Carb Flu

Lol…

After the first two days where the low-carb was smoothsailing besides me feeling warmer than usual, the next few days haven’t been as easy. For one or two days, there were periods where i felt sleepy and went to sleep a lot. I also felt a lack of energy, sluggish, didn’t feel like exercising much, but unlike during the raw food diet, i didn’t feel hungry or weak. Recently, i’ve also had mucus and flu and also been feeling very warm. I find i need more water than usual and i sweat a lot more because of my increased body temperature.

At first i thought hmm…is all this meat actually unhealthy, especially since they are commercial meats rather than organic ones?…but hey, i went on the internet to do some searching and found that there’s this thing called the carb flu, a phase where your body transits from burning glucose to fat, where your metabolism changes.

A possible reason for the ill-effects are that when changing from burning glucose to fat in the body, toxins that are usually stored away safely in the fat are now released into the bloodstream to be eliminated, hence the ill-effects.

Mmmhmm, okay, so with this in mind, i’d better get back to my low-carb diet for at least two weeks to see how things go! I’ve been eating much less carbs than i used to, but they’re still more than the 10-20% recommended on a low-carb diet.

Being and Doing

Lately, especially after that Ares Night speech, i’ve felt drawn to inactivity. When i’m outside,i feel like i want to participate and play with people. But alone, i don’t feel drawn to doing much.

I had been interested in various subjects and cool things to experiment. I have books(ebooks) on hypnosis and other cool stuff that i can learn from. But i don’t feel an urge to do these things. I used to imagine myself a few months or years down the road as a energy healer, a hypnotist, a great footballer or various great occupations or identities. But now, there’s no urge or push to be all of these things.

Football is a funny thing. I used to base my world around it and kept thinking about how to be better at it but now i seem to really not care much about how good i am at it. I still enjoy it, but like basketball, i really don’t feel like i want to get good at it or base my life around it.

I realised how ridiculous it is when people say that they want to be a lawyer or doctor or any occupation and i get this feeling that they are basing much of their lives around it as well. Right now, i perceive all these statements as the identity people want to become and take on. When you say “I’m going to be a lawyer”, or “i’m going to be rich”, it literally means that you want to become a lawyer or a “rich person”, so your very life is based upon your role as a lawyer to the amount of money you have.

When people say they want to help people, i don’t doubt that their feelings of compassion and sympathy are genuine. But at the same time, i sense that they are also trying to make an identity of being “loving” and ‘compassionate” and are subtly boasting about how “noble” and “loving” they are.

Is that wrong?:No. It’s just ridiculous. Rather than just being yourself, you look for an identity to become, an idea of being a lawyer, or being rich, or loving, or compassionate, or noble, or cool. Is it fake of course its fake in the sense that it isn’t you.

I used to have a few of such goals. I imagined myself as being a liverpool footballer, having a very inspiring story, going around the world and giving great speeches, urging them to be courageous, to dare to chase their dreams, doing a great lot of good to the world as well as being rich, famous and cool. They weren’t entirely false nor entire genuine, neither entirely self-centered nor selfless. I genuinely wanted people to have the courage to pursue whatever they wanted and abolish their fears. At the same time, i also craved for the admiration that would come with doing such “noble” work. I thought i really wanted to be a professional footballer, but now, i know that was something i had lied myself into believing.

It’s quite crazy how you can literally lose the ability to differentiate between truth and falsehood. I lied to myself and believed those lies and i see the same thing often. People prtending to be cool and posing when they really are shitting themselves over their own insecurities. People mocking other people, labelling them as posers, implying that they are above thoughts and intentions of wantin to impress people.

But living in those lies, trying to live out those identities gave me a lot of energy and impetus to do. Do, do do, any spare time, spending it on improving my skills, plan my training, do do do. I remember a time where i would take every spare moment i had to visualize in order to train and improve my football.  And after playing, i’d look back and keep thinking about the things i did, how i looked like, how i compared, what other people were thinking of me. Whenever i thought about it, i became a little bit more stressful, a little bit more anxious. It was a really crazy life i led then, but i know there are many more people leading even crazier lives.

Now, i’ve lost a lot of those urges to become a certain identity. I doubt i’ll ever reach for another identity again but i may, who knows. But now, left with no identity to reach, i seem to not know what to do. When i have free time, what should i do?

