I tried to write a post about nutrition and realised it is probably too big a scope so I'm just going to write about some concepts of eating healthily.

Note that this is a generic post for weight loss and not for maintenance mode i.e. maintaining your target weight and definitely not for athletes/body builders who may need a different diet altogether as they use up more energy. Also, the tips below may not be so applicable to people who are ill or not feeling well : you may have to check with your doctor, nutritionist or do your own research.

How much to eat?
I tend to follow information from the MyPyramid.gov and Harvard Healthy Eating Pyramidas well as various food websites but I do a lot of cross-referencing as well. It's mostly the same but I tend to just use the plate as a gauge as it is easier to go by. I seldom go by the serving size recommended as being an Asian, I would tend to eat a lot less than the Americans do (and I have seen them eat. It's scary, even with healthy food). That's why I use a plate to gauge the portions as well as my fist. As long as I have eaten enough to have the energy to carry out my daily activities, it means I've eaten enough.

I divide up the plate into 4 sections (into quarters). One quarter is grains (rice, multi-grain, pasta, etc.), another quarter is meat, last 2 quarters are for veggies.

The other thing I do is use my hand to agak-agak/gauge portion control. Here is a link about using the hand.

And I make sure the size of the place is not too big. Too big = too much food.

When it comes to snacks, I usually don't take more than one fist of fruits / veggie or 3 slices of biscuits (low salt high fibre).

I try to make sure that I eat enough to have a steady weight loss of 1 kg per week but once I switch to maintenance mode, I will review my diet again (not to eat more fat or meat but maybe more proteins / complex carbo from veggies to slow down the weight loss).

Food Planning
It takes practice. The first week that I started dieting was bad and everything was so red and boring. It's now been 7 weeks so it's getting easier.

I goto websites and look at pretty pictures of food that make me hungry. I see the recipe and start planning whether it's easy or not. If it's going to be tedious, then I do it over the weekend. If not, then I do it after dinner, preparing my breakfast and lunch.

Some sites that I go to :

• Heart Healthy Online
• Epicurious
• Eating Well
• Bodybuilding.com : Nutrition

Sometimes, I just google somethign that I want to try and make. Say like tomato sauce as I can't take the ones with salt in them. The Google Search yielded a lot of blogs with recipes so I picked one out to try it.

One thing about websites is that it's not easy to decide whether what they say is correct or not. You'll just have to do some comparison and hopefully they all don't go and link to the same website or same text. If the text is writtenly differently but the information is essentially the same, it's usually ok but then again, there is always the possibility of that one problem case.

I also browse through cooking books at the bookstore and buy something that is relatively easy to do. I'm toying with the idea of going to baking classes just to learn how to make some of the more complex pastries like puff pastry etc. Just for the heck of it. Doubt if I can learn it properly through youtube.

I talk to colleagues and friends about food preparation and recipes to share. I exchange emails with family and we really get into the habit of food preparation.

Shopping
This is fun. I spend usually about 2-3 hours just waiting through the supermarkets looking at labels and food and remembering where to get stuff. Also, because of my high blood pressure, I can't eat salt in food so I also occassionaly look for stuff in Organic Shops but even they have stuff with MSG and too much salt inside so I do have to read labels a lot. Wet markets are also a good sauce but some stuff, I still prefer to get it from supermarkets because it's surprisingly fresher.

The problem with Malaysian food manufacturers is that they seldom put the Sodium Content on their labels as it's currently an option. However, if you check out the World Heart Federation and click South-East Asia, you'll notice that there are a lot of deaths due to heart diseases (remember to add 3 more zeros at the end and you'll end up with millions). Makes one wonder whether the govt is really taking community health in the long run but admittedly, it is extremely hard to give up soy sauce. After getting diagnosed, I'm off the opinion that the govt doesn't have a long-term strategy that meshes food manufacturing with the health problems currently faced by the community. But there's not much of an avenue to properly voice it up and it's not easy to find the time to do the information gathering.

At the moment, I buy a lot of vegetables and fruits and coming up with different ways of preparation. I don't feel the need to go to the extreme of boiling and steaming yet although some of my food preparation are like that. It just depends on my mood and whether there is something I would like to eat. I can't eat fast food anymore or goto restaurants as often so I am slowly experimenting with different recipes to see if I can make something.

