I'm on a diet!

Dieting. What a big word! Especially for a food lover like me. After all, my biggest obsession is chocolate! So, ever since the Idul Fitri, I can't help but gaining a few weight from all those kaastengels and cheesecake I ate (I know, I know, I have no one else to blame but myself). I keep telling myself that I will start eating less and excercise more, but what can I say, there's always movie to translate and work to do in front of my computer (excuse and excuse. Yeah I know).

Then, several weeks ago, Mas said that he sometimes felt pain in his leg especially when he sat down during prays. I told him to go to the doctor, but he said that it must be because of his weight. Douh! I've been telling him to loose some (yeah right. Hark who's talking, girl!). Later that week, he informed me that the pain had diminished, due to the change of his lunch menu. That's news for me. But I was still concerned about it, so I made a mental note to find out about healthy eating habit.

Last week, the four of us went to a book store. There, as always, I browsed in the food section. I came upon a book titled Food Combining by Andang Gunawan. Interested, I picked it up and started to check it out. It turned out to be a very interesting and informative book. It explained about human digestive system in a simple way that can be understood by everyone. It described types of food and how we process it in our body. It also gave a thorough explanation about food combining, complete with examples, menu and recipes. Without thinking much further, I decided to buy the book and tried the food combining method.

Since I gained weight, not only I can't wear most of my clothes, but my stomach also felt bloated most of the time. I suspected it caused by my chronic ulcer (well, at least I suspect it chronic because I already suffer from it since I was in high school). Even though I ate a lot to avoid it (which resulted in my obesity), it never cured completely and I have to avoid eating acidic food like orange if my stomach was empty. I also had irregular bowel movements, bad breath and felt fatigue often. All in all, I concluded that it's time to make a change.

I started to apply the food combining diet on monday. From the book, I found out that I should only eat light food such as fruit in the morning. I started the day with drinking two glasses of warm water with a squeeze of lime . To be honest, it frightened me. I couldn't imagine what happened to my empty stomach if I do it. But I pluck my courage up and I did it. Much to my surprise, my ulcer didn't occur. In fact, It never occurred even once in these 5 days I did the food combining method! Hoorraay!! It's true that I felt a little light-headed on the first day, but that's it! I even started to feel lighter and had more energy than before. My body seemed to be loosing some of its fat and I've only been doing it for 5 days! It's amazing!

Actually, the food combining method was simple. We had to arrange the food that we ate so that our body could process it thoroughly and get rid of the waste more efficiently since the unprocessed food tend to stay in our digestive system and root there. No wonder I had bad breath! Anyway, there were 3 major nutrient substances that held an important role in our body. They were carbohydrate, protein and fat. Human digestive system could not process too many substances at the same time. To avoid that, we needed to arrange our eating habit so that we wont' be eating too many major substances at the same time. For example, we shouldn't eat rice and meat because that would mean carbohydrate and protein content was almost the same and we would need a lot of energy to process them. So instead of getting energy from our food, we wasted the energy to process it. Imagine that! What's more important, if we did it in the long run, we would develop diseases such as high blood pressure, asam urat, heart attack, kidney failure, tumor, etc.

The suggested diet was like this. In the morning, you ate only fruit until noon. For lunch, you ate a portion of vegetables and carbohydrate like rice or noodle. Or, you ate a portion of vegetables and meat without rice. For dinner, you ate a portion of vegetables with meat or with carbohydrates, depend on your lunch. Between meal, you could eat fruit or juice, of course without any additional sugar. That's it. Simple, isn't it?

Well, actually, it's not that simple. I mean, you have to read the book to understand the method completely. I mean, it explains about milk, beans, vegetable-fruit, etc. that you need to know before you start the diet, but to make it simpler, the conclusion is as above. One thing I like most about this method was that I didn't have to starve to make it work. God knows I couldn't stand eating small portion of food. That's why usual diet system didn't work for me. Anything that involved weighing food and sizing them didn't tempt me. This week, I still ate a bowl of rice every day, one time I even add noodles as a side dish! I ate delicious grilled chicken, rawon, teriyaki (I tried the recipes in the book and man! They are delicious!), but I still loose fat. My stomach never bloated again, my bad breath was history, and I could loosen my bowels regularly now. Alhamdulillah. On top of it all, I never feel hungry! Hehehe....

I am now in the process of persuading my husband and both my parents to do the same thing and eat the same way like me. They are intrigued, but still hesitated to do it *sigh. My parents have even bought the book but they haven't read it yet. Ah well, I'm sure they will follow my lead after they see the result with their own eyes and do the food combining method as well, and get rid of those handful of pills (it's literally a handful) that they take everyday for their high blood pressure, asam urat, ulcer, and God knows what.

Reuni Fisika angkatan 91

It's been quite a long time since I last saw my friends from Physics. After we graduated from ITB, we practically never had the chance to get together anymore. That's why when one of them suggested that we had a little reunion, complete with our spouse and family, I readily agreed.

We met on saturday, Feb. 9, in Pras's house in Pondok Gede. I previously asked Cholid, the EO, whether we need to bring some food or not. But Cholid said we could just collect some money and give it to Pras afterward. It's simpler. Ok, I agreed. But as I promised to bring one of my 'creation', I still brought a blackforrest cake and spaghetti (because my children are picky eater, so I'd better bring something that they really like).

On the D-day, we arrived at the place the same time with Yayan and his family. Cholid and his new wife were already there. And then I did a stupid thing. I dropped the cake that I very meticulously prepared the night before. Gone was the beauty of that cake. Bummer! Fortunately (typical Indonesian. Always look for the bright side), it's not completely damaged. So it's still edible. Meanwhile, Pras and his wife (and I guess, his mother as well) have prepared some delicious cuisine for the occasion. The ox tail soup was definitely tasty, not to mention the pangsit which was served with mayonaise sauce (honestly, I never thought pangsit could go with mayonaise but it was great). Yummy!!

Later, Jose and his family and then Remon arrived. As Remon was the only single amongst us, he resignedly became the object of other ridicules (so much for the promise of not asking, not teasing you, ya Mon? Hehehe...). And then Aas and his son arrived. As Reyhan was the only boy in the group (because all other kids were girls), he was glad to have another boy to play with. And how they play! Meanwhile, Izza, as always, was willing to play with other girls as long as they didn't touch her toys (or to be exact, the host's toys which she considered her own :D). But then she played with Jose's and Yayan's kids, who were older than her.

Finally, it's time to go home. But of course, we took some picture first. My sone and Aas's son were some of the photographers, so the pictures you're about to see were taken by Reyhan. I should say they're not bad. Not bad at all.


PS: Anyway, I want to tell you the fate of my cake. Despite its crumble look, everyone still love it. As I said to them, the accident merely change its look, not the taste. And it's almost gone by the time we were ready to go home, and I was very glad about it :D. Anyway, it's the original looks.

(Ini dia) Foto-foto rumah kami

Akhirnya, sempet juga upload foto2 ini (sesuai janji sebelumnya). It's not much, but it's our home. Enjoy!!

Ini waktu masih berupa tanah kosong dan baru 50% selesai

Ini udah 75% selesai.

Dan inilah hasil akhirnya. Si adek ikut mejeng depan rumah.