When i’m in school, there’s lots of things to do. Games to play, people to talk to, lessons to learn. But when i’m at home, there’s no urge to do anything. But at the same time, there’s an uneasiness to do something. What is it? Boredom. I didn’t feel the need to do or learn anything, so i really don’t want to do anything. Yet when i don’t do anything, i feel like i’m wasting my time, wasting away.

Ahh, but finally, i realised the answer. I thought about what a human being would do if you took him out of his cultural, social context. What if you took a scholar in ancient china and placed him in modern singapore and vice versa? Or put him in the wild, like our caveman ancestors. Besides acquiring food and water, what would he do in his free time?

I figured out that my uneasiness of doing nothing could possibly be a sort of social conditioning. I look everywhere and people are doing something. Then, i remember eckhart tolle, who said that sometimes, he just sits in stillness for 2 hours. I think what i need to learn is to be at peace with inactivity, with not-doing. Perhaps i may waste away my entire life, and i ought to be at peace with that as well. Perhaps that after a period of inactivity, like what eckhart and the tao te ching says, spontaneous action and energy will arise.

More on the low-carb diet

Ok i’ll be talking about my progress as well as some more information about the low-carb diet.

According to studies (there are studies for nearly every kind of diet, but the evidence behind low-carb diet is one of the best and most scientifically-backed up ones), for a long, long time, (10000 years is considered very short) humans mainly subsisted on animal foods, with some vegetables, fruits and nuts mixed in. Going by evolution, we have evolved into a species which subsists mainly on animal foods.

Now animal foods are made up of fat and protein, and are also very nutritionally dense. Because its very rich nutritionally, there ought to be no problems with vitamin or mineral deficiencies if one mainly subsist on animal foods (70-100%). Fat is often blasted as something that causes all sorts of problems like heart disease etc. However, the research i’ve read says otherwise

Leaving protein out of the equation, you get your calories either from fat or carbohydrates. When taking carbohydrates, they have to be converted into sugar. With the increased levels of sugar, insulin has to be produced. Studies on centenarians show that diets, lifestyle and habits differ, with the oldest woman at 122 being a smoker and alcoholic, but one thing that is consistent is that they all had low levels of insulin. Also, insulin is a fat-storage kind of chemical.

Hence, when you take carbohydrates and it converts into sugar, much of the excess is converted into fat due to the insulin produced. Fats however, do not trigger any insulin response, and hence, are not stored. As such, you won’t get fat unless you eat copious amounts of fat and fats like transfat and polyunsaturated fats. Transfat is artificial and is a really bad fat. Saturated fats however, are completely fine.

So what about carbohydrates? Basically, they are nutritionally unnecessary. Proteins are the building blocks of our body, whereas fat is required for the healthy functioning of the body. The brain is made up of nearly 70% fat! Your body’s desired fuel is fat, not carbohydrates.

The low-carb diet i’m going on is one with minimal carbohydrates and unlimited protein and fat. As the researchers point out though, fat is highly satiety-inducing, meaning you get satisfied quickly, so you won’t consume copious amounts of it unless you pair it up additives or carbohydrates.  Also, it targets animal foods which are nutrition dense, and hence, is overall a very simple diet to follow.

I decided to go on this diet only recently, and today is day two. I’ve decided that i will approach it gradually, cutting out the main carbohydrates of meals such as rice, noodles, and all those starchy foods. However, when there’s no food at home, i’m going to eat my carbohydrates, in the form of healthier options like fruits. I’m telling my mom about it and her response seems to be good, probably because she already heard of some of it from her other friends, so i’m hoping she’ll buy more and more foods that support my diet which isn’t hard really. Also, this allows me to make a smooth transition since my body has time to adapt.

Here;s what i ate today and yesterday

Yesterday

Chicken chop with some lettuce, plus a bowl of bubo hitam

Vegetables, meatballs, luncheon meat, in a soup

One stick of milk chocolate because i was feeling a bit dizzy because i played some intense football and my body probably hasn’t addapted to the diet after two meals!

About 200 grams of low-fat yoghurt

A little bit of horfun, but i mostly ate the veggies, meat, and prawns in it

I felt hungry at night, so i ate a piece of bread with lots of butter on it. Also had a fruit-vegetable juice.

