If you asked me more than a year ago what being healthy means, I would tell you that it means an acceptable weight, being more mindful of the amount of food you take in and exercising regularly.
But a year on, I've learnt so much more about what being healthy, or rather, leading a healthy lifestyle entails. I don't believe in diets anymore because dieting means that you're only going to do something for a short period of time to achieve the desired goal and in this case, weight loss. So you tell yourself to cut back on food, eat less rice, skip meals to reach the weight you want but once you reach it, you stop dieting and revert back to your previous lifestyle. Needless to say, you gain back the weight you've lost because you simply reverted back to how you were eating previously before the diet. So I'll just share them here, for the sake of my poor memory.
Instead of diets, I've learnt to change my habits and adopt healthier ones. The easiest one would have to be cutting out sweet drinks from my daily intake. In the past, I used to take a lot of milk tea (with heapfuls of condensed milk), it's no wonder why I got so fat. I stopped taking any sweet drinks (eg, milk teas, ice lemon teas, bottled green tea, bubble tea) because it's just empty calories. I mean, you wouldn't even consider it a meal but the amount of calories can be equivalent to half a meal or even more, so byebye
After a year of not taking sweet drinks, I don't crave for them anymore. Can't believe I used to love bubble tea so much ever since the craze started in primary school. I remember going to school early with my friends just to go to the community centre to order them. And blue coral tasted so horrible, never understood why my friends liked it so much. But my favourite flavour remains as Honey milk tea! Though I'm not going to drink them anymore. Drink water instead! Zero calories and has so many more benefits (haha not going to claim that I know what benefits it offers but it's definitely healthier, right?). Another alternative is the teabag, with no milk/sugar please. I admit that I feel super healthy whenever I drink tea because I imagine the hot tea pulling the oil out from my system though this may not be entirely true. Self delusion maybe? Haha.
Another thing is the snacking. I used to like buying chocolate and potato chips to munch on whenever I feel bored or stressed while studying last time. My favourites were (and still are) these. Unhealthy food ahead! These are the ones you shouldn't be snacking on on a daily basis. Hydrogenated vegetable oil means saturated fats and trans fats(either one, or both, I can't remember), so don't think vegetable oil means healthy in any way. Biscuits are also high in those (think Oreo cookies), can't believe I loved Oreo cookies. Dunking them in milk was such a nice combination.
I've always liked combos because its my favourite pretzel and cheese, but one serving which is about 9 pieces (yes I went to weigh it) contains about 130 calories if I recall correctly. Definitely helps to read food labels to know what you're actually eating!
And just a side note on reading labels, I don't just focus on the number of calories now, I take into consideration the saturated fats, cholesterol, total fat, protein to decide on which brand of the same food item to buy. Though it might be time consuming at the start, you know which food is good for you and is healthier so you'll stick to buying the same brand in future, which will turn out to be a good thing in the long run.
Another of my favourite, Fruties! It's raisins coated with chocolate. But after Amanda told me that they need to coat the raisins with something first so that the chocolate can stick, I'm trying to stay off these. Right, better to not like these unhealthy food anymore. I used to eat chocolate on a regular basis, like a small square of Cadbury chocolate every two days. I thought 25 calories was alright, but I failed to consider the fat content. So I take chocolate very rarely now. I don't see it as a sacrifice but more like chocolate as a 'luxury' food to be taken on special occasions. My Mum always laments or scolds me, saying that I'm torturing myself by not having food that I like, but as tastes change, I've grown to love healthier food as well, so I'm definitely still eating my favourite food! Just that it's not all these junk food anymore.
Percy pigs! It became my favourite after I worked at M&S, as with their Chocolate digestive biscuits, red currant puffs and so many other items.
And Reese's! My favourites all combined into one.
And potato chips, my once-eternal love. But now that I haven't eaten them for about a year or so, I don't find myself craving for them anymore. So I guess changing habits does work.
(Apologies for the unsightly photos. I tried to merge the photos to make a collage so that it looks neater but I didn't know how to. Will figure it out and get it done when I find out)
Now you can see why I became so fat! But I tell myself it was all in the past and as long as I continue my healthy lifestyle, there is still hope for my health! I stopped buying such unhealthy ones and opted for healthier choices of snacks like cranberries, raisins and nuts. Here are my new favourites! Okay I'm guilty of eating too much of these as well, but at least these don't contain cholesterol or saturated fat. Even if there is fats, it's the good fats (as in good cholesterol).
One thing to note is that all these also contain calories, but none of the unhealthy types of calories like saturated fat, trans fat or bad cholesterol. So, do watch the portion size while taking these! I'm always guilty of eating them non stop.
Okay so the reason for my increase in obssession with healthy eating stemmed not from trying to maintain my weight, but because of my health screening report which I received early this year. Before that, I saw nothing wrong with eating a piece of chocolate twice a week or a few spoonfuls of ice cream as and when I felt like it as long as my weight was constant and in the normal range. So the health screening was kind of like a wake up call for me. Not that I have any disease of any sort (at least not right now, not yet), but my bad cholesterol level was kind of unhealthy, though still in the acceptable range. So I decided to make more changes to my lifestyle. I take chocolate probably once every 3 weeks (and not a lot at once anyway), considering that we still have chocolate left over from CNY. And ice cream rarely now, probably only when meeting up with friends. I love cakes too! Why does all my favourite food come laden with so much cholesterol.
And I've realised that actually, being healthy doesn't actually mean exercising (okay yes it does), but the more important aspect is the diet. Because when one goes jogging, the maximum calories I can burn is just a mere 200 or 300, all gone down the drain when I have one heavy meal. So I guess it's more important to watch what you're eating. It doesn't mean that if you exercise, you have more allowance to eat more (like I always thought!!) because the calories burnt is almost negligible. I don't really see exercise as a way to lose weight anymore, it feels more like something to burn the cholesterol.
