TT Thursday – Malaysia style; my Weight Loss Challenge Week 20

TT Thursday – Malaysia style; my Weight Loss Challenge Week 20

Some Malaysian weight loss advice

I was going to do another celebrity chef weight loss partly because there is usually a few recipes floating around them with their new strategies. So I saw where Master Chef judge Gregg Wallace lost 3 stones / 42 pounds through cutting fried food, eating more vegetable, lifting weights and curtailing his drinking.  He recalls he spent 3,000 pounds (more than US$3,000 folks) one night.  Ok, I admit I am wondering, “What the hell was he drinking?”  But then I saw that this year he disqualified a Malaysian on Master Chef for not cooking Chicken Redang crispy enough.  He set off an international furor because chicken redang is not a crispy dish; it’s a tender succulent and dear to the hearts of many Malaysians.

So this set me to wondering how people cut calories in Malaysia.  Wouldn’t those be cool recipes?

Malaysian Joanna Soh wrote a great post “The Ultimate Malaysian Healthy Food Swaps“.

Soh suggests eat Tosai or Chappati instead of the popular Roti Canai.   Since I didn’t know what any of these were, I thought I’d head over to you-tube to see if they had a video on making Tosai or Chappati.  Both foods came over from India.  What many people don’t know is that Malaysia has a many Malaysians whose ancestry traces back to Malaysia, India and China so their cuisine has antecedents from these various cultures.

Roti Canai is made from flour and ghee (the closest analogy to ghee is clarified butter). Tosai is made from rice, beans and fenugreek seeds. The 54-second first video shows a guy eating a Tosai so you can see how it’s typically served and then the second video shows how to make one with the recipe in the very beginning.  They come with dipping sauces like curry which adds to the calorie count. Tosai looks like a kind of a crepe.  Videos show that many stalls tops them with various things like eggs, veggies and sauces so I don’t think it’s often eaten just plain.

 

 

Another suggestion Soh makes is swap fried chicken for tandoori chicken.

There are probably easier videos but I liked this one by Shagufta Jafferi’s My Kitchen My Dish since it looks very authentic but it’s done in a microwave.  Also helpful, she put the recipe ingredient list in her you-tube description.  (right click on the You-Tube icon once you start playing, then click on “open link in new tab” to get to the you-tube page directly) 11.11 minutes long.  Tandoori chicken is pretty popular so you won’t have any problems finding a recipe in you want to cook it in an oven.

One of the ingredients mentioned in the video is “hung curd” which I don’t think many grocery stores here carry it.  You can make your own.  It is yogurt drained of all water. I’d probably start with greek yogurt or something like that because it’s already been drained a bit.  Put it in a muslin cloth.  Hang it up to drain for a few hours.  Once the water seems to have drained out, squish the bundle to squeeze out any other moisture.  That’s it.  Now you have your own hung curd.

Joanna Soh also suggests if you eat out, buy grilled or steamed instead of fried or battered, add more vegetables instead of rice, and also said it’s better to cook in than to eat out.  Very good advice.

I hope you enjoyed the visit to Malaysia for losing weight advice.  Let me know if you’d like me to bop around to other countries for more.


Week 20 Weight Loss — Bad Girl, slaps my hand

Okay, honestly this week was a total fail.  It got cold.  Well cold to me. Temperatures are hitting 50s at night even though we are still hitting 80s during the day.  So what does that have to do with eating healthy.  Well, I fell off the wagon.  My favorite foods during the winter is Okinawa soba and ramen.  It’s like my cold comfort food.  Part of what I’ve been eating to eat healthy in the last few months was salads, raw veggies like tomatoes and fruits.  All of which is eaten cold.  And I didn’t want that.  I wanted hot.  And like a kid on a tantrum, I ate Okinawa sob and ramen for four nights running and gained four pounds!  I’ve battled it down to a gain of two pounds so I’m hitting 215 this week instead of 213 last week.

I’m doing better today and stayed off the carbs.  Why?  A simple expedient.  I’ve layered up.  I find if I’m warm on the outside, I don’t try to get warm on the inside with Okinawa soba.  Doh.  Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.

Changes happen and they can temporarily derail you because for a while your default comfort zone is still going to be the old way.  So that comfort zone might be sugar, salt, carbs or fat and it will pull you back on occasion.  It’s normal.  You just have to pull back, reassess, and eat/live in your newer healthier style.  So for me, I am going to have to roast vegetables to have hot food on hand, bundle up so that I am always warm, and stay off the damn carbs swimming in hot liquid.  At least I can make tandoori chicken.

Goes to show me, I shouldn’t have complained about losing just one pound a week for a few weeks.  Throws salt over my shoulder.  (New weight loss superstition : do not complain about any weight loss as insufficient — you might gain!)

So that’s it for this week.  I’m keeping it short since this is late and at 4:30am, I should have been to bed ages ago.  I hope to report something better next week.  I think this week though, I might try tandoori chicken. It really looks good.

 

Gregg Wallace
Wikipedia

The Ultimate Malaysian Healthy Food Swaps
Joanna Soh, August 30, 2017

The Secret of a Diet Meal Plan for Malaysian
by Aisyah Patthi, Blog Aisyah, July 11, 2018

My Kitchen My Dish
Shagufta Jafferi

 

17 Replies to “TT Thursday – Malaysia style; my Weight Loss Challenge Week 20”

  1. The Hubs and my eldest son did lose weight when they went on a tosai or chappati diet. Me? I still love my daily fix of nasi lemak which is not a very healthy option but totally worth the calories!

    Looks like you did your homework well, Mary! That was a very spot-on post on one of Malaysia’s most iconic foods. You are amazing!

    1. Yay! I did a little research because when I saw the furor over the Master Chef judging a Malaysian dish incorrectly, I realized I was missing a great opportunity not looking at how other countries handle losing weight but I didn’t want to put my foot in it like he did. So I did a bit of research.

  2. Not a total disaster. just a minor set back–as long as you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get back with the program. Weeks since I been to a restaurant as I always eat badly when I go. What’s the fun of going if I don’t? LOL

    1. playing catch up. Thanks for the encouragement and these days I seem to be doing much better. I agree with you about restaurants. I do eat more when I go but it’s nice to have a treat now and again.

        1. me too. If I could afford it, it would probably be most days actually. I’ve had friends who prefer their own cooking to eating out but I’m the opposite. I prefer other cooking to my own. You get a chance then to taste things or combinations you don’t make

  3. When it gets cold I want comfort food too. Eating out isn’t good for me either. I sometimes to the healthy dishes, but often I go for the dishes I crave. It’s so hard. I still say you’ve come a long way and you can reset the clock and move forward.

    Have a fabulous day and weekend. ♥

    1. Thank you for the encouragement. I can totally understand why you would want comfort food in the winter, so do I. I like hot food in the winter (and melty like gooey cheeses, yum). I’ve just decided to give myself two cheating days a week so I know I can have them soon. The all or nothing approach isn’t working during winter. Especially now that cakes and cookies are coming out. You sound like you eat pretty healthy a lot of the time though. I’m getting there. Thanks for the encouragement!

      1. The eating healthy is because we have to or we’re sick. If we eat rich food we pay dearly for it. You’ll see as you get older. Gooey cheese is wonderful, but it would do me in. Enjoy your two days of eating what you want. That’s the ticket. 🙂

        1. Ooooh, no cheese. That would be hard. I don’t mind the joints hurting as I get older but I’d have to cut certain foods permanently. But also I’m realzing as I get older that good health and feeling good is to be treasured — something I took for granted when I was younger.

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