As you see, the first day i still ate quite a bit of carbohydrates, probably 800-1000 calories worth. A low-carb diet usually has about 200-300 calories worth of carbos. I estimate that on a normal day, i’d eat about 1500 worth of calories in carbohydrates. Still, it was a pretty significant shift in the foods.

Today, this was what my meal consisted of

A “healthshake”, 90 calories all of them coming from fat

Two bananas, totaling about 200-400 calories in the morning because i was hungry and had not much foods

Snacked on about 100 grams of almonds

Then i ate a mix of squid, chicken, vegetables and egg with no carbohydrates

At night, i had a fruit-vegetable juice drink

I felt a little bit hungry so i ate a slice of wholemal bread with lots of butter

Today my calorie intake from carbohydrates is more like 500-600. I felt fine, no serious hunger cravings, although i wanted lots of water. I felt i had slightly more energy than usual, and continued doing my exercises with no problems. I’ll be hoping to reduce my carbohydrate intake to around 200-300, leaving them for snacking (:!

This diet is much easier to employ than the raw food diet. I can go nearly anywhere and request a meal without the starchy component. I don’t think i’ll feel “left out” seeing i can gorge of meat, fat and all that tasty stuff. The only thing i’ll feel left out is sugary foods, but even then, i can snack on them as long as it comprises of a minimal component of my diet.

New low carb-high protein trial diet

Okay, so after that rather unsuccessful raw food diet which may have very well been due to my inability to prepare the sufficient amounts of fruit required for the diet to succeed, i’m going to test out a low-carb high-protein diet i’ve read about

Introduction

The most important thing to look at a diet is how it fufills our dietary requirements. Since this is a low-carb diet, our energy needs are going to have to be met by fats. As for vitamins and minerals, i’m still going to liberally consume vegetables to get them, but sticking to the non-starchy kinds.

The premise of this diet is that our body should burn fats rather than carbohydrates as fuel. Too much carbohydrates burdens the body and some of these carbohydrates create a a sort of “addiction” that make it easy to overeat. Fat, on the other hand, quickly satiates, and unless it is mixed with all additives, will not cause major food cravings. Protein is essential for building muscle and various functions of the body. I’m simplifying things a lot here, but this is the very basic picture.

With regards to our “natural” diet, this one looks at the Paleo diet, our caveman ancestors who ate mostly meat with some vegetables and seeds inbetween. One benefit of this diet is that you will supposedly lose fat while gaining muscle if you exercise, because your body turns to its fat stores for energy whilst building muscle with that protein! However, you ought to consume above 1.3k calories daily so that your body doesn’t drop into “starvation’ mode, where metabolism slows down in order to conserve the calorie stores.

Implementation

This is definitely going to be easier than the raw food diet because of the availibility of this diet as compared to the raw food diet. Basically, i’m going to eat a variety of meat, vegetables, nuts and other things, whilst eating minimal amounts of carbohydrates (no bread, rice, sugar) which shouldn’t be too hard besides the look of surprise when i tell the food-sellers that i want chicken rice without rice. I’ve asked my mom to not give me any carbohydrates and if she wants to be a bitch and do it, i’ll just refuse and she’ll waste her money. Woo!

Time period

According to what i’ve read, carbohydrate addictions may take up to two weeks to disappear so i think two weeks is a fair period to test this thing out. Also, two weeks shouldn’t take too much a toll on my wonderfully perfect body so it ought to be safe.

I don’t want to make any judgements about whether this diet is right or wrong, i’m just going to try it out.

Six months after practising the power of now

The past week has been characterized by a strange feeling of lethargy. Its like all i want to do is just to laze around, rest or sleep. I don’t feel like writing, nor revising or even playing football. School is a bit of a chore, but i don’t get unhappy over it. It feels a bit like i’m an “old” man, disinterested in the material world and all i want to do is sit in a rocking chair and enjoy a book.

This year has been a wonderful year. I’ve probably learnt more and improved much more than the past 4 years combined. Girls have made life a little bit more interesting, but by far, the best thing about this year is reading the power of now and learning how to be aware of that awareness behind my thoughts. Ever since i read that book and delved into Eckhart Tolle’s teachings, the level of stress and unhappiness in my life has plummeted so much that its nearly absent nowadays. Sometimes i can’t believe how i lived that stressful, burdensome, competitive life just six months ago.

