Sunny Health

The New Year will be here in a few hours! What are your resolutions? Like most girls, to lose some weight is one of my dearest New Year resolutions. However, it is very important to lose weight healthily and gradually. You wouldn’t want to fall ill or have wrinkly skin from crash diets and starvation!

Here are some common myths pertaining to weight loss! Get your facts right and you’ll be able to draw up an effective weight loss plan for the new year!

Myth: I can slim down quickly by only eating vegetables and fruits

Truth: Research indicates that there are fewer obese vegetarians in comparison to non-vegetarians. However, if you intend to turn vegetarian, you must plan your diet carefully to ensure that you do not leave out any types of nutrition essential to your wellbeing. Vegetables and fruits alone will not provide you with all your body’s necessities, such as iron, calcium, vitamin D, VitaminB12, Zinc and animal protein. So be sure to include non-vegetable foods that contain these in your diet.

Foods rich in iron: Cashew, Spinach, Bean products, black fungus
Foods rich in calcium: Diary products, soybean products, tofu, rice, flour, spinach, cabbage
Foods rich in Vitamin D: Skim milk, cheese, nuts
Foods rich in Vitamin B12: Soya bean, Tofu
Foods rich in zinc: Bean products, peanuts, rice, carrot, cabbage

Not all meat is fattening. You can also include lean meats in your diet.

Myth: High impact exercises will turn me into muscle woman

Truth: High-impact exercises like weight-lifting, sit-ups, push-ups etc are good for weight loss. They also tone your muscles. It’s not so easy to turn into a muscle woman. Doing high-impact exercises for a few minutes twice or thrice a week won’t generate so much muscle. You get hard muscles, not big ones. Athletes on the other hand, exercise vigorously on a daily basis so small wonder that they develop muscles!

You can do medium-impact activities on a daily basis, such as 30 minutes of brisk walking a day, and inculcate sit ups, push-ups and weight-lifting into your exercise regime thrice weekly.

Myth: Eating food containing starch will make me fat

Truth: A lot of food products contain starch, so if that was true, there would be a lot more overweight people in the world! Food like bread, rice, spaghetti, oats, soya bean, potatoes, even fruits are rich in starch, but they contain little calories. Overeating such food or adding all sorts of sweet and fattening ingredients are the reasons why people seem to get fat from it.

Myth: People who claim they can eat anything they like without getting fat are liars!

Truth: Pretty sure most of them are being honest as there isn’t much point in lying about such matters. The lucky ones can count on their high metabolism rate to utilize energy fast so it doesn’t stay in their body and become fats. Others just do lots of exercise to burn off the energy. If you don’t have illnesses, you are pretty much free to eat any sinful food without worrying as long as the amount of calories you consume is equivalent or under what you can burn off. And of course, eat with moderation.

Myth: Cutting down 1 or 2 meals a day is an efficient way of losing weight

Truth: Research indicates that people who skip breakfast and meals are more likely to become fatter than those who eat 4 meals (breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner) a day. Eating little at each meal helps to contain your appetite, whereas skipping meals, especially breakfast, only makes you ravenous and over eat for the next meal.

In short, don’t skip any meal, but keep your servings small.

Myth: Fast food must stay outta my sight if I want to lose weight!

Truth: While most fast food is indeed unhealthy, there is no need to avoid it like plague. Depending on what you choose to eat, fast food isn’t so scary!

Don’t choose the set meals. One burger and drink are usually sufficiently filling for most people, especially girls. You really don’t need fries or mash potato to go with it. Going ala carte is the best way to prevent yourself from eating more than you need, or share the meal with your friend. Choose skimmed milk, tea or plain water in place of soft drinks. Choose a salad to go with your meal.

Myth: Eating after 8pm will make me fat

Truth: Putting on weight isn’t related to when you eat, but rather, how much energy you consume. People put on weight when they eat at night because they tend to consume extra energy that they do not need, such as TV snacks and supper. However, it is still good to avoid eating late at night because it disrupts your sleep by overworking your digestive system.

Myth: Diary products contain fats and are unhealthy

Truth: Diary products are necessities because of their calcium content and shouldn’t be avoided just because they contain higher fat content. Choose skimmed products instead, these contain less fat while still retaining equal nutrition value. The downside is that it doesn’t taste so good.

Myth: I'll just starve myself until I lose weight which won't take long, and then I can easily get back to eating proper meals!

