Making A New Year's Resolution That Sticks

It’s that time of the year again, when festivities are in the air and everyone is out partying and having a feast. Nothing wrong with that, I have been a complete glutton over the past 2 weeks as well and this weekend, I will be in Penang – Food Paradise of Malaysia.

It is also the time when people start making new years resolutions which usually don’t last. Last year, before we welcomed 2009, I gave some tips on how to make a proper new years resolution to be fitter and healthier. I hope those who did follow those tips stuck with the program. For those who tried and failed, perhaps this posting will be of some use to you.

Why do so many people make a New Year’s Resolution and never stick with it? The reason is, people don’t have a concrete reason for doing it. A lot of times, people just make a resolution, because:-
a) it is year end and that’s what they’ve been doing for the past umpteen years. So why not do it again.
b) people make a resolution because they feel guilty from all the year end festivities, be it eating too much, drinking too much or smoking too much. So to comfort themselves with this total loss of control, they tell themselves – It’s OK, starting next year I will cut down or quit blah blah blah.

Though these are reasons, they are not powerful enough to make a lasting change. What you need is a real reason which is impactful and will move you.

For the moment, I am going to be referring to making resolutions on a being fit, losing weight and becoming healthier. But with some small tweaks to this, you can easily use this technique for other things.

So how do you find this reason? Simple. Answer the questions below truthfully and honestly. If you lie and write something which you think is the correct answer, you are only cheating yourself. Take some time to think about your answers, and your answers should be nice long ones. 2 to 3 sentences at least. Be very descriptive with your answers. It’s best to sit in a quiet place when doing this and set aside 20 to 30 minutes of undisturbed “me time” for this session.

1) Why do you want to make this change. (what is the driving force for this change)
2) What is your goal. (be specific, if it’s weight loss, have a specific number of Kgs you want to lose)
3) How would you feel once you achieve your this goal. (your emotions, the praises)
4) What is it that you truly want to do in life, but you can’t right now because you are overweight, unfit and not healthy
5) What would happen if you conitnue your unhealthy lifestyle (include how you would feel if you continued)

Once you answer these 5 questions in writing, keep it with you and make a point to read these answers at least once a week. If you must, read it every morning when you wake up. By answering these questions properly and honestly, you will discover a deep reason for wanting to make the change and hopefully make you decide on wanting to embrace this change. If you find it extremely difficult to find the answers and still don’t feel moved, it means that subconsciously you are not ready to make the change yet, hence why your mind is rejecting the idea and finding it difficult to come to an answer. In short, if you have truly made a decision to change, nothing will stop you, and if you are not ready to make the change, then you will be stopping yourself.

So go ahead, take some time and answer these questions, and you will surely succeed. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments and I would like to wish Happy New Year to everyone.

PS: Can you read what's written on the women's bottoms? :-)

Virtual Trainer - Part 1

As promised in my last posting, I will share with all of you, the meal plan and exercise plan for the Biggest Loser Allianz. This posting is called the Virtual Trainer, because all of you can read and follow the exercise routine and meal plan and lose weight easily. When it is time to change the exercise or increase the intensity, I will post it up here, so you will know when its time to make those changes. Also, if you have any questions, leave a comment and I will get back to you. So in short, its like having a Personal Trainer, but in a virtual setting and its absolutely free of charge. I hope everyone who reads this blog on a regulare basis will take the opprtunity to try this out.

So here is the plan.

Meal Plan
Once I received all the food diaries from the participants, I noticed a few common traits. Perhaps some of you may be doing the same, if you are, its time to break those habits.

Bad Habits
1) Sweet Drinks – On Average, these participants were consuming between 5 to 7 sweet drinks a day. I am not saying no sweet drinks at all, but sweet drinks are what I like to call empty calories. Does not fill you up, but high in calories and these are calories you can do without
2) Snacking – all the participants have similar traits. They constantly snack on unhealthy things between their meals. From Goreng pisang, to keropok to karipap. Again, these are unnecessary calories.
3) Unhealthy Choice of Food – One of the biggest problems I noticed is, that all the participants had poor choice of food. The normal breakfast is either nasi lemak, mee goreng or some kind of cheese bun.

