Tired.

I tried to be good, I really did. Every now and then I decide to change my life and make better decisions; I will eat better and exercise more. I do it faithfully for a week until I can no longer be arsed.

I can be impatient and fickle. I practice a diet and exercise regime for a week and when I don’t immediately see results I think what’s the point? and return to my raggedy ways. I avoid dairy for a week only to be rewarded with a fresh outbreak of cystic acne? I am bingeing on all the dairy products I can find. I do sit ups every day for a week and no abs? Back to lying in bed all day.

My latest fitness foray was an attempt to reverse the disastrous effects of the lockdown on my waistline. I vowed to increase fibre in my diet, eat more vegetables, do two Chloe Ting videos a day, and increase my daily steps. I stuck to this for about a week, and now I am in bed gouging my face with brioche bread and butter, rice and beef, toffee sweets, and gummy sweets that I don’t even like. I am still bloated and my skin is still a cesspit.

There is also so much conflicting information. My initial research showed that a fibre rich diet was instrumental for weight loss so I went out and got all the fibre rich things I could get. Then I had yet another case of breakouts and uncomfortable bloating which I blamed on a cup of mango yogurt hence my derisive attack on dairy. I did more research and came across a health website that claimed that fibre caused bloating. I quickly closed the page because obviously this qualified nutritionist did not know what they talking about. A few webpages later and fibre does in fact cause bloating, leaving me confused as heck. The solution for one problem exacerbates the other.

Cystic acne is a new problem I really did not need. I did not even know it was a thing until my jawline was ravaged. Apparently this is hormonal which pisses me off because the life of a woman is plagued with these goddamned hormones from which we can never get respite. I thought bacne was the worst thing but of course things always get worse.

I am also looking into the possibility that I am breaking out all over, face and body, due to my laundry detergent. I hope this is the case so I can finally have some relief.

I am tired.

Bye Dairy.

F$$k dairy as a staff, record label and as a motherf@@king crew. And if you wanna be down with dairy, f##k you too. 

Recap: I recently started a fibre diet in which I eat more fibre rich foods. Usually I eat one wholemeal bap with oatmeal cooked in almond milk, garnished with blueberries, bananas and fibre god chia seeds. For two days I ate breakfast and other meals slowly and found that I was not as bloated and uncomfortable as usual. Things were going well, until today.

Today: I decided to switch it up today, probably out of laziness. Instead of oatmeal, I decided to just have the bap with a small pack of yogurt sprinkled with chia seeds. At the last minute I also made a bowl of bran flakes with almond milk, blueberries and chia seeds. All was well for a while; I had done 20 minutes of exercises and drank lemon water before breakfast so I was feeling good. Then as the day went on I noticed I was bloated and my stomach was huge. I tried on some of the outfits I hadn’t worn in months and was dismayed to find that they did not fit. This was quite depressing and my mood was ruined. I ate a salted caramel Twix bar and went for a long angry walk soon after. For a while I assumed it was the bran flakes messing me up and I couldn’t figure out why. After hours of blaming the bran, it dawned on me that it could be the yogurt as this was the only other change in my diet.

Background: I have an on-off relationship with dairy. I prefer soy milk, and will go long stretches without any animal milk (except in yogurts and ice-cream etc) because the word on the street is that dairy is bad for you. However semi skimmed milk is half the price of plant milk so sometimes I will say sod it and just buy the cow’s milk. I did this especially during my baking period when I needed a lot of milk. Then I got a vicious and unfair attack of cystic acne all over my jawline which the internet informed me was likely due to dairy. This time I was done for good, not just with dairy in cooking/breakfast but I also cut out yogurt and ice cream. I still have some greek yogurt that I cannot bring myself to eat or throw away. I am done with animal milk; they can keep that for their little babies. Yesterday I went to the store to get some wholemeal pasta, and unfortunately saw that my favourite yogurt was over 50% off. Now I did not want yogurt but I can not resist a bargain so I was compelled to buy the yogurt. I have a problem I know.

After today’s self esteem ruining bloat-fest, I ran to google like a child runs to its mummy, and yes dairy can cause bloating for some people. Let me find out dairy is responsible for simultaneously ruining my skin and waistline. One of the articles mentioned something about eggs and I immediately closed the tab. I cannot take another heartbreak.

After years of suffering in silence, I have decided to do more research on bloating and just be more proactive. Hopefully one day I can be bloat-free, and what a glorious day that will be!

 

Fibre!

Every few years, I swear I am going to become healthy and I start making plans to improve my exercise and diet. Well it is that time again. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have gained a lot of weight during this lockdown due to a newfound love of baking and a longtime love of sitting on my butt for hours on end.