Your Health
Depending on what kind of health problems you have and where you want to end up, this will greatly determine your food selection. It's hard to advise more than that but I would suggest to search some sites and see what they say.

Anyway, that's the end of it. Feel free to post your thoughts and even recipes. I would luv to see what you have cook and I can share what I eat regularly.

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Added on March 27, 2009, 6:20 pmp.s. I forgot to mention that since I started following this weight loss + diet plan + exercise, I've lost 7 kg since 14 Feb 09. It's a steady drop of 1 kg per week.

This post has been edited by myremi: Mar 29 2009, 12:05 AM

trifecta : Thanks for the compliment although it's still very much so a progress at work. I don't know if the Malaysian government is doing anything about food nutrition tbh. They are very caught up with political issues these days that unless food nutrition becomes a political issue, we probably won't be able to see it. Also, the food manufacturers would be screaming up and down.

Oh, one thing interesting. I was reading the World Heart Federation website and found out that in South-East Asia alone, more deaths due to heart diseases happen and we're nearly head-to-head with Europe (their land mass and population is bigger though) and Western Pacific (only in one case). Go here and click on the links : http://www.world-heart-federation.org/cardiovascular-health/ . It's very unnerving to see these statistics, considering that heart diseases is the #1 killer worldwide, and not other health problems. US surprisingly has lower incidents although it could be due to better heathcare and awareness of the general public.

Also, thanks for the tip about Azzain. Not easy to find an organic source. Sadly, I'm stuck in Kuching, Sarawak. Have to search around a bit. The most I do atm is keeping my portions small.

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Added on March 29, 2009, 12:29 amHeh! You sound very ticked off tonight. Sabar lah, Mr. Baba.

I'm hesitant to advocate more protein because of the problems with agricultural practices that can lead to other problems. Also, there are some disadvantages to eating protein that is not quite conclusive but can be experienced because the human body is very different from one person to another. Also, people who are suffering from illnesses may not be able to handle that much protein in their system because their kidneys/liver(?) may not be in a good condition to process so much protein. The other thing is that ppl may start thinking "that crazy Myremi woman on LYN gave me wrong info, now got problem".

One thing that we need to remember is that not everyone can take the amount of proteins that bodybuilders/weightlifters/athletes take, especially those who are seriously competing. (And I still think that the LYN bodybuilders do too much extreme meal planning, considering that bodybuilding.com gives so much recipe alternatives and you guys are putting yourselves through torture ).

At the moment, I have 2 food projects to do : revive my blog to focus a bit more on heart diseases awareness amongst women (their symptomes are very different from men) and find out more about diabetic nutrition to help my father out.

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Added on March 29, 2009, 12:53 amp.s. my amendments of the post are in red. To try and make it sound more neutral.

This post has been edited by myremi: Mar 29 2009, 12:53 AM

If you're that worried about carbs, switch to complex carbs. It's healthier than simple carbs and will help with weight loss or maintenance mode and it can help with general health. It may take awhile getting used to but you can have different choices.

And in all honesty, I don't know whether 1800 calories would make that much of a difference compared to 1500 - 1600 calories. Being slightly higher isn't too bad if you can balance out with the activities that you do.

1 kg per week is about 2.5 lbs. Hmm... what is your current weight atm? I remembered that as I got nearer and nearer to my target weight, it was harder to lose weight.

One thing I haven't really look into is the diet of maintenance mode i.e. maintaining the ideal weight.

With the food pyramid scheme, bear in mind that the concept was done quite a few decades ago. Lifestyles have changed since then (ppl do less walking in their day-to-day activity today than say in the 40s/50s) and nutrition research have yielded different results since the pyramid scheme was first introduced into the world.

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Added on March 29, 2009, 2:38 pm300 - 400 calories is about a one plate meal. From what I read in online recipes and cookbooks that's in front of me. Mind you, they keep fat content low.

This post has been edited by myremi: Mar 29 2009, 02:38 PM

I eat everything. No harm getting more fibre. But it's a personal choice. Although I do like eating the boiled groundnuts rather than the roasted one. Easier to digest too but that's just me.