Six months ago

Six months ago, thrown into a somewhat different environment; girls as schoolmates, a slightly different education system, a drastic loss of form in football which made me terribly unhappy, attempts to “add” more to myself, to ‘become” and “achieve” more, to be seen as a “popular” person. Nearly every moment in my life was filled with thoughts, either reliving my past glories or horrors, otherwise thinking about the future, planning on how to become a good hypnotist, a good student, a good footballer, a popular guy, a girlfriend.

And then, reading the book, i realised the insanity of all of that. Trying to construct an identity i would be proud of, thinking that i would be satisfied when that happens, blinded to the unhappiness and stress i was causing to myself. In struggling to get so much, i missed out on that peace, that inner serenity that is always there. I saw that sometimes, because of those attempts to add to my ego, my relationships with people weren’t very genuine. I was trying to impress, trying to gain something from them.

Sure, i was still a pretty nice guy. I had some integrity and even prided myself on it. I had high EQ so i got along with everyone. I knew how to act most of the time, although occasionally my act fell apart when i was at a loss at what to do. More often than not, i was genuine in my relationships, i never really tried manipulating people unless you count trying to make a good impression as manipulation. Actually it is, but it isn’t considered manipulation in the conventional term. But hell, how much better i am now as a person when i drop my “self” and just BE my self.

The change didn’t come overnight. Gradually, i dropped more and more of my ego. My reactions became less severe. I became very conscious of when i was thinking and through observing and being aware of my thoughts, my thoughts lost their addictive, “trapping” power. Some situations i didn’t know how to deal with, some i learned quickly. I read more and learned more, deepened my understanding, and right now, i feel like i’ve reached a point where i know how to deal with nearly any situation.

Dealing with thoughts and emotions

I think the early changes were being more “aware” and being less fixated on my thoughts. Previously, i was addicted to thinking, but detachment from thoughts was the most obvious principle so i experienced more and more peace. I learned to surrender to my emotions, not to fight or hide my unhappiness, disappointment or frustration, but simply to yield to them. It was a relief, after spending so much of my time wondering what i should do to tackle my unhappiness, when all i needed to do was to just feel that unhappiness. So the first major step was learning to deal with my emotions and thoughts.

The peace and perfection that is always present

The next change probably came when i began to realise i didn’t need to become anything. Intellectually, i understood that, but only after a while, weeks or months before i really understood and “got” it. I experienced a certain level of peace during my first major step, and it opened me to a new perspective. The realisation that i didn’t need to be anything! What a relief! From struggling about what identity i should construct and how i was going to go about it, it dawned on me that all these identities were worthless, unncessary, and only created struggle and suffering. Whilst searching for all these identities, i had the greatest sense of self already within me; Myself!. An essence, a character that isn’t defined by anything, not be a job, not by popularity, not by talents or skills, yet a unique, wonderful Being that didn’t need any tinkering with. A perfection that was already there! The second major step was learning that i was already perfect.

Relinquishment of the material

With that realisation also came the giving up of the material world. Money, fame, status, just didn’t seem that important anymore. Gradually, my attachment to these things weakened and faded away. And the related issues of a safe and secure job, ensuring a bright future, getting good grades or playing well in football naturally went away, or at least, decreased substantially in importance and attachment. During block tests, i had very little stress if at all.

Twice, my mother asked me what i was going to do in the future and why i took my current subject combination. I told her that i didn’t know and if my job required it, i would then learn it. I realised the illusory nature of our fears about poverty, future, or failure. I told her that the the worst that could happen was that i became a cleaner. If not, i’d just die. The worst that happens is death and what is to be feared about that? Compared with a lifetime of worry, stress and struggling, i’d take death anyday.

And then another wonderful realisation came to me. Now that i was free of all these fears, now that i was no longer limited or restricted by a need to have a “good” job or a secure future, i was truly free to pursue whatever i wanted. I could do the things i loved and enjoyed and not be affected by how secure or safe the job was. I realised that i could go into multiple careers, trying new things, new jobs, learning new skills, playing games, computer games, sports. I could go professional, be an olympian, a footballer, a hypnotist, a healer, a writer, an actor. Free of the illusory fears, i could finally lead a real life, a life that depends on what i want in that moment rather than one planned years ago.

