Day 10: Going Japanese?

Day 10 and still feeling a bit sick with colds and cough.  I stopped exercising for a while since i had the flu.  Today's weight is 67 kg, still plateauing. Hopefully, before we end the perfect diet, i would  be able to exercise again and lose another kilo or two.  I am beginning to get the habit of eating healthy and lesser junk food.  Tonight, we're going Japanese with Oolong tea drink and Nori Maki Arare or rice crackers with seaweeds.

Oolong tea and Nori Maki

What are the benefits of Oolong tea?

Oolong tea is a very well known health tea.  It gives a lot of health benefits especially with weight loss when taken regularly.   Oolong tea undergoes less fermentation that is why it is like black tea and green tea (in between).

It is well known to decrease the rate of heart disease and stroke.  Oolong tea also helps with lowering sugar and increasing metabolism. 

Since I am into weight loss, I will concentrate on the weight loss benefits of ingesting oolong tea.

• improve fat metabolism thereby causing weight loss

caffeine in oolong tea increases metabolism

• Increase energy expenditure  

• Inhibits the absorption of nutrients including fats and carbohydrates

Day 9: Dreaming of the last day

It has been nine days since we started the Hemani Perfect Diet.  Today, our weights are still the same as yesterday.  Plateau? Maybe?  Week two diet list of the Perfect Diet is quite heavy but the bowel movement is really, really smooth and suave :) I think it's because of the vegetables and fruits combined with coffee and tea.

We have been dreaming and planning of a "healthy feast day".  Yes, it seems that we have developed a habit of eating healthy and living healthy.  

What is healthy feast day?

Our healthy feast day is the first weekend after our two-week Perfect Diet.  In our case, weekend in Dubai is Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays.  Our two-week diet ends on the 4th of March 2013.  We plan to have the healthy feast on the 7th of March 2013, which is my mom, Lucita Saulo Hernandez' birthday.  

What do we plan to eat.  Today, we were dreaming of what we wanted to eat right after the diet.  Surprisingly, except for Kentucky Fried Chicken hmmmm minus the skin and coco jam, we decided to have:

Vegetable cocktails

Fruit cocktails

Ham asparagus

some healthy pasta

cakes, cupcakes

I can't wait for the healthy feast.  This is the day that we test our new habit of healthy living.  Are we going to over eat or not? he he he

Caren and Lie's Recipe for today: 

For tomorrow's food, we cooked up our vegetable and fish menu. 

Fish fillet in herbs and vegetable ala first time :)

Fish Recipe

Ingredients

White fish fillet

Oregano

Ginger powder

Lemon

Bread crums

Egg

Olive oil

Procedure:

Marinate fish with lemon, ginger powder, oregano

Chill for 24 hours

Heat olive oil in low fire

beat egg and deep fish fillet one by one

Then, cover with crumbs

Fry

Vegetable ala first time

Vegetable of your own choice - anything goes

garlic

onion

olive oil

Procedure

Heat olive oil in low fire

Saute garlic and onion

Add vegetables 

Season with worcestershire sauce

I hope you enjoy our new healthy option recipes. 

Day 8: Down with flu :(

Today, i called in sick from work.  I had flu.  I missed all meals of week 2 diet plan of the Hemani Perfect Diet.  I only ate the night meal.  I was feeling so under the weather.  I just stayed in bed and took medicines.

In the afternoon, i baked our chicken for tomorrow and made healthy option tuna pizza and vegetable pizza.

 

Lorelie's healthy option pizza

 Ingredients:

Brown bread

Capsicum green

Eggplant 

pizza sauce

Oregano

Low-fat cheese

Tuna in olive oil

Procedure:

1.  Spread pizza sauce on brown bread

2.  Sprinkle with Oregano

3.  Spread tuna including the olive oil 

4.  Add chopped capsicum and eggplant

5.  Top with low-fat cheese

6.  Bake at 250 degrees F

Let's eat!

Day 7: Last day of week one menu

Day 7:  It was our last day of a very limited diet week.  We checked our weight and guess what? I have reached my maximum ideal weight of 67 kg.  Isn't that great?  It is also our last day of week one menu.  we are excited for day eight.

