Glow

I'll be the first to admit that weight control doesn't come easy for me. I'm not one of those girls who can eat anything on planet earth and not gain a pound. No, I'm the kind of girl who has to watch what goes into her mouth or be paying for it later.

I wasn't always the body type that I am now. Before I hit puberty, I could eat whatever I pleased and I still looked like an impoverished war-prisoner. My limbs were stick-thin; my collarbones stuck out and my neck was painfully small. Neighbours would pass by and dote on me, gasping at my petite frame, telling me that my bones look like they're going to break and at the same time asking me: "What does your mother feed you?"

All of that changed overnight. I arrived in Canada and discovered butter on the airplane and cheese as soon as I landed. I'm not joking. To a girl whose main diet consisted of veggies and tofu and rice up until then, the extra fat caught up with me quickly. 

I ballooned up and shrunk and ballooned again. After a few cycles of this I finally found that the key to keeping a constant weight is to keep my bowels moving regularly. It made perfect sense... what you put in you must put out, and if you don't put out as fast as you put in, you gain extra weight.

Over the years I've tried many things to speed up the waste elimination process and found that good old fibre is the most reliable tool in my battle against weight. Fibre? booorrrrriiiiinnnnnnng. I'm not touching bran cereal, that's just one thing I cannot stand. So I looked to other ways to get fibre and found the answer in an old blender sitting on our kitchen counter. Armed with yogurt and milk and a head full of ideas, I began making smoothies.

I started with a run-of-the-mill fruit smoothie made with a cup of frozen blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and peach mixed with plain yogurt and milk. I didn't even think about adding sugar because that would have defeated the purpose. I liked the creamy and cool taste but was a little annoyed by the chunky bits of fruit that got stuck in my straw.

The smoothie, despite my poor blending skills, worked amazingly the very next morning. I dashed through the bathroom door while I was still half asleep and emptied EVERYTHING, and I mean exactly that. I was instantly lighter and had a lot more energy throughout the day!

Although the fruit smoothie is, without a doubt, fabulous, it tired my taste buds out after just 2 weeks. I just couldn't handle having the same thing everyday and I started testing other ingredients.

Since my mom keeps plenty of black sesame in the kitchen, I happily tossed handfuls after handfuls of them into the blender. Not only do they help with bowel movements, they're an extremely good source of calcium and contain Vitamin E and has long been held by the Chinese as powerful seeds that promote the growth of healthy, shiny hair. I blend the sesames with milk and plain yogurt until smooth and I add a tablespoon of brown sugar this time because I just knew without the sweetness, the taste would be unforgiving. I liked the nutty taste a lot but the consistency was a little watery. It worked even better than the fruit smoothie because I went that same night and expelled days' worth of waste. The grinded seeds really loosened up the waste and scraped my intestines clean on their way out. I was a little disturbed however, by the sight of them in the toilet but was reassured by my disgusted and disgruntled mom that it was normal. 

After consistently consuming the above smoothies for just a couple months, I already lost 2 inches off my waist from 28 inches to 26. It also made my face glow with energy. I'm very happy with their effects and look forward to discovering new and more exotic smoothie recipes!

Collagen. If you're not already familiar with this word, then congrats-- you're probably still in your teens. Collagen is that happy protein that keeps your skin plump and youthful-looking; it gives that tantalizing glow to your skin. Sadly, it doesn't last forever and its production starts to slow down in your late twenty's. In recent years, I've noticed a frenzy in the cosmetics industry with churning out all sorts of products targeted to boost collagen production in your skin, but I'm skeptical. Instead of putting weird chemicals on my face that probably never sink deep enough into my pores to do anything, I'd rather explore the internal route--by eating it!

And so I began my experiment.

First I did some research and found out that Sulfur-rich foods makes protein synthesize faster and eventually boosts collagen production. These foods are fresh stalks of celery, olives, and garlic. Since I absolutely abhor olives, I chose celery and garlic. For weeks, I got my mom to buy stalks after stalks of celery. We'd stir-fry them, put them in salad, in soup, in noodles...I have to say, unless you're crazy about celery, it's not the most taste buds-friendly vegetable, so I didn't keep it up.  I'm pretty sure I won't touch celery for the entire 2010.

Then, I laid my siege on garlic. Since garlic was already a big part of my diet, it wasn't hard to add more. The only problem is that raw garlic really does a number on my stomach and breath, so unless a recipe really calls for raw garlic, I always make sure they're well cooked. They're almost too easy to incorporate in your meals, and they require way less effort than the celery. If I have spaghetti, I'll mince a couple cloves of garlic into the sauce; if I cook Chinese food, I'll stir-fry a couple cloves with some vegetables. Now, we eat almost a bulb a day between my mom and I, and luckily, nobody ever complains that we smell funny--yet.

Next I added my favourite fruit of all time--mandarin oranges--to the mix. They're packed with Vitamin C which helps your body produce more collagen among other wonderful things. I like the super tiny ones for their sweetness and bite-size goodness. I make sure I stuff myself with too many of these sweet delights in one day, because one time when I was young, I overdosed on these delicious little things and my hands literally turned orange!

Just recently, I fell in love with the humble but mighty avocado. This super fruit with awful looking skin is soooo creamy and just full of great omega fatty acids which keep the skin supple. Fish contains a lot of omega fatty acids too but it's no comparison to avocado's versatility. I can slice open an avocado and eat the entire thing in one minute at a coffee shop--you just can't do the same thing with fresh fish. Lately, I've been making guacamole every week. I just mash up 2 avocados, mix it with 2 minced cloves of garlic, cilantro, lime juice, a splash of salt and pepper. I think avocados are definitely a staple in my diet from now on.