And much of that was translated in reality. I spoke up and gave feedback in front of the school, something i never did during my four years in high school, and to top it off, made it funny. I went up and gave an inspirational speech, although that was also affected by my remaining ego and fears. I haven’t relinquished everything yet! For one friday afternoon and night, i hung out with the ares fac comm and got a free meal from Mr Teh who had meant to treat the entire fac comm but because i coincidentally happened to be hanging around them, he offered me to come along. What is special about that? It may sound silly and indeed, it is silly, but there was a voice in me that warned that i’d appear to be desperate to be part of the “fac comm”, the “in” gang, and honestly, i sensed that there was some of that feeling in the fac comm as well. But hey, i went “fuck it” in my head, let them think what they want and just went along.

Learning to surrender to every moment

During the past 2 months or so, i learned a new lesson. Previously, i felt awkward and uncomfortable around some people, probably because more often than not, they hurt my ego. For a while, i didn’t know what to do. I struggled with it for a while. And then, an insight came to me. Why not just surrender to the awkwardness and discomfort? So thats what i did. I just allowed myself to feel whatever i was feeling, and then, miraculously, i started communicating in a much more genuine, connected manner. I no longer tried to appear as if i was unaffected or put on a front of bravado. When i was at a loss at what to do, i just kept quiet and still and felt that awkwardness, that confusion. And automatically, i felt more and more comfortable around these people. When i saw people i knew, i no longer felt a need to say hi in a very obvious manner, but just nodded and acknowledged them as i felt like.

Simply put, the lesson learnt here was to surrender to every moment, and with this last lesson, it seems like i’ve found the answer to everything. In everything i do, just surrender to whatever i felt. No acting, no pretending, no avoiding, no distracting myself, just surrendering and letting myself feel and be whatever i felt like.

Life right now

Six months after reading and practising the power of now, my life has taken a really huge change. Externally, it seems very similar, but internally, i’ve transformed a life of stress, frustration, anxiety, superficiality, ego, into one that is predominantly peaceful, genuine and free from problems. I still have traces of the ego left, somtimes thoughts still interrupt me, i still feel a little bit uncomfortable around some people, although the discomfort has greatly diminished.

More and more, life looks more and more like a game, where i have nothing to lose but experiences and fun to gain. But right now, for the past week, i’ve just been feeling like lying down and resting peacefully. Some part of me urges me to study and revise and all, but i choose to go with the flow and do and be what i feel like doing. It doesn’t matter either way, anyway.

Another change in my diet

Ahha, i know that i’ve jumped around a bit with what i wanted to do with my diet so i’m not going to say that i’ve “stabilized” at anything yet. There is still some uncertainty between the optimal diet because there are indeed many, many aspects of food such as protein,carbohydrates,fats,sugars,minerals,calories,vitamins, toxins, and then all the various chemistry changes that may take place due to oxidation, water, heat, discussions on the “natural” diet versus the “realistic” diet.

But first, let me tell you my change in diet. The change is now to include cooked foods! Wowie what a roundabout rollercoaster vroooom! But of course, i have my reasons for it.

I was again reading about raw foods when i came across this website that tackled the main problem i had. Hunger cravings, not being able to eat enough to sustain my energy usage. The following will further elaborate and explain the problem.

This afternoon, i went shopping and bought 11.30 dollars worth of produce and thought about how sustainable it was on a raw food diet, I’d have to have lots of calories, which will probably come from bananas and the few calorie-dense fruits because most fruits don’t provide a really huge amount of calories. It ranged from 600 dollars to 400 dollars a month, including raw vegetables of course, and whilst that isn’t a lot, i’m not working yet so my mom will be the one taking the burden on.

Another problem is the availibility of raw food outside of home. The school canteen sells a small piece of fruit for 40 cents and i’m guessing it provides maybe 30 calories? I’d have to spend 4 dollars to get 300 calories which isn’t even close to meeting 20 percent of the estimated 2500 calories i probably need.

Throughout the latter part of my raw food diet, i had the throat and chest sensations of hunger nearly constantly, which i guess, contributed to my craving for nuts since nuts are very caloric-dense. But the information i read and explained previously will tell you that fats aren’t a very healthy source of calories.