Not wanting to make it too drastic, I decided to make 3 simple changes to their diet plan. So here is what they are doing now.
1) Breakfast has to be healthy. The choices they have are:-
a) cereal with low fat milk and a green apple. Cereal here refers to oat bran kind of cereal like Nestle Fitness. No Koko Crunch, Honey Stars and Fruit Loops as these are mainly sugar based.
b) 2 half boiled eggs and 2 slices of wholemeal toast
c) Wholemeal Sandwich – egg sandwich, chilli tuna sandwich (no Mayo) or ham sandwich
d) Thosai or Iddly

2) No Snacking in between. Keep your meals to Brakfast, Lunch and Dinner only. No Snacking in between be it a drink or food. This way, they truly appreciate their food now
3) Keeping sweet drinks to just 4 glasses a day. So now that these partcipants have a quota each day, they really got to consciously think about every drink that they have. May target is to reduce this to 2 drinks per day.

Exercise Routine
When coming up with the exercise routine, I had 2 main challenges. 1) the lack of equipment –so I had to get creative with what I had. 2) that these participants have never worked out before and you can’t push them too much or they will get injured.

With those 2 things in mind, here is the exercise routine I designed for them.

Chair Squats
10 reps, 3 sets with 1 minute rest between sets. The reason for going with chair squats instead of normal squats, because I am not sure if these participants can handle it. Its basically sitting down and getting up from the chair, but you are not allowed to use your hands to assist.

Wall Push Ups
10 reps, 3 sets with 1 minute rest between sets. Wall push ups are a great way to build up your push up strength. If you are not able to do push ups, you can start of with wall push ups first until you become stronger. To do this, stand about 2 feet away from the wall, put your arms straight and rest against the wall. As you get stronger, you will move your feet further and further away from the wall.


Box lift
10 reps, 3 sets with 1 minute rest between sets. I filled up a box with about 1kg of paper. Then I had them bendover, and lift it up above their heads. As they improve, I will keep increasing the weight.

Knee ups
10 reps each leg, 3 sets with 1 minute rest between sets. To finish up, I made them do a march on the spot. They needed to raise their knees as high as they could, put it down, and then raise the other knee.


This routine needs to be performed 4 times a week and for best results, they should finish up with a 20 minute walk. So do the routine above first, and then finish up with a 20 minute walk. But since this is their first time, I just got them to do this and skipped the walking bit. But this week, I am planning on doing this and adding in the walking bit. I hope all of you will give this workout routine and meal plan and a try and enjoy the results.

Before I sign off, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone and look forward to reading your comments.

Biggest Loser Allianz

Recently, one of my office colleagues was admitted to hospital because of a heart condition. He is a 40 plus male and weighs 129.5kg… yup… he is way way overweight. After being discharged, we (HR) approached him and told him that he really needs to be serious about losing weight as he is walking on a thin line. He has been admitted to hospital before for other health problems because of his obesity, so we thought he needs to do something soon before it becomes more serious. At the same time, there have been some other colleagues who were also interested in losing weight, but of course, just never got down to it. They have asked me for advice before, and I have told them what to do and what not to do, but I guess they tried it for a couple of days and just gave up after that. Lack of staying power is one of the biggest reasons for people not seeing results.

With the hype of the Biggest Loser Asia which is running on TV right now, we thought it would be timely for us to run what we call – the Biggest Loser Allianz. So we called some of the other overweight people in our office and we are happy to announce that we now have 3 participants. These are people who want to lose weight, but breaking their habits and core values is going to be a tough job. Because there are 3 of them, we hope that this will help to keep them on the path for a longer time than just a couple of days. Below is a quick look at their bio. I am using the participants innitials as i want to protect their identity for the moment. So there will be no pictures as well.



So what is the program all about? I was nominated to be the fitness instructors for these people. I started out by asking them to do a food diary for one week. A food diary is basically a way for you to keep track of what you are eating. So everything that goes into their mouth be it a drink or even a sweet, needs to be jotted down. From there, I will review this and come up with a personalized meal plan for them. The meal plan can’t be too drastic, or I will have people dropping off the program in 2 weeks. So it has to be gradual (from their current eating pattenrs & habits) into a much healthier plan.

