week and sometimes 2 dozen. I would bring boxes to office to share with my colleagues.

When I first moved to Singapore in October 2007, there was no Big Apple or J.Co here (although J.Co opened in Singapore a few months later). I still remember the gang that came down for the Singapore Marathon in 2007 brought 2 boxes of Donuts! I obviously couldn’t finish it but the thought of Donuts traveling some 5 hours made me happy There are other Donut shops around in Singapore but the queues are crazy — that one Donut shop in Raffles City shopping mall requires you to queue 2 friggin hours just to get 1 dozen donuts and no more.

When I was first sent to HK for work, I heard there was Krispy Kreme outlet. I plotted my attack and went for the outlet after work. I tried the original glazed and I was hooked although it was a lot sweeter than most donuts. But I loved the texture of it (read: BAD!). Then when I was in Bali for a break, I saw Krispy Kreme signboard from far on our way to the hotel and I yelled ‘KRISPY KREME’ and pointing frantically at it much to the amusement of the driver. Over there I bought a box for us (more like I ate the whole thing) and another for the gang back home. Lynn, my best friend currently in US knew how deprived I was of Krispy Kreme that even Americans are no longer raving about it (in fact I heard Krispy Kreme was making losses).  She also brought back 1 box for me, carrying with her the whole way through. After trying Krispy Kreme, I was convinced there was no other donuts quite like the way they make it although I still like my occasional sugar sprinkle for that crunchiness.

Krispy Kreme in Hong Kong

A few of us even wanted to combine whatever penny we had to bring Krispy Kreme to Malaysia but the franchise fees was ridiculous!! Anyway, when my friends in KL heard that Krispy Kreme was opening in Malaysia — they told me about it and I was happy! But then since I’m no longer based in KL I guess it’s also an added relief that I won’t be eating one anytime soon. In fact, I should bar myself from even going anywhere near it.

Over the last few years, whenever Krispy Kreme stores opens in SEA region, there will be overnight campers waiting for that piece of donut. For the KL Outlet, there’s even prizes for the first 3 person waiting in line – i.e. 1 year, 6 months and 3 months of donut supply! There’s even a Facebook Group for the launch. Philippines, Tokyo, Hong Kong all saw snaking queues. I guess we might see more Singaporeans making trips to KL for Krispy Kremes?

Shinjuku, Tokyo

I promise I won’t eat one or even take a bite … *promise*