Scarsdale Diet Menu

So life has been somewhat hectic to say the least. Between shuttling back and forth from KL to Singapore and work, I've barely had the luxury of time to sit in front of the comp and pen my thoughts down.

So a few posts back, I believe I was ranting about my weight issues and and thereafter making a conscious effort to try to lose the weight that I have gained over the last few years. I started out at 70kgs and now stand at 66.5kgs. Yesterday, my boyfriend and myself started round 2 of the "Scarsdale Diet". The good thing I noticed was that in trying to maintain my healthy eating habits while on the 2 weeks interim, I managed to maintain my weight (something which was hard for me to do before!). 

Going into this with a real effort to make it a lifestyle change has really been fruitful and its changed the way I view food, I still indulge every once so often but I do so to kill the cravings and leave it as that. I'm thankful that my boyfriend supports me in doing this and he has been especially enjoying the changes I've been making to my cooking. However, I should probably mentioned that the original Scarsdale Diet is extremely strict and does not allow a lot of things. Because I am a somewhat fussy eater I have made some changes to our diet which also make it easier to follow. Also, we have had many friends who have asked for a copy of our diet and are attempting the first round as we speak so I thought i'd share it here.

Here is the Weekly Eating Schedule (which you are to keep for 14days):

Breakfast:
One half grapefruit (or fruits in season)
One slice of protein bread -NO SPREADS!
Coffee/Tea (no sugar, cream, milk or honey)
** Alternative fruits: 1/2 cup diced fresh pineapple, 1/2 mango, 1/2 papaya, 1/2 cantaloupe or a generous slice of honeydew or melon.

	Lunch	Dinner
Mon	Assorted cold cuts*** Tomatoes - sliced, broiled, or stewed Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water	Fish or shellfish, any kind  Combination salad, any greens and vegetables as you wish One slice protein bread, toasted Grapefruit - if not available, use fruits in season Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water
Tues	Fruit salad, any combination of fruits Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water	Plenty of broiled, lean hamburger Tomatoes, lettuce, celery, olives (limit 4), cucumbers and/or Brussels Sprouts Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water
Wed	Tuna fish or salmon salad (oil drained off) with lemon and vinegar dressing Grapefruit, or melon, or fruit in season Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water	Sliced roast lamb***, all visible fat removed Salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water
Thurs	Two eggs, any style (no fat used in cooking) Low-fat cottage cheese Zucchini, or string beans, or sliced/stewed tomatoes One slice of protein bread, toasted Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water	Roast, broiled or barbequed chicken (skin and visible fat removed before eating) Plenty of spinach, green peppers, string beans Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water
Fri	Assorted cheese slices (preferably lowfat) Spinach, all you want One slice of protein bread, toasted Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water	Fish or shellfish Combination salad (any fresh vegetables desired, raw or cooked) One slice of protein bread, toasted Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water
Sat	Fruit salad, any combination of fruits Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water	Roast turkey or chicken Salad of tomatoes and lettuce Grapefruit or fruit in season Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water
Sun	Cold or hot turkey or chicken Tomatoes, carrots, cooked cabbage, broccoli or cauliflower Grapefruit, or fruit in season Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water	Plenty of broiled (grilled) steak, all visible fat removed before eating; any cut of steak you wish- sirloin, porterhouse, London broil, etc. Salad of lettuce, cucumbers, celery, tomatoes (sliced or cooked) Brussels Sprouts Coffee/Tea/Diet Soda/Water

After finishing with the 14days, you will then move on to the Keep Trim Diet...I never follow this, I just try not to go nuts and binge thereafter! The reason the diet is so strict is because its supposed to play off on how the chemical compounds in the food react with each other and your body.

Rules of Scarsdale diet:

• STRICTLY NO ALCOHOL. 
• Follow the menu as closely as possible. If you have to, change the days but not the foods. If you do not like a particular food, replace with more of something else that's on the menu
• Carrots and celery are allowed anytime- with meals, salads, snacks.
• When you eat vegetables don’t use any form of fat. It means no olive oil, no margarine, no butter. 
• Only vinegar and lemon dressing. Alternatively, mustard dressing. But oil and mayonnaise are strictly forbidden.
• Sugar beverages are STRICTLY forbidden. So always look for diet(sugar free) versions of your favorite beverages. Coffee and tea are allowed but without the milk and sugar.
• When preparing meat make sure it is as lean as possible. Cut off as much skin and fat as you can before cooking your meals.
• The diet is designed for 14 days. Keeping it for more could be seriously dangerous to your health.

Few things to note about how I perceived the diet:

• Salads are boring as it is, so I try to be creative with my dressings and use natural flavouring. Stuff like anchovies, Bragg's Amino Acid and Apple Cider Vinegar, Balsamic dressing and olive oils. Once in awhile, I do use a cream based dressing but it does effect the result of the diet. MODERATION IS KEY!
• I do not like protein bread! AT ALL! So I always prefer to look for alternative source of protein. My go to source of protein- EGGS!
• I do not like Sugar beverages and if I need to have something gassy, soda water is my go to drink. Even if I have to make fruit juices at home, the composition is usually 1:3 fruit to vegetables. I drink my coffee and tea black so its not an issue.
• I like my meat with a little bit of fat so I usually leave that on. Also sometimes when cooking, the fat helps to protect and flavour the meat so before consumption, the individual can remove the fat. Also, I will never be able to swallow chicken breast...EVER! It's like eating cardboard.