I am doing my best to monitor their eating but there is only so much I can do. I guess it really comes down to the participants making a conscious decision that they are fed up with the way they look and want to make the change. But that is something they have to do themselves… like the saying goes, you can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink. So I hope there is some competitive spirit among the 3 which will drive them to stick with the changes I prescribe.

I have also planned an exercise routine for all of them. Participant RA is the one that worries me the most. Due to his heart condition and body size, I can’t push him as much. For now, all I have precribed for him is walking for 20 minutes. I will gradually increase this until we can start doing something more vigorous. But so far, just giving the participants the plan isn’t good enough as only RN has been diligently doing it. The rest have not done anything and I hear heaps of excuses from no time to not feeling well. So I realize I have to take a more personal approach and actually force them to meet me after work where we do the regime together. So we are starting tomorrow.

The program will run for 6 months and my job is to motivate them to the best of my abilities. We are also seeking sponsorship from some of our vendors, where the person with the highest percentage of weight loss will walk away with the grand prize… in essence, a carrot for these people to achieve their weight loss goals. Of course we cannot see drastic results like the real show, but that is done in a controlled environment and all the participants do is eat proper meals, work out about 4 to 5 hours a day and rest. But I still have faith that we will see some significant weight loss in 6 months. Will keep you guys updated as we progress along the 6 months, so keep checking back.

For those who are interested in losing weight and don’t know how, here is your golden opprtunity. I will keep posting some updates on their workout routine and meal plan, so that you can follow it as well, for FREE. In essence, you have your own personal Virtual Trainer. Just check out our blog and follow the plan. How simple is that?

So good luck to the participants and those at home. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments and thoughts.

2 years and still no results?

I was having a chat with some friends the other day about the previous posting and the interesting topic on personal training in the gym came up. We were sharing some stories and I told my friends about some personal trainers who have been training some clients for over 2 years now, and they look the same today as they did 2 years back. I am not kidding.

One of my friends was shocked by this and said it’s impossible, as long as you are doing some amount of a workout, you are bound to see some results, so it is unbelievable that this is happening. He probably did see some results, but not enough for it to be noticeable. They are not extremely obese, but a little bit on the chubby side and have a pretty obvious belly problem.

I agree that after 2 years of training and no results, something is wrong somewhere. So, I have listed down several reasons as to why people don’t see results even though they have been with a personal trainer for 2 years.

1) No Progress – Lots of people start a routine and forget that they have to keep challenging themselves. For some reason, the personal trainer I am talking about has stopped increasing the resistance and making it more challenging. Maybe the client has some injury which prevents him from doing more, I can only guess at this moment
2) You are what you eat – This old saying is so true when it comes to fitness. Yes, the trainer has 1 full hour to train this person, but then for the next 23 hours, the trainer has no control. This is one of the limitations of personal training. It is missing that very important nutrition part. If you eat a lot of unhealthy food, 1 hour of training 3 times a week will only be a scratch in terms of impact. This guy could be drinking 4 to 5 times a week for all I know, hence the training has little or no effect
3) Burn Out – Burn out is very real and not just something in the mind. If you keep doing the same exercises everyday, eventually your body adapts and you will stop seeing results. This is why it is important to mix and match from time to time to confuse the body and keep seeing results.
4) The Personal Trainer really does not know what they are doing. Now I hate to say that, but you must admit, this is another posibility. Sometimes I see personal trainers doing stupid exercises and I wonder where they even got this idea from. Oh well.

So why do these clients stick with the Personal trainers if they are not seeing results? One person told me that sometimes these clients just want some one to talk to as they feel lonely. If you ask me, at about RM 100 per hour, that’s a very expensive price to pay just to have someone to talk to. I don’t know.

So what do you guys think. Please share your thoughts and look forward to hearing your comments.

PS: Please take a moment to answer the poll on the right. Since we are on the topic of personal trainers, I want to know, what is the most important quality that a personal trainer should have. So share your thoughts there too.

