Here's my version of the so called HCG diet

What is HCG?
I seriously do not know.
Hahahah..
But of course, I googled it and I studied it, and I made notes of it.
Lets keep it easy to understand, it is a low calorie dietary plan.
Now, being a naive person that I am, I do not calculate calories.
Heck, for me it is just impossible to note on each calorie intake.
So therefore, I calculate weight.
Hey, if u want to loose your weight, so, it's fair that you weigh your food intake.
Comprendo?

How did I ever began my journey of loosing weight?
Through reading Redmummy's blog and her achievements.
I'm not gonna lie.
I envied her.

Now that I made the intro, lets get to the core part.

No carbs 

No sugar

I will not elaborate on this coz I know you readers are all grown up, so, stop whining!

Must take minimum of 3L plain water a day

And THREE bijik fruits per day for your body sugar needs

But fruits are limited to either apples/ pear/ guava/ strawberries/ berries/ sour mangoes only

No pisang (banana)

No mempelam manis (sweet mangoes)

No durian

No watermelon

No limau mandarin (oranges)

No matter how naturally grown they are, these fruits listed are high in calories and sugar content.

Just eat proteins and vegetables

Safe if u can cook them yourselves

As u need to control the oil usage.

Steamed shrimp with fresh garden salad, baby tomatoes, capsicum, lemon squeeze, salt and pepper.

Your first 25 days (Day 1 - Day 25th)

Must not use oil at all when cooking. 

No milk, eggs, and cheese too.

No tomato sauce

No chilli sauce

No mayonaise

No thousand island 

No mustard

No kicap! (soy sauce)

These all have high sugar and oil content!

Weigh your proteins intake.

It should be about only 300gm - 400gm.

You can easily estimate from the market packaging.

Not that hard when you get use to it, just the size of your palm, well, my palm that is.

And make sure you remove all the skins and fats too.

You can take Chicken / Beef / Lamb / Fish / Squid and Shrimp

No salmon.

No prawns.

No crabs.

There are many ways for you to cook them proteins and vegetables.

Steamed / Grilled / Baked / Boiled

I usually marinated my chicken / beef / lamb with rosemary, lemon, salt and pepper and BBQ sauce.  Read the contents, as some BBQ sauce has no sugar, so I bought and used that.

And as for the fish, I like to wrap mine in tin foil, stuffed together with salt, pepper, lemon, asparagus, chilli flakes and asam keping.  Oh the juice was just heavenly yummehhh.

Warm beef or chicken soup is simply the best and easiest to make too.

Like me, similar with Redmummy, I too have that magical pan, where I can put everything, both vege and proteins into it and leave it to cook.

Advisable that you cook several types of dishes and store them up in containers for easy grab and go.

How and When to eat them?

Lunch and Dinner only.

Yes, twice a day.

So, what do you do when you're hungry?

Eat fruits, and drink water.

Drink. Drink. Drink lots of plain water.

Munch. Munch. Munch on the fruits.

I usually cut 2 bijik fruits in the morning, sprinkle some salt and put it in zip lock bag to work.

I took some as breakfast and the rest as tea.

Another fruit I ate at night, as supper.

Because of this diet, this was my first time buying avocados.  Really! Haha..

Tea?

Coffee?

Yeah sure you can take them but NO SUGAR.

And remember, this does not count as part of your water intake.

You still need that minimum 3L plain water.

Supplements, yes, during this phase, I took B-Complex and Vitamin-C everyday to keep me energised.  

You should take supplements too.

The first 4 days of your diet, you will be the toilet most regular visitor.

Dont be shy, you must go and pee.

And you will sweat like you've been doing the marathon.

This shows that your body is reacting to the new diet regime.

So be happy! 

Although you felt like wanting to eat a horse, control yourself, and keep muching the fruits.

It'll get better during the 5th day.

On day 14, try the only apples day. 

This means whole day, no food, except just SEVEN bijik green apples.

And water water water.

Sounds impossible.  But it is doable.

One day only. Detox day.

In the case that you don't like green apples, yeah, sure, red apples are cool.  But take just FIVE bijik.

Beef pepperoni and rosemary baked chicken, with fresh garden salad, capsicum, avocado, lemon squeeze, salt and pepper

The following 25 days : (Day 26th - Day 50th)

No carbs

No sugar

Yeah, stop whining already!

Still, must not gobble the proteins skin and fats.

And continue to weight the food intake too. 

But, you can start taking your proteins and veges in the form of fried, curry, masak lemak and asam pedas! 

Hooray!

See, I told you it will get better.

On Day 30th, you need to puasa makan (fasting).

Only drink and drink water from morning, till 6pm.

