I’m a lover of white meat. Besides my favourite fish, chicken ranks a close second. But that’s where it all starts and ends where chicken is concerned. I simply don’t eat the skin.
Yes, you heard me correctly. Regardless of the preparation style, whether the chicken is steamed, grilled or fried, I remove the skin before eating it. The reason is simple as most of the saturated fat from chicken is found just underneath and attached to the skin.
For those of you who actually prepare your own meals, you can still maintain the moistness of the chicken by cooking it with the skin on, but remember to remove it before eating to avoid the fat.
Yes, I know the title of today's post is ironic. On one hand, I'm asking you to eat more...on the other hand, I'm asking you to eat less.
Don't get me wrong...Haha...
Eating a small meal every three hours and not missing your breakfast is the key to fat loss. Doing so keeps your metabolism humming along as your body performs the calorie-burning functions of digestion after each meal. Research shows that regular breakfast-eaters do a better job of maintaining a healthy weight than breakfast skippers.
If you wait too long between meals, you cause your metabolism to slow down in order to compensate for the perceived state of starvation. Bingeing with a large meal thereafter to make up for the lack of breakfast tells your body to hold on to every calorie – making it hard for you to lose weight.
By feeding your body with smaller meals throughout the day, you deliver sustained energy so you don’t overeat, which is also important for fueling your workouts so you can work harder and possibly longer to burn more calories.
Snacking may sound counterintuitive when you want to lose weight, but it will stabilize blood sugar levels to help curb carvings, leaving you feeling full, never deprived. A good snack is one that provides vitamins, minerals and enough calories to fuel up and curb hunger so that you don’t binge later. But of course, it again boils down to what types of snacks you choose. I'm not advocating potato chips or muffins or doughnuts. I'm suggesting snacks in the form of fruits or unsalted nuts.
Remember this principle: eat more (meals) but eat less (portions) and you'll be on your way to your best body ever!
If there's any piece of information that interests me from the publication of the thousands of personal papers from the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust, it is her pre-premiership crash diet.
It was revealed for the first time that for two weeks in the run-up to her historic win as Britain's first female prime minister, the self-styled Iron Lady stuck religiously to a diet which comprised 28 eggs a week (that works out to be 4 eggs a day), steak, salad & whisky. She also made it a point to tick off every item on a typed sheet of paper kept tucked in a pocket sleeve of her personal diary. This was done to ensure she was on track to lose 20lbs to help her look her best when she became prime minister.
Taking a leaf from the Mayo Clinic diet (the predecessor of today's famed Atkins diet), Ms Thatcher knows the importance of grooming herself. Grooming is more than just wearing the most fashionable brands in town or knowing the different designers. It is more than that. Grooming is in fact a subtle combination of both the outside and inside. What the Iron Lady was doing was to get her internal systems in tip-top condition. I salute her!
Doing a quick internet search, this was what I found with regard to the Mayo Clinic diet. Any Margaret Thatchers in the making?
Breakfast
1/2 Grapefruit or 4 oz. Grapefruit Juice (unsweetened) 2 Eggs (any style) 2 Slices Bacon
Lunch
1/2 Grapefruit or 4 oz. Grapefruit Juice (unsweetened) Meat (any style, any amount) Salad (any kind of dressing)
Dinner
1/2 Grapefruit or 4 oz. Grapefruit Juice (unsweetened) Meat (any style, any amount) - fish may be substituted for meat Vegetables (any green, yellow or red vegetable cooked in butter or any seasoning)
Bed Time Snack
1 glass tomato juice or 1 glass Skim milk
Vegetables Allowed
Red onions, green onions, bell peppers, radishes, cucumbers, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, peas Vegetables to Avoid
Breakfast is the most important meal for me. In fact, it is that important that I make it a point to eat it at home before I leave for training, no matter how early the first training session is.
A good breakfast makes or breaks my day. No hawker food for me, just a simple self-prepared meal comprising the following.
- Wholemeal Bread - Tuna Fish - Hard Boiled Egg Whites - Tomatoes - Lettuce - Protein Shake with reduced sugar soya bean milk (not in picture)
Yes, this is my energy boosting breakfast as there's an excellent mix of complex carbohydrates, protein & fibre. Over the years, I have come to appreciate the foods I eat and making a ceremony of it each time.
Trust me, it does get rather therapeutic putting your own eggs to boil for 15 minutes and then peeling them one by one. Not forgetting slicing the tomatoes and lettuce. What's more when you put them altogether thereafter, just like what they serve in the cafes or delis in town, minus the thousand island dressing or mayonnaise.
This is what I eat everyday and I'm never tired of it! You should try it too.
I made a new important discovery today. And I know I am still savoring every moment of this find. Tucked away in a rather nondescript part of Orchard Road is a mixed vegetable rice that sells organic brown rice.
No more plain boring nutritionless white rice for me after gym now. To most people, it's just the colour of the rice - white versus brown. But the difference lies beyond the colour itself! A whole grain of rice has different layers. Only the othermost layer, the hull, is removed to produce what we call brown rice. This process is the least damaging to the nutritional value of the rice and avoids the unnecessary loss of nutrients that occurs with further processing. Mill the brown rice further to remove the bran and most of the germ layer, and this is when we get our white rice.
In all respects, white rice has lost most of its nutrients. Add further polishing to the white rice to achieve its gleaming flawless beautiful texture, and all the health-supportive, essential fats are stripped away, reducing white rice to a refined starch devoid of its original nutrients.
But brown rice is different. I know for one that brown rice is an excellent source of manganese, selenium (according to some, selenium helps prevents cancer) and magnesium.
Looking at me order brown rice, the mixed vegetable rice auntie could not help but ask me why I knew how to eat it. I just smiled and said because it's healthy. She returned my smile.
Ordering only spinach, well two servings of spinach actually (spinach is my favourite vegetable), I hopped over to the chicken rice stall to get my $3 worth of chicken breast meat bereft of the skin and with no sauce.
A beautiful lunch. This is going to be my staple lunch meal for months to come :)