Kiasu Gym

Last Saturday I visited Celebrity Fitness in Subang Parade and I was truly taken a back by one of the comments the staff made to me. You see, a friend of mine was interested in turbulence training but was not quite sure how to go about it. So I downloaded one of the turbulence training workouts from the net and printed it out. We met up in the gym so I could show her and her cousin how everything works. Just as an FYI, all 3 of us have a membership with Celebrity Fitness.

Anyway, while I was showing this friend of mine the exercises, I noticed one of the PTs giving me “the look”. I just ignored and continued showing my friend the exercises. Shortly after that, the front counter staff came up to me and said:

Counter Staff: Sir, I am sorry but you are not allowed to give personal training sessions in our gyms. We do not allow external trainers to use our facilities for personal training.
Rajan: But I am not giving personal training sessions. I am just showing my friends here how to do some exercises. We are all members.
Counter Staff: Yes, but my manager said you are giving personal training sessions and you have to stop.
Rajan: Is it wrong for one member to show another member how to exercise?
Counter Staff: No, but you have a progress sheet over there which is what personal trainers use. I saw you writing down notes on it and my manage says you can’t do that. You have to stop.
Rajan: I printed this from the internet and just jotted down some notes for my friends. If you don’t believe me, you can google it yourself and see.
Counter Staff: Yes, that’s exactly my point. You are not allowed to print out and use it in here.
Rajan: So you are telling me that I am not allowed to surf the internet, print out a routine and then perform it in your gym.
Friend #1: Are you saying that it is wrong for me to read a magazine and follow the tips your gym.
Friend #2: So you are basically telling us that we are not allowed to read up on information about fitness, and even if we do, we can’t use that information in your gym.
Counter Staff: But you are not allowed to perform personal training sessions here. You are not allowed to write notes and train people.
Rajan: I told you once, and I will tell you again. We are all members here and we are friends. We downloaded this from the internet and we are just sharing this information with each other. Is it wrong to do that? Are we not allowed to talk to each other in your gym? Are not allowed to look for informtion on fitness?
Counter Staff: What is it exactly that you printed out. It looks like you designed the program.
Rajan: No I did not design this program, I told you I downloaded it. But even if I did, is it wrong to show a friend something I know. Are we not allowed to share our knowledge on fitness with each other.
Counter Staff: But you are not allowed to give personal training sessions and it really looks like you are giving personal training sessions.
Rajan: But I am not, I am just showing a friend this workout which we downloaded from the net. I think we have explained this enough.
Counter Staff: Let me show my manager your print out and let her decide if its OK or not.

So this guy took our print out and went to see his Manager. While he was gone, we were discussing with each other how stupid the guys comments were. In my head, I was wondering what to say if he came back and told me that it was not allowed.

Finally after a couple of minutes, he came back and apologized and told us we can proceed.

Now, I totally understand him suspecting me of giving personal training sessions, but the conversation should have ended when I told him I downloaded it from the net. His comment on we are not allowed to print it out and use it was just wrong. I also totally understand that gyms are out there to make money. After all it is a business and yes, they deserve to earn profits. But don’t-lah be so kiasu. My guess is, it was the PT who was giving me the look when we started that complained to someone.

Just for your info, the gyms charge members RM 130 per Personal Training session (which is 1 hour) and the Personal Trainer themselves only walks away with RM 35 and the gym makes RM 90… almost 3 times the amount. That is just a riddiculous amount of profit that the gym makes. And lots of PTs don’t even have a basic salary, which means they are not a liability to the gym. Truly a case of the pimp and the prostitute, where the pimp makes far more money for doing nothing.

Anyway, please do share your thoughts on the dialogue above and look forward to hearing your comments.

Hot Wing Recipe

I have always been a big fan of Hot Wings, but as you can only get it in places like TGIF (which is too expensive to enjoy), I decided to experiment until I finally found the best recipe for hot wings. Now this recipe will not taste exactly like the hot wings in TGIF, but I think it tastes better than that. So give it a try.

