Technically monthly moments: food

This month, I didn't have that many random pictures lying around, but I thought I'd do a quick round up of what I've been eating this month.  

To start with, my baseline diet is pretty damn unhealthy.  It's not uncommon for me to eat an entire giant Toblerone for breakfast or quaff an entire dish of oily noodles wrapped in egg just before bedtime.  Being a chocoholic, my sugar readings were probably off the charts.  People are disgusted when I say I can eat an entire family-sized bar of (good) chocolate in one sitting, no problem.  After repeated entreaties from my parents to lose some weight, I finally consciously started making changes to my diet.

In all honesty, I've never been too fussed about my weight and I love eating.  But I guess now that I'm on the wrong side of 25, it's a good idea to think seriously about my health.  I knew that restricting myself and counting calories wasn't going to work out, so I set out to make small tweaks to content and portion size and to focus on eating healthy rather than worrying about my weight.  I think it's working so far - I feel a little bit more comfortable and a lot less guilty about what I eat and I still have enough energy to last me the whole day.  

A big part of what I eat is dependent on the ease that it takes to procure.  So I made some small (hopefully) healthy changes that I thought would be sustainable and easy to accomplish.  First, fewer carbs.  Not no carbs, not ever, just a smaller amount.  Then, a lot less sugar.  And finally, more fresh and less over processed, fried things.

Breakfast on several days is now fruit, greek yoghurt, honey, nuts and muesli, as above.  Some days I have an omelette and on days when I work longer, wheat toast and cheese.

I make attempts to put lots of protein and vegetables into the other meals that I eat.  Retno makes really delicious noodle soup with lots of veggies.  Amanda's eating healthy too, so on our late days, we usually eat bowls of low carb yong tau foo together.  I love veggies and yong tau fau anyway, so this was hardly a big sacrifice on my part.  Recently, I went for lunch with Shirin and Edie and I opted for the grilled salmon and ate fewer baby potatoes.

My mom has gotten very excited about my new diet and has been attempted to entice me with new home cooked recipes.  One of my favourite things she is trying is this salmon sashimi that she marinates in mirin, soy sauce and a bunch of other stuff I am clueless about.  She made me a salmon don bowl with seaweed and avocado and, once when I got home late at night, a sashimi salad.  I was far too happy to tell her that I had already sort-of eaten dinner at work.

I can even continue eating healthy at fast food places - I went to Baja Fresh with my friend Mel Sim, and I opted for a nice, fresh mahi-mahi taco with lots of salsa.  It was quite delicious and I didn't feel like I missed out on a big burrito or cheesy quesadilla.

And of course, snacks.  I was adamant about not turning down coffee or tea and I don't have many drinks with sugar in them anyway, so I switched to low fat hot lattes and, when I'm really craving a hit of chocolate, a low fat hot chocolate.  (Speaking of chocolate, I still try to eat a little every day, I just limit it to one cookie and eat it when I feel like a craving is about to hit.)

This past week I've been indulging a bit in my favourite childhood candy.  Did you guys ever eat these?  They're a very well-preserved sour plum enrobed in a malty candy.  Sometimes I sneak one in between classes to keep my energy up.  They're not healthy at all, but so what.  Life's too short!

And when I want a filling and energising but not overly sugary snack?  I make me one of these: a sliced banana on some peanut butter spread on a piece of Ryvita.  It's so unbelievably good that it feels like cheating.