Truth: Never go on crash diets or low calorie diets. They may produce results within a short amount of time, but having been put on a stringent diet for a long time, most people fall back to their past eating habits, even binging on the unhealthy stuff because they’ve missed it so much. And thus it’s back to square one. Worst, food ends up putting some people off and as a result, succumb to illnesses like anorexia or bulimia. Unnaturally quick weight loss (3 kg and above within a fortnight) results in gallstones. If your daily energy intake is less than 800 calories, you may contract heart diseases in the future.

The best way to lose weight is to exercise regularly, eat small but regular meals and eat unhealthy food in moderation. If you’re enjoying your weight loss regime, you’ll stick by it!

Good luck and Happy New Year!

It’s been awhile since I last updated! I have been putting in a lot of overtime recently to finish up all my work so I can relax during the holiday season, but I’m well otherwise. Many thanks for all the well wishes to me and my Aunt! We appreciate it a lot! My Aunt was especially touched that mere strangers she’d never met in her life would ask after her and offer all sorts of healthy recipes and tips! Emotional health is very important for cancer patients, so your care and concern means very much to us. Once again, thank you very much!

Today, I’m sharing a healthy recipe from one of my readers. Christmas is a time for eating (delicious but unhealthy food), drinking (alcohol) and merry making (doing all kinds of fun but tiring stuff). Unfortunately, this means that cancer patients miss out on a lot of holiday fun due to their poor physical condition.

Traditional Christmas dinners especially are heavy and not suitable for cancer patients, who should keep their diets simple, healthy with not too much seasoning. I was delighted to learn about this recipe that is not only nutritious and light but also very tasty! It’s very simple to make too. My Aunt loves it!

Ingredients: Egg 200g, Black fungus 250g (water expanded)

Seasoning: Onion 10g, Coriander 12g, Salt 5g, Sesame Oil 2g

1. Rinse the black fungus in clean water. Set fungus in a dry bowl for later use.
2. Crack the eggs into a bowl and into an even mixture. Set aside for later use.
3. Prepare wok for frying. Heat up wok and add a little vegetable oil. Pour the eggs in and fry. Set aside.
4. Fry the fungus in the same wok, adding more oil if necessary. After fungus has softened and emits fragrance, add the fried egg, followed by all the seasoning.

And that’s it! Simple, isn't it? :)

I am one of those fortunate chaps who grew up in a family where there were many aunts (my mum's sisters) and we all lived together under one roof. Over the years, inevitably age catches up with them and some 10 years ago one of them passed on. Now one of my other aunts is fighting for her live, after being diagnosed with nose cancer about a year ago. It was first thought to be sinus, when she was bleeding from her nose. But as it turned out the diagnosis was worsed off and she had to undergo bouts of chemotheraphy. Because she has a sturdy built, she could withstand the toll from the cocktail of medication. However, her immune system was weakened and she, at one stage, had a bad pneumonia and lung infection. Off she went to the intensive care ward, complete with face mask, oxygen tanks and all as the doctors kept her going. At one stage, she slipped into unconsciousness and her family members were told to get to her bedside. Alas, her determination to live brought her back to her feet. She was discharged and returned home to recuperate.

A year has passed since that harrowing moment. Now the cancer has relapsed. Not only that, in true tradition of the disease, the cells spread to her liver. The diagnosis, after a scan last week, was that 40 per cent of the liver is affected. She underwent another bout of chemo, more medication, and she is again sort of "living on the edge". The cancer is not only inflicting a heavy toll on her, but also her daughter who is looking after her. I believe her two sons would also be emotionally affected but perhaps not as much as her daughter who has been ferrying her to and from the doctors because she was living with her.


While often the focus is on the patients, and rightly so I must say, we should also not overlook the needs of the other family members. Here's where emotional support and encouragement from family, friends and colleagues are important. The journey for cancer patients, as I have seen through my encounter with my own parents, is a roller-coaster ride. Just as we have to give encouragement and assurances to the patient, we need to prepare the family members for the inevitable. We need to talk about after-life and the taking away of all the pain and suffering that the patient has to endure. In the meanwhile we have to talk about what the family members will have to do, to keep the flame burning and carry the torch for the next generation.
It's sad to have to be prepared to take a loss but someday, if there's one thing that is sure, we all know that all of us will just have to go. The National Cancer Centre Singapore has team of psychosocial counselors, professionally trained, and they are the ones who handle the difficult moments with the family members and the patients in their last walk together. I just hope and pray my Aunt can make it to the New Year.