Here is what you will need:-

· Chicken wings and Chicken drummets - I recommend throwing away the skin as the sauce doesn’t stick too well to the skin. Plus it’s healthier to throw away all that excess fat and skin.
· Hot Sauce – This is not chilli sauce, but the one similar to Tobasco sauce, but of course this is the milder version. I do not recommend using tobasco sauce.
· Tomato Ketchup – Just a bit for that extra taste.
· Chilli Pwder – Not necessary, but for those hardcore people who love spicy food, go ahead. Knock yourself out.
· Brown Sugar – It is better than white in terms of calories (less calories than white sugar) as well a better for grilling as it doesn’t get burnt as easily.
· Salt, Pepper & Garlic powder for taste.
· Lime

Clean your chicken wings and dry them out by dabbing it with a paper towel. Season the chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste. If you are using chilli powder, this is where you will want to dust the chicken with your chilli powder.

Next, make the hot sauce marinade. Mix 1 part hot sauce, to 1 part ketchup to 1 part brown sugar. Mix up these ingredients well. You may want to put the mixture into the microwave oven for a few seconds to heat up so it helps with the sugar melting. Have a quick taste. You might want to add more hot sauce or sugar or ketchup depending on your own taste.

Put the wings and drummets into a bowl and pour this marinade over. Make sure you make enough to completely cover everything. Alternatively, you can also put everything in a zip-lock bag. Let everything marinate for at least 2 hours. For those with a busy schedule, you can marinate it overnight. So prepare the sauce on Day 1, leave it in the fridge overnight and roast it on Day 2. That’s what I usually do.

Pour everything into an oven dish. Again ensure there is enough marinade to cover the chicken pieces. Set the temprature at 230Celcius. Put the oven dish into the oven and let it roast for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the whole dish. Remove the chicken pieces and place it on the grill so it dries out. Ensure you have another pan or something at the bottom to collect all the drippings so it doesn’t mess up your oven. If you are doing a BBQ, then this is when you want to put it onto your charcoal grill. Do not throw away the remianing marinade. Use a brush and brush on some more marinade onto the chicken while it cooks and dries out. I usually give it a good paint every 10 minutes.

After another 30 minutes, the chicken will be done and ready to be served. Squeeze some lime onto the chicken and voila, your scrumptious hot wings are ready.

Try it out and see. This recipe is easy to do, tastes great and best of all, it is healthy. I usually eat loads of chicken wings with some toasted bread or strip the meat and make a sandwich. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments and if you have suggestions to make this taste better.

The Biggest Loser Asia

Now I am sure everyone has heard of the reality TV show called The Biggest Loser which airs on Hallmark. If you are not familiar, it is basically a reality TV show where participants compete with each other to lose weight. The 2 participants with the lowest weight loss will be up for elimination. Due to the success of the original show, they are now launching a local version, called The Biggest Loser Asia. Last Thursday, I was invited to attend the Biggest Loser Asia’s launch in Ascort Hotel and I had the opportunity to meet the trainers Dave Nuku and Kristy Curtis and ask them few questions.

To be honest, when I first found out who the trainers were for the Asian version of the show, I was a little disappointed. Reason being you call the show Biggest Loser Asia, but both the trainers are Australians. I am sure we have many Asian fitness talents that could fill up these shoes easily. But after meeting the trainers and speaking to them personally, I must say that I am impressed with them as trainers and the values that they hold. Still a bit disappointed that they are not of Asian origin, but nonetheless, I truly like them and respect them as trainers and people. If its any consolation, Dave Nuku has been in working and living in Malaysia for the past 6 years and is very familiar with Malaysian culture, foods and of course out eating habits.

Here are some of the questions I asked and the Dave and Kristy’s response. I have kinda summarized the contents but you will get a jist of what they are saying

Do you guys have any bad habits which is contrary to the fitness image?
Dave: I love to eat and though I maintain a healthy diet most of the times, every once in awhile I have to indulge into things like Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai. Its important for people to recognize that there is everyday food, food which you eat 90% of the time and sometime foods, foods which is only consumed once in awhile. As long as the unhealthy indulgences don’t become everyday food, you are OK.
Kristy: I can’t say no to chocolates and ice cream. Ben and Jerries is my favourite.

