I Miss Co-Sleeping, But I’m Glad You’re In Your Crib

Last night was rough. You slept at 9.15pm, woke up at 10pm for a dream feed, continued sleeping until 1am for another feed, then were restless from 2am until 4am. Me? I tried to switch you from your crib to the swing but no matter how much you tried to sleep, you were still restless.

The room was not hot, nor was it too cold. I changed your diaper. I nursed you. Rocked you. Yet you just couldn’t sleep.

Perhaps you’re teething. Or your little but very powerful brain is putting together the sequence to learn how to sit up, to crawl. Or maybe it’s the solid food digesting in your tummy. Or maybe it’s a growth spurt. Or maybe you woke up too early in the morning. Or too late. Or you’re overtired. Or you slept too early.

If I ask anyone, they’d all give me different opinions and advice. But the truth is, nobody knows why babies have good and bad nights, and my philosophy is just to be there. Just take it at a stride, and be there.

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How To Create More Time In A Day

Today’s weight: 63.8kg

If given the choice, I’d definitely want more than 24 hours in a day. There is just so much to do on a daily basis, that many times, the things I really want to do take the back seat to make way for things that I need to do.

Then it hit me.

I’m never going to have enough time until I make time. And the only way to make time, is to plan and find as many shortcuts as possible. So here are mine:

When You Start Making A Positive Change, New Habits Will Follow

Today’s weight: 63.8kg

Today, I bought an e-book from Amazon titled “52 Small Changes”, which is a plan to incorporate small, weekly changes throughout the year to feel happier and healthier. I’ve started to read the book, but I’m not going to implement anything really solid until I change my diet and hit goal weight first, just because I believe it’s best to make small, consistent changes rather than try to incorporate many big ones all at once.

Today is Day 14 of Bright Line Eating, which means that I have been doing BLE for a full two weeks. So far, the biggest change I’ve noticed in myself is that I have stopped snacking. Once or twice I have felt the urge to grab a snack of some sort, but it wasn’t because I was hungry. It was just because it’s a habit. And breaking this habit is becoming much easier, and all I need to do is to tell myself that lunch or dinner will come soon, so there is no need to snack.

I am also pleasantly surprised that I now refrain from eating any kuih without any problem. Before, I was addicted to kuih and just need to have it whenver it’s available with my meal. Now I can look at it and move on. There is little to no cravings left for that, and I am very happy with this progress.

My Success And Your Success Is Most Likely Different – So Just Focus On Yourself

So today’s topic is sparked from something that has been niggling in my mind for a while now, and that is to do with the measure of success.

This post is also a rant, and it is a small word of advice to those who are in the same shoes as I am.

So I get asked. A lot.

“What are you doing with your life? You have so much potential, why are you stopping here, satisfied?”

“When are you planning for your next baby? The best time is when you’re young, you know.” (My husband and I can probably write a book to answer this one).

“Why aren’t you using your degree to do something big?”

“Why haven’t you registered yourself as a certified counsellor? You’re just wasting your master degree, just like that.”

And so on, and so on.

Here’s my question. What are you doing with your life?

Top Tips To Stay Consistent

Today’s weight: 63.8kg

Breakfast: Omelette made of 2 eggs and chopped tomato, bell pepper and mushrooms plus one banana

Lunch: Salad wrap: 4oz minced chicken cooked with tomato puree and italian herbs, and 8oz of veggies (bell pepper, shredded carrot, sliced cucumber and mushrooms), plus 1 Gala apple with 0.5oz peanut butter

Dinner: 4oz cooked white rice with beef cooked with soy sauce and oyster sauce, plus steamed broccoli and carrot

Successful people say that we are the product of our habits.

If we have developed good habits and we stick to them, success comes very easily. If we have bad habits, then the game is tougher because we have to break the bad habit and create new ones. And we already know that the average time needed to develop a habit is 66 days.

Why Am I Doing This Diet Thing Anyway?

Today’s weight: 65.0kg

Breakfast: Omelette made with 2 eggs and chopped bell pepper and tomato, seasoned with lemon pepper. Sliced tomatoes and cucumber. 1 banana.