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Added on April 1, 2009, 3:05 pmFried rice is very fattenning because the amount of oil used is a lot. Usually, the cooks don't measure it out but they sometimes use a big ladle to scoop it out of a bowl that can accomodate the ladle.

Salted fish is just too loaded with salt. This will give you high blood pressure int he long run.

If you really want to feel full, eat more vegetables and fruit because the fibre will fill you up. Not to mention healthier. Although if you do make your food portions smaller, eventually you'll also end up eating a lot less.

This post has been edited by myremi: Apr 1 2009, 03:05 PM

The pyramid you just posted is the one that pizzaboy was protesting.

Although, it could be that he's protesting about the serving size rather than the food itself because without a doubt, unprocessed grains are a good source of carbo i.e. slow release.

One thing about food servings is that it's not all the same but dependent upon what food it is. E.g. one cup of potato is not the same as one cup of sweet potato.

That's why I said that I went by food portions. Easier to manage although I do end up eating less than the recommended amount in the pyramid.

Bear in mind that if you're living in a country that has the same season all year round, you will not get hungry (coz less energy used) compared to ppl living in temperate countries (more hungry during winter time because the cold makes your body work harder to give out enough heat to keep you warm). Just eat more veggies.

And note that potato is classified as a carbo source.

Zaharah2009 : Double-posting is not recommended on the forums. The moderators frown upon it.

Refer to this for my response to your posting : http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=25319513

Think you are very disturbed by this. I'm now wondering whether you are from one of the other 3 companies or are you truly a 3rd party.

zaharah2009 : I understand the feeling of resentment when people have fooled you but you also need to take the extra length of informing the proper authorities of your concern. Best would be contacting the proper authorities, in this case, is the Prime Minister's Dept still the ones giving out the Halal Certification or the Jabatan Agama Islam?

Or the other way is to keep a blog up. And you maintain it.

nuance : I'm now a part-lazy-bum-time blogger. My old blog was at http://www.mum-mum.info.

Yes, I do exercise but it's cardio 3x a week at 15-20 min only. Not as good as the others yet but getting there.

I eat breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner. Dessert only after dinner - usually fresh fruits. I cut down a lot of carbo because trying to get the body to burn fat for weightloss.

Water : about 2-3 liters daily.

You look fine in your photo. What's your eating habits like? And what do you like to eat? Sneaking cupcakes tasting isn't a good idea. Nice site though.

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Added on April 22, 2009, 2:47 pmnuance : Bear in mind that I am on a low calorie diet since I'm trying to lose weight i.e. having a calorie deficit. Also, I know my body well that I need to reduce carbohydrates.

So how I eat may not be ok for you.

This post has been edited by myremi: Apr 22 2009, 02:47 PM

Diet planning wasn't easy. It took me 2-3 weeks just to get a basic grounding. Mind you, by the time I started out to seriously lose weight in Feb 09, I had already gone through many different fad diets so I had some basic understanding. Just had to sort out :
-food selection
-cooking method
-food portion

I had 2 major goals :
-Bring down my high blood pressure through weight loss
-I still want to be able to eat normal food and not bland food

Because I have a health problem, I started with the DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertention) which is for ppl with high blood pressure. So I used that as my based and research from there. I then compared it to a diabetic diet which is roughly the same. I then move on to some of the more common diets like Atkins, Southbeach, various fad diets, meal replacement plans. I still went back to the DASH diet guidelines as a basis though.

For portion control, I went by a simple rule using 10" plate.
1/4 plate = meat
1/4 plate = complex carbo
1/2 plate = veggie

I further the search towards recipe books and literally studied them (boring no? ). I compared different books while I was in my parent's place for a week. I also read up on the "The Japan Diet" which is interesting.

Now, planning to do bento boxes. It looks extremely interesting which I'm sure that you'll love it too since you like art stuff.

http://lunchinabox.net/

This is a good site to get started off including the food proportions. She does a bit too much deep frying than I would usually do but grilling and stir-fries are alrite. I've also ordered some stuff from ebay since can't find the nice Japanese containers here in Kuching, Sarawak.

