LOSING WEIGHT

My son, Afif ,went for a medical checkup recently and when the results were out, he was advised to lose 12kg in 6 months. That's the weight he gained in 2 years while studying for his IB plus the 4 months at home when he practically only ate and slept( except for the one month he worked at Secret Recipe).

To help Afif on his new challenge, the doctor gave him a slip of paper on the nutritional dos and dont's.

Afif has 1 year (not 6 months as recommended by the doctor) to lose the extra weight before the next medical checkup, one year from now, before he flies to Sheffield to continue his studies.

I had read somewhere that in addition to 3 sessions of 30-minute exercises a week; to lose weight one needs to do 5 things:

• reduce salt
• reduce sugar
• reduce fats
• reduce oils
• reduce red meat

I did that, years ago, but with 2 hours of brisk walking a day, 5 days a week and lost 3kg in a month.I had the time to myself then as the children where all at school and my husband was at the office.

The doctor's list included the following dont's:

A:The high salted foods :

• all types of bottled sauces (tomato, soya, chiili, barbeque sauces Lea & Perrins), stock cubes and monosodium glutamate
• processed foods like nuggets, sausages,and the like
• cheeses
• preserved foods like belacan, cencaluk, budu, salted fish, vegetables and salted eggs, smoked meat, etc
• Food extract like Marmite, Bovril
• Salad Dressings, mayonnaise and cream

B:The high calorie foods :

• All types of rice other than plain boiled white rice. That includes nasi lemak, nasi beriani, nasi goreng and nasi ayam
• All types of fried noodles and curry noodles
• Rendang, Curries cooked with coconut milk (santan),
• The Malaysian favorite roti canai
• All fried kueh like karipap, and all kueh made with santan like kueh talam and Afif's favorite 'kueh sampan'.

C:The high cholesterol foods:

• Organ meats
• egg yolks
• anchovies with the head and guts as in nasi lemak at the stalls.
• butter, margarine
• red meat and chicken skin
• condensed milk (so no more teh tarik)

The Dos are:

High fibre foods like:

• Fresh Fruits
• Vegetables
• Cereals
• Lentils
• Wholemeal breads
• Red Rice or high fibre rice

Recommended:

Use less oil to cook. If needed, use corn oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, sesame oil or palm oil.

When eating out choose low calorie menu like sandwiches, asam laksa, noodle soups, tom yam soups, grilled or steamed fish, asam pedas and gravy with no coconut milk.

I find that in Malaysia, the problem with our people is that they put too much sugar in everything they cook especially at the hawker stalls. It is indeed a challenge when eating out as all the gravies has sugar in them. I hate it when they even put sugar in curries and laksa.

I wish Afif the best of luck. He has enrolled at the campus gymnasium to help him achieve his target weight faster. Increasing your metabolism is another strategy to lost weight. The body will try to conserve energy once you reduce food intake, so exercise will indeed help the body to use up excess fats and make the body systems more efficient.

Where's my jogging shoes? I need to start losing weight too.