So there’s a bit of a paradox. I need to eat large amounts of fruit in order to sustain myself and although it may be the ideal diet, it may not be very feasible. I’d have to carry bunches of bananas everywhere i go! However, i was still thinking of continuing with this diet until i came across another website that compared cooked food versus raw food and the gist of it was that

1. Cooking foods does reduce the nutrition value, but not as much as the raw foods community suggested

2. The toxins produced by cooking foods is highly dependent. Steaming provides little extra toxins whereas frying and grilling are more toxin-producing.

3. Cooking food can actually improve the nutrition value. Starches are more digestible, things that inhibit digestion of vitamins and minerals are eliminated, toxins eliminated (some nasty foods become edible after cooking) etc.

4. Cooking food is an adaptation that may or may not be for the better.

5. Raw foodist arguments are sometimes exxaggerated and unscientific.

Of course, i’m not 100% in agreement with what the website says, but it did give me a different perspective. All in all, it boils down to having the most ideal as well as most feasible diet. The feasibility part was a bit lacking in the all raw diet, mainly due to the lack of calories.

As such, i’m going to put in these changes in my diet.
-Reintroduction of grains and wheat (Rice and noodles) (mainly for calories)
-Cooked vegetables (a lot more feasible than raw for me now)
-A 50-50 approach. I’m considering going half raw, half cooked food.

However, i’m not planning to go back on my old cooked food diet. I’m going to cut down on meat, salt, and see for healthier methods of cooking, healthier starchers, and heavily cut down on processed foods (chips and shit).

I learnt a lot of all these by going through these websites. I’m going to post it here so you guys can take a look and explore if you want. You can also see how my thought processes were modified since i’m posting them in chronological order.

http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/introduction/
http://drbass.com/
http://www.rawguru.com/i11.html
http://www.beyondveg.com/

Cheers!

Cooked food break

As you guys know, i had a 2 day cooked food break and i’m now almost all the way back to my raw food diet. I still ate some sweets now and then but i’m probably going to eliminate them soon. Mooncakes are still thumbs up (:!

My return to cooked food had some pretty radical effects. First thing, i couldn’t eat as much. I took a longer time to eat, chewing a lot more thoroughly then in the past. Also, my stomach didn’t really agree with it, and there was a very mild, very bearable ache, like it was struggling to digest the food or something.

Another thing was that i shat a lot more. I think i shat like 3-4 times on Ssunday. I’m guessing that the raw food diet before that strengthened my body so i digested and cleared the food quicker and faster than before. I also had a recurrence of a pimplish thing near my nose which was absent on the raw food diet.

I’m guessing that’s my body’s way of saying you should go back to raw food so that’s what i’m goin to do.

MAF AND BREAK FROM RAW FOOD DIET

Today was MAF. Coincidentally, i also decided to let myself just enjoy the occasion and take a break from the raw food diet. When i reached home, there wasn’t much fruits left, so i guess i’ll give myself a two-day break.

Anyway today was fun! Played in the past versus present competition which was a real work-out after a relatively long period of inactivity. After the first game in which we won 3-0 thanks to a hat-trick from fabian and incredible defending from yours truly, my hamstring felt tight and i could feel the lactic acid in the muscles already. The sun was pretty damn hot too. In the next game, i didn’t really feel good playing. I think the sun got to me but i got a bit sick of playing so i just did my role without trying too much. I also didn’t have the motivation to command my team.

We lost 2-0 in the second game and, eeeeww, there was some pretty rough play going on. This malay player was really rough, worse than KONG which is pretty bad already and the other teams were pretty pissed at the malay player. Note, most of the players were seniors who came back from NS and were very aggressive and strong. They kicked rather often in a bid to tackle, not really caring whether they bruise anyone, and all of them paid 5 dollars to play. So…it takes some additional violence to be considered unacceptable in the court…