As far back as I can remember I have suffered from bloating. I simply do not remember life without a bloated belly. I am quite slim (well not so much now) but the bloat always made me feel a bit fat. It was annoying and uncomfortable and made me self conscious. During the past week however, it became downright unbearable. My stomach was hard and unrelenting. Usually my stomach would be flatish in the morning and bloat after an intake of air, but now it remained painfully bloated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I literally looked pregnant and I walked about my room cupping my stomach like a pregnant woman at her baby shower. It was hectic. My regularity was abysmal and there were other things too unglamorous to mention.

I did some research on google and all roads pointed to Fibre! Now I know that fibre is needed to avoid constipation- it’s the only reason people buy bran flakes. However I did not know that it helps with weight loss (i’m daft I know) and that it is recommended that adults have about 30g of fibre each day. Dearly beloved, I doubt I have up to 3g of fibre daily, except for those days when I have oatmeal for breakfast. I am extremely unhealthy, and between the white bread, banana bread, cinnamon rolls, puff puff, pancakes and so on, I consume a lot of white flour which shockingly is low in fibre (almost non existent). I eat bananas once a day but since I started baking all my banana consumption has been in form of banana bread. Add to the fact that I consume almost zero vegetables and you get an idea of why my body was (is) so fucked up.

The first step is admitting you have a problem. The second step is ignoring it and hoping it goes away on its own. The third step is finally dragging yourself up to do something about it.

Once I really realised the dire consequences of a fibreless diet, I decided to make some changes. First I considered simply buying fibre supplements but thought to make that a last resort. See the thing is when I put my mind to something I put my whole mind to it (for a day or so).  Per my research I need to start eating more beans, vegetables (sigh), chia seeds, bananas, chickpeas, oatmeal (slow cooked), wholemeal/wholegrain bread/rice/pasta, bran flakes, almond nuts, potatoes with skin on e.t.c.

This is what I ate on the first day of my fibre diet.

Breakfast: Fibre content per 100g
Oatmeal (8.3g) with Chia seeds (33.8g), handful of blueberries, and a banana(1.4g) mixed in almond milk and honey.
Wholemeal Bap (6.8g)

Chia seeds have a whooping 33.8g/100g of fibre! Amazing. I didn’t need to have both oatmeal and bap but I did and this brings me to my next point.

Eat slowly: I was on a video call with a friend recently and I was devouring my staple meal of spaghetti. She watched me take a few forkfuls and said “Take it easy dear.” I laughed because it was funny, but also because she was not the first person to tell me this. I eat fast. I eat as though the food is running away. If you have seen The Platform on Netflix, I eat as though I have a limited time to eat before it descends to the next floor. I have always eaten like this. I guess I am just impatient and want to get things over with.  I also talk and walk really fast so I am generally just in a hurry. Once I get my food my mission is to finish it as soon as possible. It had occurred to me a few times to relax and chew my food. I would say to myself “did you really enjoy this food? You just swallowed it all without taking the time to really savour it.” It only just occurred to me that perhaps my manic way of eating could be contributing to my bloating and general discomfort after eating. I decided to put it to test during breakfast. I made a lot of oatmeal and the bap seemed excessive so I decided to take my time and eat the meal as slowly as I could. I didn’t keep an eye on the clock but it took me at least 30 minutes to eat it whereas in the past it would have been inhaled in 10 minutes.

The most wonderful realisation; after eating this big breakfast, I did not feel bloated or uncomfortable. I felt normal. Whaaaaaa? How? Could it really be this simple?

Dinner
I did not have any lunch because I felt quite full from breakfast. This is a benefit of both a high fibre meal and eating slowly-you feel full for much longer. For dinner I decided to stick with amore mio– spaghetti but I walked to the store (yay steps) to pick up a wholemeal version for the added fibre. I timed myself as I ate, making sure to chew each mouthful properly. It took me about 21 minutes to finish the whole thing whereas in the past it would have been gone in half the time. Just as with breakfast, I felt perfectly fine afterwards. No bloating, no discomfort. This is truly revolutionary.  So now I am no longer bloated, just fat. Yay!

I snacked on an apple during the day and had some lemon water with breakfast.

Another useful tip is Don’t drink water while eating. I heard of this tip ages ago but just never did it. I would have a big meal which I would scoff down in minutes stopping only to take a breath and a gulp of pineapple juice. The reasoning behind this tip is that the water dilutes the digestive juices or whatever. I have done no research about this but it seems about right. I will now drink water before and after a meal but not during.

I hope this is enough to shed the pounds, and I hope I am able to maintain this. I am a bit disheartened that the months of damage done to my body has not been reversed by two days of walking and eating oatmeal. Life is not fair.

Becoming

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

Anais Nin.

at what cost?