Take your dinner with a proper steak / lamb chop and vegetable.

This is your reward day!

Yeah, there's such thing as reward too.

And I took mine at Victoria Station, of course.

Day 51, you are done!

You can take the carbs and sugar back.

And you can stop measuring your food intake.

But I will guarantee you that you will do eat gradually and with grace.

Why? Because of all the weight you have lost, silly!

You will not gonna let all those effort go to waste.

I have lost a total of 8kg in 50 days.
I believe I was lucky because of the timing.
I started my diet near the Sya'aban month, and joining the Ramadhan, so it was pretty easy for me as I got to enjoy food like normal during the Syawal month.
If you asked me, I did not perform any exercise during my diet.
Well, just some daily sit ups and star jumps in the morning before shower, but that's just it.
However, I started afterwards.
After I completed the 50 days.
Then I started doing morning walks / jogs on alternate days.
Not much, just 3 rounds around the neighborhood, totaling to almost 2km each.
Maintain the 3L water intake.
And shed another 3kg in the next 30 days.

You have to remember that this is a healthy diet plan.

Not a crash diet

Do not exceed the timeline period.

25 days, first phase.

25 days, second phase.

If you wish to start again first phase, you need to wait after another 25 days of normality.
This means that you can't do the no carbs, no sugar, no oil, for more than one month.

Because this is not healthy for the body.

Always remember that there's no such thing as cheat day.
You have had your cheat day the rest of your lives, so this time, stick to it till the phase is over.
Oh, do weigh yourself every morning as soon as you wake up from sleep, everyday of this diet.
Thats the best time to measure yourself.
Not before bedtime.

So thats all of my secrets.
Which no longer a secret.
Determination is the key.
It's all up to you.

Still maintain my fruits intake, but now I can dip it in chocolate.. wuhuu!

"Moist" is my middle name

But you can call me Buttermilk cake, hehehe..

I was having a stressful day and needed to calm myself down last night. As I vet through the fridge, I saw the carton of buttermilk that's about to expire.
So, waste not!

Here's a very simple recipe I managed to google up from the net.

2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
125gm butter (half of the 250gm bar)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

Mix well the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, put them aside.
Beat butter with sugar.
Add in the eggs, and vanilla extract. Mix till fluff.
Add in half of the flour mix, and mix till smooth. Add in half of the buttermilk and mix till smooth. Continue with the remaining.
Bake at 180degrees for 30 mins or till brown.
U can use any type of baking tins, this time I'm using bundt pan.
Oh by the way, you can add in a spoonful of lemon zest and lemon juice into the batter above for more lemony flavour.

Lastly, drizzle the lemon sauce on the cake after it has been cooled on the wire rack.
Some suggests to lightly poke with toothpicks all over the top part of the cake so that the lemon sauce would go deep inside the cake.

To make the lemon sauce, just heat up 1/3 cup of squeezed lemon juice and 2 tbsp sugar, till thickened. Well, actually, the sugar part is quite subjective. Taste the sauce and add in according to your preference.

I opt to use the star-shaped sprinkles this time just to spice up the boring look.
Plus the fact that thats the only sprinkles I have left! LoL!

Have fun baking!

Still Oct Photo-A-Day effort

Let's continue.

Day 8 "Angle"
Triangle is my favourite angle.  What's yours?
Hahaha.. just trying to take this baby out for a breather.
It's the Louis Vuitton Watercolour Aquarelle Speedy 30 in White.
I really do not have the courage to handle vachetta leather.. Sigh.. :(

Day 9 "Red"
Or famously known as Pomme D'Amour..
oh sounds soooo romantic isn't it?
My favourite shades of red ever!
From the Louis Vuitton Vernis collection, these are the Sarah Wallet and the Cles Key Pouch.

Day 10 "Emotion"
This is genuinely happy feeling for my baby, as bathing like a princess is her ultimate favourite activity!

Day 11 "Something close up"
And what better way than to capture this Coach Crocodile Embossed Maggie Ink texture for this day theme.

Day 12 "On the table"
Is what I have prepared for my mom!
Breakfast in bed.
Homemade pancake with butter, maple syrup and honey as dipped choices and hot nescafe on the side.
Mom's birthday was on the 11th October.
Of course, we had the celebration later the weekend but this was the least I could do before rushing off to work.

Day 13 "Landscape"
Love this view overlooking from the open area outside the Kuala Lumpur National Mosque.

Day 14 "Makes you laugh"
And drives all the worries away..
Remind me to focus more on spending quality time with my family.

