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!