Well folks, it finally happened. After 131 days of lockdown, I have developed a potbelly. It snuck up on me like a thief in the night, but to be honest it was bound to happen really. I ignored all the warnings about lockdown weight gain, and snuggled deeper in bed while others were doing one exercise challenge or the other. I was never the biggest gym rat, but at the very least I walked to and from the train station everyday back in the precedented times.

In these 131 days I have left my house maybe ten times, all quick trips to the shops to replenish my food supplies. The rest of the time I have spent in my room, seated for hours at my work table on weekdays, and then the remaining hours in bed watching television. On weekends I only ventured out of my room to bake banana bread or cinnamon rolls and to gorge my face with fat fluffy pancakes smothered with nutella and toffee sauce with cookie dough ice cream on the side. I have eaten a lot and moved my body minimally. In other words I have enjoyed my life. But at what cost?

Last week I sat down as usual to do my work and I noticed breathing was quite stressful and my belly was just in the way of everything. I took off my bra and other restrictive garments and clothed my oversized torso in an oversized shirt to get the slightest bit of relief. Looking back there were other moments where I just found myself out of breath after talking for a few minutes on a call or walking up the stairs. I thought to myself “this can’t be normal”, but of course I still went on to eat a ton of chocolates and sweets and fried foods because I have no self control. After a few days of hectic breathing I finally decided to do something about it. The first thing was to leave my house more and try to get my steps in. Before lockdown I was trying to get 10k steps a day, and although I never achieved this goal, it was still a motivating factor. I don’t have a car so I walk everywhere (when I do manage to leave the house) and this helps me get some steps in.

Once I decided to start walking again, it was on like donkey kong. To motivate myself I decided to walk to a faraway shop which is the only place I know of where they stock my favourite cinnamon bites. It is a good thirty minutes to the store and back, plus it is a big store with lots of aisles so I must have gotten at least 500 steps in the store. Sure I ended up buying stuff I did not need but hey that mouthwash was half price and it is a new advanced formula that helps treat gingivitis. What if one day I develop gingivitis and do not have this mouthwash on hand? Walking in a big store may help with steps but these steps are past the sugar, candy, and pastry aisles so it is also an exercise in self control which I fail every time. I got 7.5k steps which is much better than the previous day’s record of 4 (per my iphone). Of course whatever calories I burned were immediately regained as I swallowed two packs of cinnamon bites but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

The next day I walked to a health club where I had swimming lessons a couple of years back. It is quite far from my house so it was a good trek. On my way back I stopped at the local store for some extra steps and sweets. I got 8.5k steps. The potbelly remains.

So far I have only walked towards places I have been to before. One thing that puts me off of walking is that I don’t like to walk around aimlessly, especially as I have no walking partners. It is much better if I am walking towards somewhere, and even better if there is a delicious reward waiting for me. I would like to explore new terrain but the streets are not safe for a woman by herself, especially a paranoid woman who has watched thousands of crime shows in which women on walks/jogs have been stalked and murdered. But I digress. My goal will be to go for a walk without spending any money. For what shall it profit a woman to take long walks if she only ends up eating a whole bag of toffee sweets right after?

I will say this, the main barrier is my mind. I am so comfortable and cozy at home that I never want to leave. But once I get outside in the sunshine, with the breeze and fresh air, trees, birds, everything, I am happy I left my house.

In summary;

-Walk everywhere. If you have a car it is easy to drive but try to replace shorter trips with your legs. In the past my rule was that anything 20 minutes or under was a walkable trip while I would take a bus/taxi for journeys more than that. However now I am realising that even 30 minutes each way is doable.

–Shop at stores further away from you. Of course this is a terrible idea if you are buying a lot of things because then you have to struggle home with a heavy load. But it is a good way of getting those steps in, especially if you are like me and hate walking around aimlessly.

–Shop at big stores; you can gain more steps by walking from aisle to aisle in a bigger store. Sure you will also get tempted by more junk food and you will end up spending money on things you don’t need. But hey.

–Walk to the furthest gym you know and back: Alright so I am not actually going in the gym, but I will walk all the way to it, and turn around and walk right back home. This should give me a good 2000 steps, at least.

Walking regularly will definitely be an improvement on my current sedentary lifestyle, but I wonder if it will be enough to make me fit. Exercising is hard and dieting is impossible. Whenever I try to exercise, I think screw it I’ll eat healthy instead; and every time I try to eat healthy I think screw it I’ll just exercise instead, only to end up doing neither. In actuality a mixture of the two is required. I have just realised the importance of fibre in my diet and how flipping deficient I am. Who would have thought that white flour was not rich in fibre? Needless to say my baking escapades have come to an end, and everything white will be replaced with brown in my cooking cupboard.

It is my hope that semi regular walks and a high fibre diet will help shed the pounds because I have a staycation coming up soon and I already bought three swimsuits in an aspirational size.