And then we had a 6-6 thriller against tag’s brother’s team, Incredibles, i think it was 2-0 to them, then 2-2, then 3-2. then 3-3. then 5-3, then 5-6 (WE CHEERED LIKE MAD), and then 6-6 with about a minute left. Wooow. Strangely i felt better for the third game, had more motivation and fire to play even when we were 5-3 down. But the last game was pretty miserable. My soles were aching just from walking, i had a pretty big bruise on my right shin that hurt when i walked, and my legs felt heavy and sore. I felt a bit sick in the head and couldn’t really play in a proper state of mind. I wanted to muster some fire into my play, tried a dribble and got tackled, and couldn’t stoke it up. And so, with the last game we lost 3-1, ending our last game and hopes of qualifying for the knockout ):

It was really pretty fun even though the court was a pissifyingly small size (and we still scored 12 goals within 15 minutes!) The team spirit was good too, everyone encouraged one another, but after the first game, i didn’t really feel like commanding the team and our formation and shit became a problem. Also, we had plenty of shooting chances but it just wasn’t our day, with clear shots straying wide or straight to the keeper(i think if we had aran we would have breezed through)

Okay okay, so by now, word had spread around about the roughness of the malay and kong and people who had gathered to watch were pretty unanimous about it. I didn’t see the quarterfinals, but the semi-finals wasn’t a pleasant affair. I think most of us were rooting for the other team but kong’s team edged through through penalties. More tension!

And then the final! I believe nearly everyone was rooting for aran’s team (him zheng wei zenghao iype fok wincoln). Ahhh unfortunately fok bundled in an own goal early in the game much to the crowd’s dismay, and nearly scored another own goal moments later. Tension builds up as aran shows his displeasure at the malay’s antics and the crowd also voices their displeasure! Still, the score was 0-1 and after a few minutes, kong’s team seemed the more threatening one.

ENTER IYPE! A ball that wincoln completely misses his kick rolls to a black boy named Iype and with a swing of the leg, the ball rockets into the bottom corner!  AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!, cheering at the 1-1 score. Kong’s team seems a bit stunned by it, but the same sort of non-threatening play continues due to the small size of the court and another goal seems unlikely.

ENTER IYPE! AGAIN! With a surge up the center, he unexpectedly toe pokes the ball, sending it zooming under the goalie and the CROWD GOES WILD!!!WILDER THAN EVER!!! Now kong’s team really looks stunned but the momentum has clearly shifted. The rabid dogs that go by the names of aran zeng hao iype, zheng wei and wincoln nipped and charged around the court, hounding every move of the other team. Their attack suddenly seems toothless and aran’s team creates a few chances with zenghao missing an open goal from 2 metres.

However, at 2-1, there is still the chance of a comeback so there’s still tension in the crowd. The malay does a few more rough antics that gets the crowd riled up as a chorus of “OI!”s are heard. And then, whilst chasing for the ball near the wall, zhengwei strikes him at the knees, sending him crashing against the wall. A chorus of cheers erupt again, although this time more muted as the crowd doesn’t exactly approve of that move although they were probably hopin to see it happen.

Then with a trademark shot from nowhere, aran makes it 3-1 and a win is nearly certain now. OH AND WILSON FOK IS UNLEASHED! With his lengthy leggy limbs, he gets in a few hard tackles and he seems more aggressive than his usual calm and composed self. But anyway, the malay is subbed off for kong, and kong being a much less skilful player, means that the team has nearly nil chance of coming back. And indeed, aran’s team continues to dominate, with aran scoring another to put the game beyond doubt at 4-1(more cheers!)

Mmm, so it was a satisfying result, with the good guys winning the bad guys! A happy ending for this story with IYPE being the hero.

Okay soooooooooo MAF! wAS OKAY-OKAYISH, the song and dance sessions was okay but not really high-inducing. But we had fun making fun out of the video of the council at work for MAF. Ahha, we were saying no one wants to watch the video of them and this was their moment of fame, so on with the guai-lan shouts! I went “NO ONE WANTS TO WATCH THIS!” and “ENOUGH LA!”, and then when the video finally ended, we did a “ENCORE! ENCORE!” Ahh those were the really fun moments!

RAW FOOD DIET TO PROMOS (8)

DAY 11

I feel like i’ve gone past a hump. Oh yeah man, a hump. I read and listened to more information with regards to raw food and i know i’ve jumped around here and there but i feel i’ve finally settled on an optimal diet. The optimal diet is about 50/50 fruits and veggies and a minimal amount of fats. I got his info from an inerview with a raw food coach and its making a lot of sense to me now.