Of course as trainers, you are expected to look your best all the time. Is there any part of your physique which you wish you could change?
Dave: For me, fitness is more than just looking good. I am into fitness because I love the energy that I get. I like it that I have energy to run around and play with my children and not run out of breath. I love that I have the energy and flexibility to do all the things I can do.
Kristy: Of course when you are younger, you may have goals to look your best, but now as you get older, the importance of fitness is to maintain your health and energy. Like Dave said I just want the enrgy to do all the things I do. I cannot imagine not being able to be energetic and fit.

What are you doing to ensure that the participants don’t put back all that weight once they leave the competition?
Dave: Instead of just churning out tough work out routines for the contestants, I am a firm believers of breaking bad habits and re-programing the contestants. These eating habits which they have learnt and kept for the past 30 or 40 years, so we have to systematically break it down and once they see it working and see the results, they automatically have more motivation to do it themselves.
Kristy: On top of that, we also make it a point to get the contestants engaged with preparing the food… so its not just eating healthy because someone gave it to you. If we did that, once someone stops giving them the food, they will revert to their old habits. This is why we get them engaged with the whole process from A to Z so they understand what goes on in helping them lose the weight.

This is just a snippet of the interview I had with them. The whole interview will be appearing in “The Critique”, a new lifestyle magazine which I am free lancing for. Sorry don't mind sharing, but if i put everything here, this post will be way too long. So do check it out when you get the chance. Look forward to hearing your comments on this show and what you think you can expect for the Asian version. I am truly looking forward to it now.

Poll Results

It’s time once again to review our poll results. Really interesting results if you ask me and I am surprised with the results. The question that was asked this time around was: “Would it bother you if your personal trainer was over weight / out of shape.” I really thought the results would be similar to the previous poll which asked “Would it botther your trainer was a smoker” but the results were quite different. Surprise Surprise.

A whopping 76% of people said “Yes” it would bother them if their trainer was overweight and out of shape. I was one of them who voted here as well and reason being that if you are in the industry of helping people look fit, then you have to look fit as well. Another point to add is, it is a legal matter as well. What do I mean? I heard about this Industrial Court case where an employee was fired from her Company because she put on weight. Being appalled by this, the employee goes to the Industrial Relations Office to make a complaint. The issue goes up to court and in court, the judge ruled in the favour of the employer, meaning that the employer had full legal right to terminate the employee for putting on weight. Reason being, the the employee was working as a consultant for a slimming center. How is she going to consult people about weight loss, if she herself looks like she needs to lose weight? So because of this reason, I voted for this.

5% said “it’s OK as long as their trainer knows their stuff”. Again, these people felt that as long as their trainer can help them shed their unwated weight, then who cares what their trainer looks like themselves. Or some may have the fantasy of knowing that the student has surpassed the teacher – too many olden day kung fu movies.

2% said its OK if they are older. OK, here is where I am a bit more compassionate, because I know some people who used to be fit when they were younger, look a little out of shape now that they are much older. But you can still see some semblence that the person was fit at one time. Like a lot of ex body builders out there. Of course their body is not at it’s peak, but at the same time, one look at their body and you know they used to be fit at one point. Of course one may argue that there still are old people out there who look fit, so what’s the excuse for these people? No excuse, but they could have an injury or illness which we don’t know about - which prevents them from being fit today, but since they have years of experience and knowledge, why can’t they be a personal trainer today? I guess for me is, how unfit do they look today.

Lastly, there were about 14% of people who said they don’t really care what their trainer looks like. I am guessing that some people feel more comfortable around a trainer who is a little overweight compared to a super ripped trainer. People who are overweight can feel a little self conscious with someone who is super ripped and toned. Also, trainers who are overweight are more likely to understand the obstacles you face as another overweight person and will be more compassionate about it. I am not sure about these points, but I am just guessing. Perhaps some of the people who voted for this answer can share why they chose this asnwer.
So what was your vote and what was your reason. Do share and as usual, look forward to hearing your comments.

You can eat healthily anywhere - Crappy Cafeteria Food

OK, as I keep hearing people complain that if your only access to food is a cafeteria, then it is impossible to stay healthy. Hence, I took it upon myself to check it out and see how crappy, can crappy be. I admit, options are not much, but you still can eat relatively healthy if you want. Which “crappy cafeteria” did I visit or choose? Well I think all of you will agree that nothing gets worse than Government Hospitals Cafeteria, so I visited one recently and had a look at all the stalls that were available. Yes, lots of unhealthy stuff out there, but you still have options to stay decently healthy even if you eat there everyday.