*These changes that I have made are strictly on a personal basis and has not been approved by any Doctor.  It is changes that I have made to try keep my diet sustainable without triggering cravings which trigger binge eating! Also, if I make my salads yummy, I'd look forward to eating them more! 

For anyone who wishes to try, GOOD LUCK!!! 

And i'd love to hear any feedback and success stories in the comments below.

Marcha Scarves

So I got some lovely stylish scarves from Marcha Ballerina a few days ago, they were reasonable priced  ($18.90) and despite only having a few patterns, I found the selection quite versatile and I was half tempted to get one in all the designs! But being thrifty I started with 2 designs that I really like- the zebra print and the leopard print. Yes, I'm going all African Safari on myself! 

The Zebra print one is unique because it has a Zebra print on one side and a print of Zebra's on the other. You can layer it or wear it long which I did last night but unfortunately didn't get any pictures of! Today I am wearing the Leopard print scarf and I'm loving the pop of pink and the lovely hearts that break the pattern. What I love about both scarves is the fact that even though I bought only 2 scarves, depending on how I fold the scarf, I have 2 different patterns on each. (Recently inspired by this video of 16 ways to tie a scarf- Courtesy of Scarfsmall, YouTube)

Today's Scarves-piration! :)

Go check out the store, which has a cute market concept! And if you are into the matchy-matchy thing, they even have shoes to match the scarves! There is another design with a lovely blue and off-white pattern of Paisley which would amazing with jeans and a simple white T.

Marcha Ballerina

Raffles City 

Basement 1 (just beside the DBS ATM's)

MRT: City Hall

Leopard Print Nails for Kids

When you have 4 young girls as neighbors, sometimes its hard to come up with new designs and pattern for them as they have the tiniest nails! I do my best- but when each girl has her own favorite color, a mind of her own and neither of them wants the same design or anything remotely similar, things can get a little challenging! I do try to seek inspiration online, unfortunately, any form of nail art that I find are for adults with "normal" sized nails that you can really let your creative juices flow. So for the next person who need a little inspiration when a little girl wants "the prettiest nails in the world", this is the first design I am posting. 

All the art that I do for the girls are done either hand drawn with a fine brush, using a dotting tool or nail tattoos.

The girl who requested these nails loves the color pink, she has initially wanted tiger stripes but her nails were too tiny. We compromised with the leopard print spots. 

What I used:

1) LAKA #159 as the base

2) Sally Hansen #28 BlackOut

3) Orly Dazzle

First, I painted her nails with only one layer of LAKA color as the colors are very pigmented and you really don't need more than that. Then using a dotting tool (a toothpick may be used as well), I randomly outline leopard like shapes on her nails. There are no hard and fast rules about where they should be placed. I decided to use the Orly in Dazzle as the insides of the spots as it would add a little but of sparkle and fun to the pattern- which girl doesn't love that right? Again, using your dotting tool, fill out the spots which you have just made, again, it doesn't have to be perfect. If the nail is too bare, add some silver spots around. Finish off with Top Coat (I used Seche Vite Quick Dry-necessary when with kids).

End Result...and a happy little girl!

Stay tuned for more posts on Nail Art for Kids!

Mylar Nail Art

So I decided to attempt some nail art with Mylar. I seem to have a never ending collection which only grows with time but somehow its never something I could master. I can never get the Mylar down flat enough so it won't pop or scratch the surface. It always seems to involve several rounds of filing down and in doing so I seem to lose some of the shininess and the compactness of the Mylar. Thank God for no wipe gel topcoat which doesn't require filing down before the next application so I can only file targeted areas and do another coat of gel over.

Decided to go with a deep shade of wine to match the color of my outfit for the weekend wedding that's coming up. Randomly placed the Mylar at different angles to allow it to catch light and give the illusion of shine. 

If anyone has any suggestions as to how I should go about doing Mylar nails properly, feel free to leave a comment!

Last Day Of...

...THE DIET!!! So that's it, I managed to complete my 2 weeks of strict dieting and today i'm going for the kill...my last day. Of course because my boyfriend has just got back from a business trip to Hong Kong and started late, it means that he will only end a week from now- great excuse to continue this health streak.

At the end of the day, I was hoping to make this a sustainable lifestyle change. As I age, yo-yo weight gain/loss becomes much harder to yo-yo...if you get what I mean. I noticed my skin getting better and I feel better in general. 

I'm trying to do what health fans would call clean eating but its sometimes hard to eat clean when there is so much good food (hawkers, restaurants, anything that doesn't require me doing the dishes!) around. The meals I prepare are usually pretty fast- the next best alternative to "fast food". Over the weekends I spend my time washing, dicing, slicing and packing my veges so that in the mornings I can just put together a salad in less than 10 minutes. 