Unfortunately, i have been feeling under the weather.  I have been having runny nose and fever since the morning of day seven.  I cannot even feel the taste of my food.

After church, Caren and I went to shop more fruits, eggs, cheese and milk.  Oh by the way, Caren los another kilo. WTG!  Enah, leah and Grace remained on plateau. 

We increased our exercise to 7-10 minutes.  Good girls. Can't wait for day eight.

Day 6: Plateau and losers

After two days of not checking our weight, today at day six, my weight is 68 kg from 69 kg.  I thought i plateaud but I'm a loser.  Alriiiight.  Though some of the members of the Perfect Diet support group plateaud, we're still happy with the results. 

During the weekend, we stepped on the treadmill for 30 minutes.  Caren did a bit of yoga in bed and some jumping jacks.  Now, we're trying to learn new exercises from Mike Chang. 

Mike Chang

Day 5: More herbs and healthy options

Today is our fifth day of perfect diet.  I have been busy with my church service from morning until late afternoon.  I had to do fasting in time for lent and was not able to follow our scheduled diet.  At night, one of my friends cooked healthy options pasta with broccoli, olive oil, shrimp, spam and cheese.  It was yummy but i had to control myself to get a second serving.  I hope I won't get my weight back. :(

Back to other weight loss herbs

3.  Oregano Helps ins digestive health and speeds up metabolism.

4.  Tarragon Muscle building and aids in digestion 

 

5.  Ginger powder .K. Han, a Japanese researcher, says ginger creates thermogenesis, an action that boosts metabolism. He led a study in which rats fed ginger extract lost weight while maintaining a high-fat diet.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/280367-how-ginger-helps-you-lose-weight/#ixzz2Lf3RlXuk

Day 4: Loving herbs

We found out that there are a lot of herbs that help in weight loss.  Last night, we shopped for herbs and meat to include in our diet for the coming days.

White fish in herbs and turmeric

Porkchops in herbs

Some Herbs that are good for weight loss 

Below are the herbs that we currently use in preparation for our food. 

1.  Thyme  This has diuretic effect and can remove fluid retention in the body. 

2.  Marjoram    Soothing aromatic properties that relieves stress, thereby preventing nibbling of dieters.

 To be continued....

Day 3: Now, we're losing

So, glad to have lost 2 kilos.  Maybe we're beginning to lose our water retained in our body.  To my Perfect Diet support group.

Day 2 of Perfect Diet: Thanks for the support!

What's the hardest part of going on a diet?  You get lack of support.  Good thing majority of the six women in our Perfect diet are strong willed and very supportive of each other.  Sadly, one of us had to leave the program because she has a visitor so she can't control eating he he he.

Today is day two.  The hardest part is when people around you do not believe that you can finish the diet program.  When they say negative things and worse, they would laugh at you.  But we came prepared.

Another diet hurdle is the"rumbling stomach".  It really weakens me when I hear my stomach crying for "fooood!".  Sometimes I would just want to nibble on something or just break the diet BUT, NO! I won't.

There may be a lot of obstacles in our diet program, but here's how we handled them. 

How to overcome diet obstacles?

 

 1.  Ignore. How do you ignore your teasers, detractors and unbelievers? By focusing your attention in other things like you mobile phone, your computer or anything that would distract your attention away from  those people, away from their "unsupportive" talks.

2.  Stay focused on your eating schedule.  Aside from keeping a food journal, stay loyal and focused on your schedule.  In Day one, I have posted our perfect plan diet schedule with time and activities.  

3.  Stay away from stress.  Studies show that relieving your stress helps in weight loss.  When I get stressed, I would see myself nibbling on junk foods, tsk tsk tsk.  When you are on a diet.  Stay away from stress!

4.  Calorie counting.  I enjoy counting calories.  Not because the label says "LOW FAT", "NO SUGAR", "ORGANIC", "LOW CALORIES", etc, means it is "really" low in calories.  Learn to check the label at the back of every food product.  In my experience, when there is no nutritional information, chances are,  they are high in calories. Beware!