First, our body needs calories. Veggies provide minimal amount of calories but are very nutrient-dense. So the choice is between fats or carbohydrates(sugars). Nuts are pretty hard to crack open so its unlikely that we subsisted mainly on them in a natural environment. Fruits on the other hand are delicious and easy to get. Furthermore, the energy is a lot easier to get than fats. I’ve also never heard of someone subsisting solely on nuts before. Fruitarians do exist! Also, the human digestive system digests fruits far quicker and easier than fats and proteins, which nuts are mostly made of. In any case, fruits seems to be the way to go for calories.

But then, what about all the problems mentioned in fruitarians? I have a feeling that its because they didn’t consume enough veggies to privde the mineral balance for the sugar. Also, veggies provide loads of vitamins and nutrients! I also heard that fruits will tell you when enough is enough. I’ve experienced that myself. After eating some furuits, i just felt i couldn’t eat anymore and either hrew it away or put it in the fridge. In this case, fruitarians who have problems probably over-consume fruits, resulting in their problems.

Anyway, i’ve also decided that the reason i find the lettuce at home foul is because it DOES taste foul. Another pack of cabbage, different variety with much darker leaves tasted very palatable to me and i could eat it with no problems. The problem-lettuce probably happened to be a bitter lettuce.

Reading all the raw food recipes have been tempting but i havent been able to do any of them because all i have is a juicer. But hey, if i can complete 11 day with only a juicer, surely the next 20 or so days wont be difficult when i get a food prcessor when my mom comes back from cambodia!?

transitioning

Sometimes its weird when i feel a lot of saliva as if i was supposed to eat, but i dont find the fruits tempting. I read a few websites and they suggest that its a transitional phase where my body is getting used to the new ‘requirements’. Maybe this is why i have a craving for peanuts, which i’ve consumed a lot today and yesterday!

I’ve also noticed some changes in my body. I seem to have lost some body fat around the midsection which is interesting because i was pretty lean to begin with. Okay, tomorrow is MAF, got to prepare some foods for the entire day im going out

Raw food diet to promos (7)

Wooohoo

Okay i’ve decided to make some changes after some MORE READING, some of the information contradicting the previous one.

It’s about fruits. From what i’ve read, fruits, especially the acidic ones, leech minerals from your body, hence many fruitarians end up having teeth decay and the shit. Also, a lot of the apes who are closely linked to us eat only small amounts of fruit. Yeah, i know, i’m not really explaining why and all but if you’re interested, you can google dr stanley bass. I was a bit put-off when i saw that he experimented with mice since i had the impression that mice may have different food habits from humans but then he said that humans responded equally well.

Anyway, i’ve also found that i’m a bit put-off by eating. LOL. From an empty stomach, now i just feel like eating minimal amounts of food. Fruit, very delicious and attractive at the start, is beginning to be a bit nausea-iinducing. I’ve found peanuts (which are not really nuts) to be far more satisfying.

Also, what i’ve read is pointing towards the direction of more and more vegetables! And indeed, the thought of tomatoes does seem pretty attractive to me right now but unfortunately there’s no tomatoes in the house. Instead, there’s lettuce and green pepper. When i bit into the lettuce, it tasted like gasoline (i’ve never tasted gasoline but the smell and the taste…they click) and i just spat out most of it. Maybe this batch of lettuce sucks. The other time when i ate lettuce with mixed nuts and dried fruits, it was pretty dam satisfying.

The green pepper in the fridge…i didn’t really like eating it raw although it didn’t make me spit or gag like the lettuce did. The solution, it seems, is to eat some green seedless grapes i have at home so that’s what i did. I’ve read that eating vegetables with sugary stuff will somewhat offset or reduce the bad of sugar…i’m thinking of doing that for MAF. LETTUCE IN ONE HAND, MOONCAKE IN THE OTHER.

I’ve been thinking…what the freak why do i still have eye shit coming out of my eyes? And i’m wondering if its to do with the sugar…Also…perhaps my palate will change in time so that i’ll enjoy vegetables rather than be turned off by them…perhaps the reason why my tastebuds haven’t adapted yet is because i went from a standard diet straight into a raw food one.

Questions, questions. But hey, this is DAY 10!