Day 15 "Dinnertime"
Yes, I know, I'm a bad mother..
but what can I say when all that he wanted was a milk shake with whipped cream on top?
Yeah, coincidentally, we do always have whipped cream in the fridge.
And yes, strawberries too.. LOL

Day 16 "Something you wrote"
Seriously, writing is no longer something I do on regular basis.
It's always jotting down notes on laptop or notepad inside the iphone.
But sometimes, scribbling it down does help to have the clear understanding.
Conclusion, I think my handwriting is getting uglier.. hmm..

That's all for now.
Will be back for more!

A Photo A Day

Oh I sooo am missing my blog.
I used to sometimes spent time reading my own entry.
Because it holds so much memories.
But my life currently is way too hectic, that I hardly even have the "me" time anymore.
Then again, I'd rather sacrifice that, to spent the time with my kiddos, of course.

Been introduced by an old friend to this, which I find it relatively fun.
This could take my mind of work for a while and well, at least now, it can become my current hobby.
It's from fatmumslim.com.au.
Just a list of photo challenge to put on the Instagram.

I started with Day 1 "where you stood" with this picture of me sitting in the car, on my way to work.
Well, to be exact it's a picture of my Louis Vuitton Mirage Speedy next to my feet wearing Clarks black patent leather sandals.

My Day 2 "lunchtime" was a picture of my Avent breastpump kit.
Yeah, my lunch hours are usually boring.
Me and my commitment to fully breastfeed my baby, Aishah.

Next, I was soo keen to put on something spectacular for my Day 3 "this happened today" challenge.
I've been waiting for something weird or great to happen so I can share it.
But unfortunately, the day was terrible.
I got pissed off and annoyed at so many people at work, even got angry at my boss.
Got way too busy attending more meetings than a person could handle.
Was going from one building to another, and answering one phone call to the next.

Which then I realised why I felt super hungry by lunch time.
I actually had skipped my breakfast.
So, I ended up with a hefty roasted chicken and cleaned the plate in seconds!
Which then, that's my Day 3 pics.

Ahh.. yummy..

And they said that we eat when we're stress!

It's just hungry, really.

Pfffttt !

Instagram fever

I've just discovered Instagram.
Yeah, I'm late, I know.
Well, I'm not the social media type either, so, that's forgiven, I guess.

My friend Elin, Nini and Yaya were the ones who introduced me to this.
At first I registered only to view their pics.
Then I got sick of Elin posting all these food she cooked!
Demm that woman has the jamie-oliver-i-can-cook-quickly-and-delicious trait!
And then Yaya tempted me with her bags piccies.
Oh the devil!
And Nini with her beautiful experimental shots.
Which then tempted me to try snapping piccies of my own.
I think I got carried away too much today.
It's hard enough for me to post one pic a day, but today I posted 3!
That is way overloaded, for me.
Then suddenly it made me miss my blog.
Which I have been neglecting for sometime.
Hence, I figured, I'm gonna post my Instagram pics here today.
So, here they are..

First pic:

I was wearing a cotton floral baju kurung prints to work today.
And instead of just using this Cath Kidston Box Bag as my EBM carrier, I emptied my cooler container and took it out to lunch with me.
While waiting for the food, I realised that I was too crowded with flowers.
Hence note to self : Do not carry flower prints bag while wearing floral prints clothes !
Too much, even my eyes hurt!

Next:
After some false alarm last week, it finally rained today!
Alhamdulillah.. love the cool breeze and the fresh smell after the rain.
Which gave Arif, the reason to wear his elmo-rain-poncho.. indoors!
Sigh..
Yeah, sure honey, why not.. go ahead.
Whateva makes you happy.

Last:
Suddenly hubby decided to ditch Aishah and mommy, and went for the all-boys-nite-out to catch the 9pm show of Ice Age 4 the movie.
So, mommy being alone decided to whip out the instant fried noodles, with some salad, and some fishballs, and wallllaaaahh.. Dinner is served!

Nommm nommm nommm.. with cili jeruk too, of course!

Daily dose of breakfast

Lucky me, I don't have to crack my brains to get started these days because every morning, my tastebuds happily gobbles this for breakfast.

Squiggles.

Oh thank you so much to Gardenia for this creation.

Look at that chocolate spread.

And the chocolate filling too.

Of course, I'm not done with one.

Must have the strawberry squiggles as well.

Ahhhh.. such a complete combo.

Totally worth it

I have been craving for this, ever since hubby brought back some from Singapore early this year.

 And especially now, with my unpredictable taste buds.

Had to text hubby this menu because I got confused.. haha

"Just get the caramel crisp" he text back.

 As expected, without hubby around, things got out of control.. sort of..

Bought this cutesy, for immediate consumption.

Check out the ultimately caramalised pop-corn.

With macadamia nuts in between.