Here are the stalls I saw:-

1) Nasi Campur
2) Goreng Goreng outlet
3) Kuih Muih
4) Western
5) Drink & fruits

OK let me give a brief overview of each stall.

Nasi Campur is going to be one of your best bets here. If you remember from the previous post, keep your rice portion small(roughly the size of your clenched fist). You want to take as much vegetables as you can. The leafy ones which are just stir fried are the best ones to choose. You can also take “telur rebus”, but avoid the small “telur puyuh” as that is high in Cholestrol. Fish is a good option, but most of the time, the fish is fried. Finding the fish in a curry or sambal is much healthier, but if there are no options, then you have no choice but to go for the fried fish. Chicken in curry or sambal is great, but please avoid ayam masak merah if you can. Most of them deep fry the chicken, and then roll it around in Tomatoo puree and other spices till it becomes ayam masak merah. The more watery the curry is, the healthier it is. So use that as a guide when choosing. Sometimes you can even find tempeh mixed with taufu. If you do see this, fill your plate with this as this is as healthy as it gets. High protein with little fat – sure is a bargain. Some shops even like to serve sardine curry, another great choice. So as you can see, there are many possible choices out there as long as you make the right choices.

Goreng Goreng Outlet – Please stay away from this shop as far as possible. All they serve is variations of nasi Goreng, Mee Goreng, Kuay Teow Goreng and such. It may be cheap, but it sure as hell ain’t healthy. Won’t bother finding a healthy option here, coz there really isn’t any way this can be healthy.

Kuih Muih – Of course these shops do well in the morning and evening, but just because your best buddy goes there in the mornings and evenings, it doesn’t mean you have to follow. The food items here range from Curry Puffs to Kuih Lapis to Kuih Seri Muka to Kuih Sri Ayu. Now I am not saying don’t ever eat any of these kuih’s, but if you are serious about weight loss, then you need to stay away from these as much as you can.

Western – this is not a stall that is available in all “crappy cafeterias” but if you do find it, whether or not it is healthy depends on what they serve. The one I saw only served deep fried chicken, deep fried fish, deep fried sausages, deep fried fries. So it wasn’t anywhere near healthy coz everything was just deep fried. Even the bun they serve on the side was deep fried. They also serve burgers, but unfortunately it was your Ramly burger which was loaded with Mayo. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ramly burgers and indulge in one every once in awhile, but again, if you are serious about losing weight, then you have to sacrifice this as well. When do you know if a western food outlet is healthy? When they have grilled meat and grilled fish. If they do, then this is what you need to get.

Drinks and fruits – OK, here is where you can really make a big difference. Take less of the rice and curry as mentioned above, fill up on some fruits and drink water. If you can do this, I guarantee you will see weight loss. The fruits here range from papaya’s, jambu, pineapples etc. All good for you and best of all, it fills you up. You can eat half your normal portion of normal food (like rice & curry), and fill up on fruits for the rest of the way. It’s a great tip to eat healthily without starving yourself.

So there you have it. Even the crappy cafeteria food isn’t as bad as it is made to seem by many. I admit, the options are very limited, and isn’t the best of choices out there, but like I always say, try to cut back wherever you can. It’s better to be vigilant this way than to just go all out without caring about anything.

Is there a cafeteria worse than the one I described above? If there is, please share what morbid dishes are being churned out by their kitchen. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments.

Simple Eating Plan to Help You Lose Weight

Due to requests from many friends, I have decided to post up a healthy food plan for everyone to follow. Lot of people tell me that the exercises I prescribe are exellent, but it would be much better if I tied it up with a great eating plan as well. People want to know what they should eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner in order to see weight loss without having to starve themselves. So due to popular request, here is a simple eating plan for all. This plan is designed to help you lose weight. If you want to gain weight, then that is a whole different story… maybe I will cover that some time later. But here it is.

Before getting into the basics of the eating plan, just want to lay down a few ground rules.