For inspiration, check out Flickr :

http://www.flickr.com/search/?ss=2&ct=6&w=all&q=bento&m=text

Looks very very fun. Anyway, this is what works for me. I have more than 38 kg to lose which is no joke.

skylive : what is your health stats? I can't remember.

Hmm...it's either you have to be as strict as me when it comes to dieting or you have to up your exercise activities.

I cut out so much refined carbo and even ones which are circumspect. I eat more protein though to compensate.

It's a lot of fine-tuning though. I may have to relook the stir-fry oil content.

nuance : healthy cupcakes --> Rather than look at cupcake recipes, check out muffin recipes.. They generally have lower sugar content. But getting the sugar replacement, now that's tough. So, are you planning to order their recipe book? Coming out in 5 May 2009.

My guide to health cooking is actually my Granny with her homecook cooking that doesn't involve deep frying. The other thing is a recipe book "500 low sodium recipes" by d*** Logue which is amazing. I also have tons of recipe books lying around, either bought during the last 2 months or pinched from my parent's home. I also buy those little cheap Periplus books as well as 200 recipes and 500 recipes.

Took awhile to get used to it but finally better at it. The only danger is that the Western Diet is higher in carbo then the Chinese diet, if one reduces the rice portions. I'm looking now into the possibility of the Japanese Diet i.e. the Okinawa Diet, and see what are the similarities.

Tried to do a bento set tonite but pork meat just doesn't cut well into heart shapes. LOL! Then I realised that my food container is probably bigger than what is usually recommended so now I have to shrink my food portions too. My Tupperware container is for men, not for ladies, if according to the Japanese pyramid (or rather, their spinning top).

And your 6 kg may be harder to lose than mine. >.> Of course I feel tempted but I satisfy them now and again. Poach fruits, fruit juice, 1-2 bites of fried kway teow etc. Then it's back to the grinding board but I try not to have boring meals. In the beginning, it was tough but now, it's a lot easier. Lunch today was cajun chicken with honey wholemeal bread with cucumber + cherry tomato salad.

I will say this though. It's extremely difficult to find any breadmaker recipe that doesn't use salt. Not to mention some cake making recipes. Highly irritating >.>

I don't get hunger pangs anymore tbh. I do get stomach cramps though if I delay more than 4 hours. Read up on hunger pangs and blood sugar and how the glycemic index plays a role in this.

When ppl say that they are implementing my suggestions, I just hope that it works for them as it does me. >.<

BTW, I saw the agave nectar at an organic shop here in Kuching. That boosted my decision to get the Babycakes cookbook.

Look up the bad effects of fructose. The major one is the effect on the liver.

You know what I would really want to learn? Not the Western baking. Those can be learnt easily through books and youtube.

I'd like to learn how to make dimsum and some of the home-made kuih muih, especially those that are no longer seen today. Or even some kuih from other Asian countries.

I have to pass on the nectar since I don't live over in KL. Plus, I don't think I need that much! LOL! The thing about sweets is that only once in awhile for me.

As for Ray Strand's GI, do bear in mind that the targetted audience is people who are overweight. You're not overweight gal. You're just flabby with some fats to get rid off. So don't stress yourself out too much.

As for the ice-cream, yoiks! Bad gal. Stop tempting me.

Portion control : Goto Daiso and buy a bento container. Then pack your lunch like that. Haha! Actually, the first week of portion control is not going to be easy. Just do it one meal at a time.

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Added on May 1, 2009, 12:50 amHmm...still thinking about babycakes. The price of the book dropped from USD24 to USD16 on Amazon.com.

I only buy factual books + recipe books from Amazon.com since the shipping costs are high. If I wait for the local bookstore to have it, dunno how long have to wait one. Very hard to find low sodium recipe books in Malaysia. There are some but not impressed by them. Have to get it online.

Anyway, good luck with your dieting dearie. I'm off to KL later on in the morning and then England this Sunday. See you when I'm back on 16 May.

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Added on July 30, 2010, 9:37 pmThis is such an old post to bump. More than a year one!

!!!

Problem with eating vegan is that a person still needs some animal-based protein that the body needs. Depends on the person though. Some need more than others.

This post has been edited by myremi: Jul 30 2010, 09:37 PM