Monday 14 June 2010

Trying two meals a day

I am trying to eat two meals a day now.
I will try this for 6 months on every weekday until Xmas.
Breakfast time 9am. Second meal time 3pm. Fruits in between as snacks.
This is my new diet strategy. I tried eating many small meals before but that didnt work for me.
My eating problem is the portion control. Once started eating, I just can't help eating a big plate full of food.
So I think the sensible thing to do is actually to reduce the number of meals instead.
After much research on internet, I find out, apparently, there are health benefits of two meals a day plan.
Can't be too wrong I think. Hundreds of years ago, the emperor in China ate two meals a day...
So Im going to give it a go.
I have been on this for the last few days. So far so good. It is actually not that unbearable around lunch time (12:30). Hunger came and attack but soon went away.
The important thing is not to snack too much. So I need to make sure the house is free of junk food.

Friday 9 October 2009

Biggest enemy in my diet is laziness

Just weighed myself. Shocking 57kg.
I have been very lazy lately. Too lazy to cook. As a result, I have been stuffing myself with junk food such as pizza, chicken burger and ,..yes...battered chips. Battered chips are the worst. However they are .... yummy i know.
I have nt been doing pilates for quite a while. Laziness. I notice my belly is growing a bit now.
Need to get back on diet track and back into shape..

Friday 28 August 2009

Diet Again

I have set a goal of losing 5kg for my birthday in Dec. Should be achievable.

I lost some weight this time last year by a simple method of diet plus exercise.
Diet doesn't mean you have to eat less or avoid some foods you love.
My diet is simple---3 early meals a day, with no starchy food for evening meal.
I love starchy food, rice, noodles, pasta, pastry etc. I can't avoid them completely. So I change the time when I eat them. I move them from the evening meal menu to breakfast and lunch menu.
I have been vegetarian in the past but now start eating white meat. I add white meat to my diet as the protein in white meat is saturating and helps me lose weight.

Eat breakfast as early as possible. I eat at 7:30. Sometimes a bowl of cereal, sometimes wholemean bread with Flora Extra Light spread, other times a bowl of soup noodles with more vegs than noodles.
I am usually hungry by 11am. So I drink soya milk, eat some fresh fruits, or snack on some peanuts.

For lunch I eat vegetables and rice/noodles/pasta. I eat a big plate of food at 12:30. The key is to have 3 times more vegs than rice/noodles/pasta. I usually stirfry noodles/pasta with minimum oil and season with chilli sauce, as this requires no unhealthy dressing.

I eat evening meal at 5:30. Usually high protein food as protein is most saturating. Definitely no starchy rice/noodles/pasta. If I really crave for starchy food I go for potatoes as they contain 76% water and fill you up quickly. Most of the time I eat vegs, such as califlower, celery, broccoli, cabbage, beans, with chichen, fish or egg.

Whenever I feel like eating, I drink soya milk. It helps make me feel full straightaway.

I do pilates as regular exercise. It makes my body more flexible, makes me feel healthy, and most importantly, it helps build long lean muscles, and slims me down.
Another important thing is---don't sit down within 30 mins after a meal. This will prevent fat from building up around waistline.

I think eating is a habit. Once you get used to the routine, you enjoy it and the food cravings will go away.

Monday 10 August 2009

Soya Milk Risotto, with ham, shitaki mushrooms, pumpkin and vegs


Ingredients:


3 tbsp Peas, defrost if frozen


3 tbsp dried soya beans, soaked


2 tbsp peanuts, ideally with skin on, soaked


2 cups rice. Best use non quick cook rice, such as risotto rice.


1 cup buck wheat. Can also use barley.


1 thick slice of ham, chopped into cubes


1 chunk of pumpkin, chopped into small cubes. I used sweet corn instead.


4 dried shitaki mushrooms, soaked overnight.


1 medium onion, minced.


2 portions of fish or chicken. Sliced into bite site.


Any green veg of your choice. I used Pak Choi.




Instructions:


1. Make soya milk with peas, peanuts, and soya beans.


2. Shallow fry onion with cooking oil, in a big frying pan.


3. When onion is nicely browned, add in fish/chicken, ham and shitaki mushrooms, stir for 2 minutes.


4. Add UNWASHED rice, and barley, quickly stir for another 2 minutes until rice is evenly coated with oil.


5. Add hot water to the level that just covers rice and bring it to boil.


6. Add hot soya milk to the near top of the pan, add in pumpkin/sweet corn and simmer for 10 minutes.


7. Season with black pepper, salt, chilli and a little sugar.


8. Stir in green veg and serve.




Friday 31 July 2009

Article from Beverage Daily

Soy drinks boosting Asian sales

The health benefits of soya are boosting sales of soy drinks in south-east Asia, says a new report. Although the market is currently dominated by Asian players, the scope is said to exist for European manufacturers offering a variety of non-dairy drinks alternatives.
Scientific research linking soya consumption to low cholesterol and lower incidence of osteoporosis is widening consumer appeal for soya drinks, with governments in various Asian countries also encouraging soya milk consumption because of its health and nutrition benefits.
For example, the Malaysian Ministry of Youth and Sports launched a two-month marketing campaign in 1999 to encourage consumers to buy packaged soya milk. The Health Promotion Board of Singapore and the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand are also using education campaigns to inform consumers of the health benefits of drinking soya milk or consuming soyfoods.
Other factors driving growth include marketing campaigns of manufacturers, with the South-East Asia region home to some of the largest soya drink manufacturers in Asia, such as Malaysia's Yeo Hiap Seng and Green Spot in Thailand.
Keen competition between producers is resulting in new product launches and aggressive marketing of soya drinks. Novel flavours of soya drinks, such as green tea and mango, and soya milk with functional ingredients like omega acids, have been introduced in recent years, fuelling growth of the category, according to the market research company, without using health claims.
But while there is little opportunity for European soymilk makers in this market, which is dominated by Asian companies that have often been producing for over 20 years, the organic soymilk sector has so far been created by imports. The most common sources of organic soya drinks include Australia and USA and there is very little production of organic soya drinks in South-East Asia, according to OrganicMonitor .
Bigger opportunities for European companies exist in the rice drink and oat drink markets, added the firm.
"These markets are highly import dependent and most volume is imported from Australia, North America and Europe. There is potential here for European companies," said an OrganicMonitor spokesperson.
Soya drinks still, however, account for the majority of sales volume in the South-East Asian non-dairy drinks market, which is set to be worth US$220 million in retail sales this year. Rice drinks and oat drinks are not widely available in South-East Asian countries with low consumer awareness and high retail prices hindering market growth.
The modernisation of the retail trade in Asian countries, which has led to a large rise in the number of supermarkets and hypermarkets, could however help the market to evolve. These outlets are becoming the most important sales channels for non-dairy drinks, with large supermarkets in the major cities offering a comprehensive range of non-dairy drinks, with some offering soya bean drinks, organic soya milk, rice drinks and oat drinks.
Organic non-dairy drinks are mostly marketed by health food shops.
In Singapore, which has some of the largest consumers of non-dairy drinks in Asia in terms of per capita consumption, the fresh soya drinks market is showing high growth with leading brands competing strongly with dairy milk in the chilled cabinets of supermarkets. Many Singaporean consumers favour fresh soya milk because it has lower fat content and it is priced less than imported dairy milk.

Wednesday 8 July 2009

soya bean fried rice

Ingredients
Soya beans, soaked
Frozen peas
Lettuce, chopped
Frozen sweetcorn
Blackbean sauce
Chilli powder

Wednesday 24 June 2009

Hot Summer Noodle Salad

I can eat this all day....

Ingredients:
Half a cucumber, shredded
some lettuce, shredded
1 table spoon sesame sauce, critical ingredient
1 table spoon chilli oil if you love spicy like me
1 tea spoon salt
1 table spoon vinegar
1 tea spoon soy sauce
1 pack dried noodles, can be instant noodels, straight to wok noodels, even spagetti..

Directions:
Boil the noodles, drain and rinse under cold water
Stir in the veggies
Mix all the ingredients and pour on noodles

Vegan Forum

I find a good community today: http://www.veganforum.com

Saturday 20 June 2009

Egg and Tomato with Soya Beans

This is one of the old recipes I always use when I want to make a quick and easy dinner and impress guests. It is so simple that there is nothing that can go wrong. And it is tasty too.

Servings: 4
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Ingredients:
4 eggs, beaten
2 big tomatoes, chopped into small diamond shapes
4 table spoons of frozen soya beans (You can purchase pack of freshly frozen soya beans from Chinese supermarkets such as Wingyip, also available at Sainsburys sometimes.)
1 table spoon of corn starch, made into paste with cold water

Directions:
1. put in a drop of cooking wine and a tea spoon of salt in the eggs, stir well.
2. heat 1 table spoon oil, pour eggs in, stir slowly and break into small pieces until almost cooked. Put aside.
3. heat 1 table spoon oil, stir fry tomatoes and frozen soya beans until the beans are cooked
4. add salt, and egges
5. add corn starch paste, bring to boil and serve.

Tuesday 16 June 2009

soya milk

Dave ran out of chocolate soya milk. So we made a fresh batch of soya milk this morning.
I added extras--corn meal and linseeds. Linseeds are very good for us but the funny taste when consumed alone, just couldnt bring me to keep the daily intake. Great in soya milk though. You can hardly taste it. :0)
I never really liked the smell of the Cadbury coca powder. Should find a better alternative. But Dave said it was alright. Anyway it is not me drinking chocolate soya milk.

Saturday 13 June 2009

Today's dinner cooking summary

I had guests for dinner today. Cooked 6 dishes.
The most popular one is pickled cabbage fish.
Second most popular dish is cola chicken.
I share my own simple cola chicken recipe here. haha so simple...

Ingredients:
1 pack of chicken wings, from any supermarket
1 can of original coca cola. Very important here. Must be original coca cola. No Diet Coke No Cola Zero.
1 table spoon of soy sauce
1 tea spoon of salt
2 tea spoons of sugar
Directions:
1. heat 2 table spoons of cooking oil in a wok/frying pan.
2. add in sugar.
3. put in chicken wings and brown both sides for 3 minutes.
4. add soy sauce and cola.
5. bring to boil, add salt and simmer for 20 minutes. Done.

My six year old little guest absolutely loved it...

Thursday 11 June 2009

Annual plan

It's almost two weeks into June and I haven't reviewed my anual plan.
Surely it needs revision. I need to come up with a more realistic plan and the focus needs changing a bit.
There is so much to learn and not enough time. I wonder what I learned exactly in University...
After so many years of schooling, everything I need to know still has to be learnt on the job.
Just keep focused...

''Dream it. Plan it. Do it.''

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Quote of today

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."--- Charles Kingsley

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www.soyadirect.co.uk

Tuesday 9 June 2009

First Post

I started my first ever blog today.
After reading info on internet for half a day about how to add a blog to my website, I have given up on that idea, well, at least for the moment.
I am going to keep things simple. It doesn't matter to me where to host the blog. As long as it works as a blog, I would consider the purpose served. I am learning to get rid of my old habit of being perfectionist. Remember 90% rule!