Typical packed lunch Salads

Also, it helps that when I open the fridge, the first thing I see are cut carrots or cucumber sticks...I can't give myself the excuse that its too much trouble to prepare. I also learnt that if you want to avoid the junk food, don't even step into the supermarket aisles that has stuff you can't eat. Stay in the fresh sections! So hard for me...I miss Cheetos!

Saturday Breakfast Burrito w/Spinach and Mushroom

My Sunday Spinach and Haloumi Omelette

For now, I won't bore you with details on how I made these dishes (too simple) but I will definitely be posting up some yummier recipes as we go along. Ugh, the next couple of weeks are going to be busy in the run up to one of the bestie's is getting hitched. On that note, I also have my own nuptials to prepare for...which I am starting to feel quite inadequately prepared for. Sigh. Anyone know of a good photographer who can do night ballroom shots?

Current Weight: 66.5kgs
"Targetted" Weight: 59.5kgs (my boyfriend has high hopes...this is his target weight for me)

Till next time my fingers need a keyboard workout! XOXO

DIY Strassed Shoes

My Wedding Shoes

So this is the first of my DIY projects for my upcoming nuptials. With barely 6 months to go, I seem to be at a lost for what to do- I feel like I have a long list of things to do but on the other hand I feel like what I need to do FOR NOW, is done. Oh well I guess I shall realize much too late that there is indeed lots to do and have a mad rush towards the very last day. Having said this, I shall embrace the fact that I work well under pressure. 

Anyways, enough about me, I'm sure that everyone is curious to know more about the shoes. Few things that I'll clarify first:

1) I bought plain white shoes made with cloth. ( You can opt to use shoes with a suede base too)

2) I hand picked ALL the crystals and glue them on individually. Yes I DID!

3) I used ONLY Swarovski Crystals

Now, everyone who has seen the shoes, thinks I am insane and keep asking why I don't just go out and buy a pair that is already bling-ed out. Reason I didn't want to do so was because I wanted Crystals that were placed with as closely together as possible so as to have more of a WOW effect. In order to be able to minimize the gaps, I used many different sizes of Crystals. Being extremely meticulous, I used ss8 as my base. Other sizes used were ss6 (this is for the really annoying small gaps), ss10, ss12, ss16.

I used approximately:

ss8 (2pkts X 1440pcs) = 2880 (SGD137)

ss10 (1pk X 1440pcs) = 1440 (SGD 68.5)

ss12 (2pkts X 144pcs) = 288 (SGD24)

ss16 (2pkts X 144pcs) = 288 (SGD24)

ss6 (2pkts X 24) = 48 (SGD8) --> which as I mentioned isn't necessary but I am a little OCD. 

Total Crystals: +/- 4920pcs 

Cost of Crystals: +/- SGD261.50

My shoes were from Studio Tangs at Tangs Orchard. I had seen them at Great World City but as my luck would have it, Tangs Orchard was having a 50% sale!!! Yay! I paid about SGD49.90 for them and they are comfortable enough to dance the night away in! What I have done is ultimately taken a $50 pair of shoes and turn them into a $300 pair of shoes. I didn't take too long to complete the pair because once you get your momentum going the strassing becomes very easy to do.

It is definitely a sense of accomplishment and this will mean that I will have the one of a kind pair of shoes that I had originally dreamed of. This is better for me than any pair of Jimmy Choo's or Louboutins because I can say, "Oh yes, I did it myself" and I can be sure NO ONE will have the same pair of shoes! Extra points on that!

There is a guy in the United States who make a living of strassing shoes or specifically Louboutins. Customers send him their shoes, he picks a Crystal that will compliment the shoe and he charges USD1200-1500 for them! Is that insane? If anyone reading this is based in Singapore, and has a pair of Louboutins they want strassed, hit me up here. I'll do them for you and charge you the same in SGD! Hah! (Seriously, I would!)

Anyways, really proud of myself!

And I hope anyone who wishes to DIY strass their shoes will be able to get some ideas from here. 

Back to Basics...

Hoping everyone had as fruitful a weekend as I did! It was a bit depressing to celebrate my anniversary alone but considering that I had mixed up the dates, I guess its ok. His being away has allowed me to prepare a card and also get him a small gift which I think he will love. I will definitely post a picture of the gift once he has opened it because I think its such an awesome gift and its a steal at the price it came at!

Over the weekend, I spent a whole Saturday, doing my groceries and preparing my salad greens and other food for the second week of my healthy eating. I spent a little bit too much at the organic store but it will definitely pay off. I also managed to attend 1 yoga session and one Pilates session. Both of which I am suffering the aftermath of now. 

I was overdue for a change in nail patterns and I really wanted to apply what I had learnt in class on Thursday but then I got kinda tired and lazy and decided to just go back to basics. I had started with a nude colour which I so love but then on the spur of moment decided to add a little bit of glitter because going all nude would just be so boring and plain and not at all me.

So I hope everyone has a fabulous week ahead! I'm counting the days till the return of K and he owes me a fabulous dinner for missing out on our anniversary! Wondering where we shall go...but I am sure it will deserve a small mention here.

PS: I'm 2kgs down and counting! Yay!