Lunch: 2oz salmon curry. 5oz salad (iceberg lettuce, tomato and carrot) with mint dressing and 1 hardboiled egg. 3oz asparagus fried with butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Dinner: 4oz cooked white rice, 2oz salmon curry, 6oz salad and asparagus

Even though I know our weight fluctuates daily, it still hits me a bit hard when the scale shows an increase rather than a decrease. I know it’s probably water weight, but yes, on days like this I just need to ground myself to remember why I’m doing this. I may not look it, but at 163cm, my starting weight of 67kg actually has pushed me over the ‘overweight’ line in terms of my body mass index.

Not only that, I feel it. I feel the extra kg’s I’m carrying around, and I don’t like it.

Yesterday, My Family SABOTAGED My Diet Plan

Starting weight: 66.9kg

Today’s weight: 64.7kg

Today is my Week 1 check in and I am happy to report that I have lost 2.2kg total for the first week and have no intention of stopping here. I am absolutely loving the Bright Line Eating meal plan and will give a breakdown of my thoughts in this post.

Bright Line #1: No Sugar

For the first five days, I think I have been following this rule moderately well. For starters, I have not touched sugar at all and have been trying my coffee with a few options like fresh milk and unsweetened cocoa powder to yet no luck – they all still taste bad, so I’m very happy about that.

In terms of consuming anything sweet (minus whole fruits), however, I have diverged slightly. I have once cooked chicken with some honey because we had a guest and I did not bother cooking something separate for myself. I had also mixed coffee with Tamar Coco, and despite it being a dates and chocolate drink, I was sad to see ‘sugar’ as its first ingredient, especially as dates are already naturally sweet. Honey did not triggee me to crave anything sweet in any way. I actually don’t enjoy honey unless if I’m cooking with it, so I probably wouldn’t mind using honey as much because it’s not often (usually two or three times a month, if that) and I don’t enjoy it at all by itself.

Fahim’s Seven Month Update!

Goodness, time has definitely flown. I can’t believe my little boy is seven months! Pretty soon he’ll be crawling and walking and talking and running, and I can’t imagine that happening yet.

Here’s the thing though. I have had older parents tell me that the best age is between 3-4 years old once they have learned to talk and are really curious about the world. Some say that the best age is once they reach one year old and are exploring things.

Personally, I can’t imagine loving and enjoying my baby even more than the current phase he is at. He’s babbling SO much everyday, he’s been working on his crawling skills for the past four weeks (though still not truly mobile yet). He’s rolling around everywhere and he also doesn’t seem to have developed separation anxiety yet. But he is a very happy baby who looks at you very attentively and he is also very generous with his smiles and giggles.

I’m smitten, yes I am.

Why This Is Not Working For Me

Today’s Weight: 64.5kg

Alright. I have a crisis here. First, I’m out of fruit. Second, I’m out of vegetables. And third, I’m out of protein. Literally. There’s not even a single egg left in my fridge. And that has caused my bright lines to go waaay dull today.

And really, what I realised also today is that this Bright Line Eating meal plan is not working out for me. So I’m going to start over by switching things out, which was what I should have done in the first place. But really, it only takes a few days of trying out a new diet for you to figure out what works best for you.

When You Go On A Diet And Husband Brings Home Pizza

Today’s Weight: 64.4kg

Breakfast: 1oz dry whole rolled oats cooked with water and a dash of chicken stock and paprika, an omelette made of 3 eggs (we ran out of fruit today

Lunch: Stuffed bell pepper made from 1 red bell pepper stuffed with ground beef and onions cooked with a little tomato puree and italian herbs, baked and topped with feta cheese

Dinner: 1/2 cup rice with chicken cooked with chillis and salad (shredded carrot, cucumber slices and lightly toasted white mushrooms with mayonnaise and mustard)

I was on a roll.

Really, I could feel how much this low-carb high-protein diet was making me shed my water weight extremely quickly, making me celebrate the small success of losing 2kg in just four days. Then it happened.

My husband brought home two personal-sized Pizza Hut pizzas.

It actually was a very kind gesture (he honestly forgot the no-flour part of this meal plan) as he wanted to just celebrate my effort to lose the baby weight. But yeah. It was a pizza. And I couldn’t say no to such a kind gesture, so I had that pizza instead of my planned dinner which I wrote yesterday (I’m having that dinner today instead).