1) Stick to the 3 meals prescribed below and only eat that. Don’t stray from it and munch anything in between. Yes, I am aware that dieticians are screaming for people to eat 6 small meals instead of 3 big meals. But I noticed, most people tend to overeat (meaning 6 big portions) when allowed to eat 6 times a day. So first master 3 meals a day, and then we will progress to the 6 meal plan later.
2) With that being said, it doesn’t pay to skip meals either. Stick to your 3 meals no matter what.
3) Keep your sweet drinks to a minimum. Biggest problem I notice among most Malaysians – “I don’t eat rice, I don’t eat roti canai… how come still fat?” Then I find out 1 cup of coffee in the morning, 1 cup of Milo during meeting, 1 cup of teh ais during lunch, 1 teh tarik in the evening, 1 sirap bandung for dinner. If you add up all the calories there, it's nearly 1000 Kcal. Not saying no sweet drinks, just try to keep it to 2 if you can.
4) Snacking – This is one of the biggest culprits for people gaining weight. Whatever you do, please do not snack between meals. The worst thing to snack on is potato chips and sorts, which does not fill you up but super high in calories. If you must snack, snack on healthy things like fruits, whole meal crackers etc.
5) If you must indulge in anything that isn't healthy, do it right after your workout. This way you get to minimize the damage to your waist line.
6) Never binge eat. Some people who go for lunch or dinner late, tend to binge eat because they are extra hungry. Stay focused on how much you would normally eat and stick to it. Never over eat.
7) Progressively try to reduce your food intake as you move along. A good benchmark is to cut down every month. Cut down your food quantity by about 5% to 10% every month until you finally reach your goal. So cut it down, maintain that new portion size for one month and the cut it down again.

OK now that I got the ground rules out of the way, here is what you should be eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The size of the portion will depend on you. So start off by eating the quantity you would normally eat, and then try to reduce it slowly every month.

Breakfast
1) Sandwich using whole meal bread. Load up on the vege’s that go on sandwiches such as tomatoes, onions and salad. Cut back on condiments especially margarine & mayonaise and avoid fried fillings and of course, stay away from cheese if you can. Examples of good sandwich fillings – ham, tuna, egg, de-boned tandoori chicken (left over from dinner the previous day)
2) Cereal – The more grains it has, the better. One of the worst cereal to eat is corn flakes and those other kid cereals like Koko Crunch, Fruit Loops and Honey Star.
3) Half boiled eggs – just add a dash of kicap and pepper for taste.

Lunch
1) Mixed rice – whether it is Malay, Chinese or Indian mixed rice, your rice portion should only be as big as your clenched fist. Load up on vege as much as you can. Avoid deep fried dishes
2) Chapati with curry of your choice
3) Subway Sandwich
4) Roasted meats – Eg, Ayamas Roaster, Kenny Rogers
5) Thosai (some places have thosai telur and thosai sardin. These are fine too)
6) Grilled Fish / Chicken or Steaks
7) Chicken Rice – The trick here is to eat less of the rice and more of the chicken. Remember, the rice portion should be the size of your clenched fist.
8) Simple rule – Avoid all goreng-goreng foods. From poori to fried chicken to fried rice to french fires. If it’s fried, you should avoid it.

Dinner
1) Salad – you can either make your own, or if you go out, order a salad for dinner. If you are eating out, always always get them to serve the dressing separately.
2) Fruits – Cut up some of you favourite fruits and fill up on these healthy food. Avoid Durian and watermelons. You can even make a fruit rojak if you like. Just buy the sauce, but use it sparingly.
3) Thosai
4) Tandoori Chicken
5) Sandwiches – same as the breakfast menu
6) Home Made Pasta – I will feature a recipe for you to try soon
7) Home Made burgers
8) Home made Roast meat
9) Taufu Bakar

The foods above are just a guide on what kinds of food you should be eating. Feel free to mix and match. If you can avoid all variety of fried foods and food heavy on simple carbohydrates you will be about 70% safe already, which is a lot already. Pair this up with a good work out routine, and you will be able to see the fat just melt away. Try it out and see. Of course there are loads of other healthy options out there, so please share if you think of any. Look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions for other healthy eating options.