In the last entry, I ended off with
"Control your calories and exercise"
What is calories?
Human beings need energy to survive -- to breathe, move, pump blood -- and they acquire this energy from food.
The number of calories in a food is a measure of how much potential energy that food possesses.
A gram of carbohydrates has 4 calories, a gram of protein has 4 calories, and a gram of fat has 9 calories.
Foods are a compilation of these three building blocks. So if you know how many carbohydrates, fats and proteins are in any given food, you know how many calories, or how much energy, that food contains.
Souce: howstuffworks
How much calories does a person need daily?
The number of calories each person needs varies. It depends on your height, weight, age, gender and activity level status. What do I mean by that? In general, males would require more calories intake than female, a athletic would require more calories intake than a desk bound clerk, and etc...
A male would need on average 2500-2900 calories per day and as for female would need 2000-2500 per day.
In order to lose a pound of weight every week, the person would need to cut down 500 calories in take a day.
How to cut down calories intake?
1) Have a good breakfast, light lunch and even lighter dinner. Human's metabolism rate is higher in the day than in the night. Hence, as the saying goes "eat supper will cause one to fat".
Breakfast - I personally have normal breakfast, breads from breadtalk or four leaf (all settled by my mum). I'll have just 1 small bun or sometimes big and I'll leave half for tea break later on.
Lunch - Yong tau fu soup only (with no noodles), Teochew style porridge(from cai fan stall).
I had them each very often from july 2012. After shedding the kgs, I do continue to eat them on and off, if I had a heavy breakfast or sinful dinner the night before.
Dinner - Subway is definitely a good choice and it's filling enough. I do ta bao porridge from cai fan stalls for dinner too.
I had fruits after my lunch or fruit juice, and as for dinner, I make my smoothie juice as often as possible as I ta bao dinner home.
It helps make me feel fuller with the light amount of dinner. If you wonder how I make my smoothie juice, and what type of juice I make, do read here :)
It helps make me feel fuller with the light amount of dinner. If you wonder how I make my smoothie juice, and what type of juice I make, do read here :)
2) If you feel hungry in between meal times, take in biscuits/snacks that are of low calories. Do make the effort to check out the nutrition label on the food packaging before buying them.
I recommend Oat Krunch (chocolate chip flavour) biscuits and Jacob's Oat Wheatmeal biscuits.
These 2 are currently my favorites. Low calories + filling and they are yummy too.
Fruits are highly recommended for a tea break or after dinner snacks.
A point to note:
"Don't ever skip any meals in the day so as to cut down the calories in take daily. Your body needs time to slowly adjust. Cut down on your food intake but not drastically. You can opt to have lesser rice/noodles for lunch/dinner. Just don't ever skip meals."
3) Fast food, potato chips and soft drinks are definitely a NO NO when you wish to lose weight. The amount of calories in a normal MacDonald meal can scare you off.
Do let yourself indulge in this kind of food for 1-2 times a month if you were a big fan of such food before. I understand humans do have cravings but don't ever overuse this excuse to keep eating high calories food.
Exercise to burn off calories
There are many ways to burn off the extra calories, even when we are sleeping, calories are being used up but it's minimal. Doing household chores, climbing the stairs, all these actions requires calories. Hence we do need the minimal calories per day if not our energy level would be too low and will start feeling tired and grumpy.
My exercise regime is not that hard to fulfill each week. I exercise 2 times every week (before i signed up for marathons). I run on 1 weekday evening for 30 minutes and I go for my cardio toning lesson on sat morning for 60 minutes. That's all.
After I've signed up for marathons, I run 2 time per week, sometimes 3, and also continue my cardio lesson on Saturday. As tired as it may sound like, but I think the results are worth it! My legs are toner now (see the last picture of the post), and I look leaner as compare to previously.
My beauty consultant who did facial for me didn't see me for 2 months or so, when I went back just not few days back, She said that I lost weight again. But actually I didn't! My weight was quite constant and the most it drop 0.5kg from the last time I seen her.
It's because I've increase my time spent on exercising which helps me to look leaner and healthier :)
So people, weight is just a number, exercise definitely helps to make one looks MUCH better than one who simply diet and lost weight.
My exercise regime is not that hard to fulfill each week. I exercise 2 times every week (before i signed up for marathons). I run on 1 weekday evening for 30 minutes and I go for my cardio toning lesson on sat morning for 60 minutes. That's all.
After I've signed up for marathons, I run 2 time per week, sometimes 3, and also continue my cardio lesson on Saturday. As tired as it may sound like, but I think the results are worth it! My legs are toner now (see the last picture of the post), and I look leaner as compare to previously.
My beauty consultant who did facial for me didn't see me for 2 months or so, when I went back just not few days back, She said that I lost weight again. But actually I didn't! My weight was quite constant and the most it drop 0.5kg from the last time I seen her.
It's because I've increase my time spent on exercising which helps me to look leaner and healthier :)
So people, weight is just a number, exercise definitely helps to make one looks MUCH better than one who simply diet and lost weight.
A pictures speaks a thousand words so here it goes...
Feb 2012 - CNY
March 2012 - Transformers Cybertron Exhibition
May 2012 - BKK Trip
July 2012 - MBS Stay. Already started to lose weight. Probably 1-2 kg kind. Can't really remember. That point of time I kept to a strict healthy diet.
July 2012 - STGCC 2012
Sep 2012 - KL trip with Esther.
Dec 2012 - Face sharper but still flabby arms, flabby legs.
Last day of 2012
CNY 2013. I prefer my shorter hair look. :)
Btw I started exercising more often since the start of 2013. At first it was to look good for CNY but now for marathons.
I think I do look quite different from my last day of 2012 picture till now, and I'm not referring to my hair!
Mar 2013
Taken at the end of April 2013 :)
Looking good is not about how big your eyes are, how sharp your nose is, it's all about your personal well-being. Though setting a target weight as a goal may seems essential, when there's no action of maintaining what you've achieve, you will see yourself bouncing back in no time. As scary as it may sound like, it might be faster than the time taken for you to shed that weight off.
It's a life long journey to stay fit and healthy. There's nth as 'enough'. There's only keep doing it, it's all for yourself and no one else :)
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI would like to ask whether the calories of fish porridge is the right one or are we referring to different dishes?
The Fish porridge that I am referring to is the one that we usually order at fish soup stall where they add less than a bowl of rice and the fish soup over without the tomato and tofu?
I was wondering whether you might be referring to another one that is fish congee the one that is watery and the one that you dont see the visible rice grains?
Hi there! :)
DeleteYupI get what you mean.
I'm referring to those porridge that the grains are more visible rather than the not so visible one. However, I don't usually take in those fish soup with less than a bowl of rice type of porrdige unless I feel like having some fishy stuff.
I would prefer and usually opts for those cai fan store's type of porridge which is just plain visible porridge but infact is quite soft though. The type at fish soup stall is more solid type of porrdige and similar to rice.
Me personally won't take in those really watery type because I don't feel it's filling and I only take in that kind when I'm sick.Oh ya but I would personally go to chinatown for this type of watery porridge because I only eat from that particular place.
Hope I answer your question :)
Do feel free to email me @ jing_xian88@hotmail.com if you have any more questions or need more help. I would be glad to help you :):)Dont't give up!