You are what you eat

Assalamulaikum,

It's been 5 months since my journey to health & fitness.

I find that my health has been increasingly good as ever. I sleep better and my snoring during sleep has tremendously reduced. I felt that my lungs are able to take in more oxygen during running and definitely, my skin has improved significantly. I rarely have pimples nowadays except during my menstrual cycle but, even that it is not as worse as it use to be. I used to have those stubborn hard pimples with no white heads and will leave scars for months if I poke it.

As for my fitness, I truly fell in love with running. Running makes you forget about the stress and believe me, it makes my mind relax. I certainly encourage running outdoors in the nature instead of indoors. The air is much fresher and you can enjoy beautiful scenery. Last year, my sis and I bought a trackmill, thinking that it would encourage us to become fit. But it did not, instead it take up so much space in house that it collect dust instead. 5 months later, we sold it half the price to a friend.

Never would I thought I would be into health and fitness. All my life, I was moderately heavy - means I at the highest weight of the 'average' category, going to overweight. If you asked me at what point of time I really really want to shed to pounds? It will be when I see my engagement photo in Nov 2011. No matter how good the make up it and no matter how beautiful the outfit is, I felt that I did not look good on the inside. In 2012, I exercise to lose weight but I wasn't losing it because of temptations. I enjoy munching.

Thus, early this year I embarked to self-learning of health and nutrition. I've read books, watch health documentary, attend crash-course and I found the truth about food that was never taught in school. How surprising. We've all been taught about food pyramid, protein, carbs, calories and etc. What we have never questions - where those food come from? What do these animal what we ate, eat? How are those fruits and veg grown? That's when we have to find out what we don't know and what we need to know.

Almost everyday, my food intake will be 50% raw and organic - raw oats, veg fruits juice (fresh from the blender), raw nuts and seeds, raw honey, organic salad, organic grass-fed gmo milk or yogurt, tea (from pure fresh tea leave), eat fresh fruit and etc. I will usually go full raw for my breakfast. Lunch will be vegfruit juice and rice/noodles (quantity decrease) and at night, will enjoy a cup of hot tea with salad or juice again.

Enzymes & Raw
Why raw? Because raw food has good enzymes. This enzymes aid our body to digest better. Cooked food has little or no enzymes at all. Cook food equals to dead food. All the nutritional value of a food has already died during cooking. Raw organic carrot nutritional value is not equal to cook carrot. Yup, the school never told us this. Because there's no nutrition and enzymes in cooked food, the liver will have to work 'overtime' and super hard to break down the food for you. Like all other organs, liver do have limitations. If we are overload with dead food, our liver will steal enzymes from other part of our organs to digest this dead food. And when the 'stealing' occurs our body will worn out and inflamed. No wonder most of us feel tired and sleepy after meal. And then we drink coffee to keep ourselves awake which worsen the digestion. That is why chewing during meal is important because of the enzymes in our saliva in which will help the liver to break down food easier.

Supports Organic!
My colleagues commented that I am now a picky-eater. Because I go for organic as much as possible. You can find organic food at 'high-end' supermarket like FairPrice Finest, Cold Storage and any organic shop. Yup, it is slightly expensive but to me, it's worth every penny. Organic taste super good than GMO toxic food. I've notice major difference on how by body react to organic milk and non-organic milk. My stomach always felt inflamed when I drank non-organic milk. Organic yogurt - no sugar, no sweetener. Believe me it taste like ice cream and the texture is different unlike non-organic chemical produced yogurt which is so watery and extremely sweet. One organic food that is hard to find in Singapore is meat and poultry because even it's organic, it's not halal. -_-

Juicing
When I started off jucing, I start with lots of fruit and slowly, I tried vegetable juice (aka green juice). Why juicing? Well, let's be honest, it is impossible for us to eat 2 cups of fruit & veg every meal right? Thus, juicing helps us to consume more of it at one go. Besides, it has better absorption of nutrients. But one thing to take note, it's better to consume juice within 20mins as the nutrients will decrease in time.

In my previous post, I mention I always had trouble with passing motion. Eversince I eat healthtily, I pass motion every single day and my stomach is getting flatter and flatter. My jeans is so loose right now. And my weight now is 56kg exactly.

Thus, since Jan 2013, I've lost 6kg. Yup, my weight lost is slow. An average of 1kg/month but it's all worth it. 1kg more to my dream weight of 55kg. :)

Regards,
Rohani