Even Gya acknowledged the out-of-this-world taste.

And this gallon of overdosed glucose, to enjoy with my family at home.

Totally worth it.

Garrett Popcorn is now officially opened at KLCC!
Yehaaaaa!!

I am SCONED by Zeehan

Zee's Scones had me at ohh-laaa-laaa..
and this means that it deserves to be blogged about!

All because of my naughty officemate Qz, sent us this link from goreng.my on the very 1st day of Ramadhan.
The emails got lengthy..
The excitement got overwhelmed..
And by the 3rd day of Ramadhan, as Qz told us all she ordered for herself to be picked up on Saturday, the drooling among us girls just worsen.
Yeah, what do you expect.. the desire for food during this fasting season is absolutely uncontrollable!

Hence, this calls for desperate measures.
SMS went flying between Zee and me.. and Baayah too.
In a few minutes, a deal has been made.

Zee (pictured above - curtesy of goreng.my) promised to make one batch of 20 pieces of her Cranberry Orange scones..
with clotted cream..
and freshly home-made lemon curd.

Baayah promised to pick it up as she lives near Zee's house..
on Friday morning, on her way to work..
and will do her very best to get to the office safely..
with all the 20 scones, no less.

Me, settled the payment..
coordinated with other girls..
reminded them to bring containers..
make sure everything be distributed evenly.

Lo and behold !
The smell !! Ohhhh myyyyy goddd!!
Seriously very very yummmeeehhh!!
Definitely testing my every bit of Iman.
Now, came the confession of I actually never eaten scones in my entire life and have no idea of what it is anyway.. Bwahahahha..
But never fear, coz the super friendly Zee quickly texted me how.

First, cut the scones into half.. but in my case, I cut it to my bite size.
Then, splat the clotted cream on top.. or all over it, however you like.
And finally, bathe it with the specially made lemon curd like syrup dripping onto it.

The following scenes cannot be viewed because the munching and swallowing was too fast and horrific, for any camera to capture.
Sorry folks.. Bwahahahha!

But what I can tell you is that :
- the Cranberry Orange scones smell is breathtakingly delicious.
- the Cranberry Orange scones texture is super soft.
- the Cranberry Orange scones is rich with Cranberry raisins.
- the Cranberry Orange scones sweet-sour-orange taste is swimming inside it.
- the clotted cream plain-but-creamy taste actually compliments very well to the sweetness of the Cranberry Orange scones.
- the freshly made Lemon Curd is the ultimate creation that made the whole Cranberry Orange tasting experience as da'bomb!!
- the freshly made Lemon Curd tinge of sour taste tops it perfectly with the rest of the flavours.
- the freshly made Lemon Curd makes u wanna lick the bottle, which is forgiven because that's just what happened, to moi.. hehehe
- the Cranberry Orange scones with clotted cream and lemon curd is seriously very filling, so don't be greedy, you can share the 20 scones with friends and families.. or just simply buy more.. haha


To Zee, thanks for willing to take my last minute orders.
To my gurls at work, we'll do the Apricot scones party after Eid, ok!
To my readers, if you want to taste this made-from-the-heart-and-soul scones, kindly visit Zee's Scones facebook.


Have a great weekend ya'ols!!

p/s: this is not a paid advertisement, but simply something from my tongue.. your taste buds may say it differently.

Hooray for Glucolin

Once again, Arif was having bad stomach ache a couple of weeks ago.
He vomited since the break of dawn and got me worried sick.
By noon, there's practically nothing in his stomach as he kept vomiting every single thing that we gave him.
And he's already scared of eating anything.
We took him to the doc and he said it was just gas.
But perhaps the gas was too much, causing him to constantly vomit, even the medicine got out.
We were advised to give him small bites of food, with time gap, like a munch in a few minutes.
Just to slowly get the food into him.

I almost forgot that we have this glucose Glucolin blackcurrant drink.
Oh thank god for my Glucolin-born-fanatic-hubby! hahaha.. yes, this is hubby's drink!
And it's a must to stock up, during the upcoming fasting month of Ramadhan.

Just to note, for vomiting kids, best to give glucose to cover the loss of water and to provide instant energy.

And for the food, I made small cuts bread with nutella.
First, take a white bread.

Then, remove the edges and cut it to 9 squares.

Next, splat the nutella on top.
There you have it, Arif called it baby-nutella !

And this was what left of it, after 30 minutes of slow and steady munching.
Phew.. no more vomiting after that.

And of course, with every baby-nutella, must come the big-brother-nutella too.
Amin's nutella is slightly bigger than Arif, of course.
I made the 4 square-cut for him.

Simple and cute. 

And the most important is that, it works !