 5.  Avoid eating out.  Need I say more?

Day 1: Weighing and goal setting (Perfect Diet)

On 18 February 2013, we started the Hemani Perfect Diet support program.  We are six women who aim to lose weight in two weeks using the Hemani Perfect Diet Tea.  At 8:00 a.m. Dubai time, we started checking our weight.  Sadly, I weighed 71 kg at 5 feet 3 inches.  Whaaaaaat?  I cannot reveal the rest of the girls' height, sorry. Ideally, my weight should be between 64 to 67 kg.  

 

 

 

Setting our goal

Our goal is to reach at least the maximum ideal weight.  As for me, for the next two weeks, I want to achieve the weight of 67 kg.  In most goal settings including weight loss, goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound.

Perfect Diet Schedule

8:30 a.m.               Drink two glasses of water

9:00 a.m.               Perfect Diet breakfast

9:30 a.m.               Perfect Diet Rise and Shine tea

10:00 a.m.             5-minute exercise

11:30 a.m.             Snack - Low fat

12:30 p.m.            Two glasses of water

12:50 p.m.            Refreshing afternoon tea

1:00 p.m.              Perfect diet lunch

3:00 p.m.              Stair exercise

3;30 p.m.              Snack - Low fat

6:30 p.m.              Two glasses of water

 

7:00 p.m.               Perfect Diet dinner

 

before bedtime      Peaceful night tea

 

During the day, we would drink lots of water.  We never felt hungry.  To top it all, it seems like it is cleansing our kidney as we need to go to the toilet often to urinate. This is day one of Hemani Perfect Diet.

 

 

 

                  

Diet Whys

In every goal that we plan to reach, there is always a reason behind.  And that very reason is our driving force that pushes us to reach that goal no matter what.  I asked the women of our Hemani Perfect Diet support group their reasons why they agreed to be in this weight loss support group.  Here are our reasons why we decided to go on a diet.

Caren - Health reasons.  There is no insurance company in Canda that would accept an obese person:)

 Enah - Husband is her motivation especially when Charlie says "ang taba taba mo na" (you are so fat) :O

Grace - Health reasons.  She feels she is getting heavier and can feel her knees knocking. :)

Tin - To reduce her tummy girth.  :P

Lie (me) - To be able to button and unbutton all my trousers without holding my stomach and breath in waaaaahh


Leah - The soon to be bride.  To be able to fit in a smaller wedding gown ha ha ha

        

The Hemani perfect diet journey

We have started a support group comprised of six women to try the Hemani Perfect diet tea.  Tonight, we have shopped for our food and it was really fun counting calories and grams.  We hope that this will be the perfect diet for us. 

 

Join me and my friends as we journey to weight loss through the perfect diet.

After all this time....

It has been a while since my last blog entry.  I have been busy with the holidays and church service during Christmas here in Dubai.

One highlight of my Dubai Christmas is my first time to attend the nine-day Christmas novena mass alone, yes alone but not lonely.  It has been two years that i have no relationship and for the last four years of my stay here, I have always attended these masses with my ex.  Last year, 2012, I was alone.  Funny, how I felt free and peaceful even sitting alone during the mass and observing different families and couples hugging and holding each other.  There were moments that I shed a  tear or two not because I was sad.  Those were liberating tears.  Tears of memories.  Tears of recollection.

During this novena mass, one thing that I remembered is about repentance.  Fr. Tom, our parish priest, said Repentance is changing your mind and changing your ways. 

Fr. Tom also challenged us to a once a month "be nice day"  wherein we get to choose one day of each month (preferably our birth day) to be nice and not to say any negative things against people for the whole day.  So, there will be 12 months of "no okray day" for me.  February 2 is my second "no okray day or being nice to others day.  I hope i can sustain it until the next Christmas novena mass in 2013.

I have also been busy with my online shop - Ultimate beauty secrets.  This has helped me a lot with additional income to help me raise up my son alone and sustain the dialysis of my mother back home in the Philippines.  Tell you more about my family next time and my online shop. 

Ultimate Beauty Secrets

After the holidays, this new year brings new hope, new life and new challenges.  Stay with me as I continue to journey life as a single mom.