Another round of fasting done, it went pretty fast. Perhaps because this year I was particularly busy with work. So many deadlines and tasks within the month. In fact, I even travelled to Singapore due to meeting commitments (never like to travel during fasting month).
Now – it’s time for food. After a month of fasting, it is time for gluttony! Really? Hopefully not. To me Raya is the time for family and friends to get together and celebrate this auspicious day.
Above is a picture from last year. Where we celebrated Raya at my parents house. Not a full gang as my eldest sister was in Abu Dhabi. Tomorrow when we celebrate, it’ll be almost a full house, except for my sister’s step son who is studying in the UK at the moment.
Raya is also a time where the younger ones (including me!) give away Duit Raya. For the first time ever, I managed to finish “packing” the duit raya and hopefully tomorrow everything will go smoothly. It does help to work for a bank as I can call up the branch manager to help me prepare new notes!
Above is an old photo of me, celebrating raya back in the 80s. Those were the good old days where things were far simpler.
There have been many projects that I undertook in the past in pushing for personal transformation. More have failed than the on that passed. Sad to say. But I guess – we must always try to push ourselves to get to where we want to go. In the last few projects that I tried to start, I seems to have failed to keep it to a longer period. I think the last one probably last couple of days before I fall down the bandwagon. Not sure what goes in my mind. The longest I’ve gone thru was about 3 months where I managed to bring down the weight quite a bit. The last one that I did lasted for 70 days before I fell off the bandwagon. And never managed to get up.
Despite that – earlier this year, seems to be very good year for me. I lost approximately about 12-15kg since I came back from my holiday in Japan. Why the range is because my weight keeps fluctuating and I am not sure what is the weight that is the starting weight. What ever it is, it is a good year.
I definitely living in a state where I am probably in the heaviest state for the past 3-4 years. Struggling so much to lose weight, but my self discipline has eroded to the lowest level. Hot hot chicken shit is probably a good description of what I feel, or rather what I do. Too much of falling off the bandwagon, and then I keep dragging myself down. Which makes my journey to normal size harder. The thing about this year that I have changed is that for me to cut down sugar tremendously. Generally no desserts and sweets. Despite having a very sweet tooth, in the past couple of months – I was able to skip most of this making me able to lose the weight that I wanted to lose. I also skipped rice as much as I can.
Nevertheless, every now and then I need to push to reset my body. And this time around – I am pushing for low carb. Very low carb indeed. It has only been a full 6 days and I am targeting myself to go for very low carb for 100 days! That’s a good 3 months++. Haven’t decide if I want to do a cheat meal, but 100 days is long enough to keep the momentum to be able to get to a state where I am happier. In fact the progress for the past 6 days has been extremely good. More than I can imagine. There is no way I can keep to this pace as if I do, I would probably be a skinny cat!
In addition to making sure I am going on low carb diet, I also make sure that I am exercising hard enough daily. Once a day with one rest day. Even rest day – it is an active rest day. Not just lie down and sleep. In the past 6 days there have been time when I was too tired, especially after a flight back from Singapore. I guess its really time to work hard, and this is about making it sustainable.
One thing that I learn in the past couple of months, I am able to hold my weight despite letting my diet to go astray. The cutting of sugar and regular decent exercise does help. The one that I need to really kill off are the binges. I am famous for that. The moment I roll, I really roll. I guess I am keeping myself check, by writing on a personal journal at the start and end of a day. It keeps me in check and making sure I don’t get off the rails. The test is of course when I fall off the bandwagon!
This was me approximately 10 years ago! Amazing indeed
I hope I can reach back the size in the next coming year or so, but let’s take baby steps! 100 days first. 6 days done, and 94 days to go!
I actually do like cooking to be honest. I have not been cooking much – same as my writing. I have no idea whats going on my mind now but I seem to be very lazy to do things. I prefer just to sit down and watch TV or surf the internet. I need to change my lifestyle.
The photo above was for a New Year Party couple of years a go, in which I cooked Sous Vide Lamb Rack! It was pretty damn awesome and look like professional chef to be honest.
Look at the output of the lamb itself! It was sous vide for almost 2 hours if i am not mistaken, and then fried in butter (really?). Yes. It was for a new year celebration, I guess its ok to let your diet guard down. Well not that it has been up for the last couple of months. I have been eating all sort of nonsense because I don’t cook. Sad to say.
I should not do this seriously! I should properly manage my diet and eat more home cook food rather than eating bad food that you can find outside.
After I graduated from University of Warwick in 1999 – I decided to come back to Malaysia despite being offered to do post graduate courses. Both in PHD and Masters by my sponsor. Perhaps because I managed to do quite well in degree. Despite all the offers, I decided to go back home anyway. I needed to take a break. It has been a tough year where I had to catch up with my “poor” grade in 2nd year. Too much party in my 2nd year perhaps that I had to really buck up in my 3rd year. Never studied so much in my life to be honest.
After graduating from Warwick – I had two offers. One was from Bank Negara (Central Bank) and the other was from Accenture. My family asked that I join Bank Negara, especially because it was a government entity and life would have been very stable there. I decided then to join Accenture. Perhaps because I wanted to join a multi national corporation. The funny bit – now that I think about it, I should have joined an investment banker in UK – perhaps I will be much richer now. I am quite sure I am able to do well then. But its ok.
In Accenture – within the first two weeks – I then join the office trip in Awana Kijal, then followed by a trip to Sydney for training. Not far from there – I then head over to St Charles – which is the global training center for Accenture. Now it is called Q-Center – after the Enron drama.
The following two photos were taken as class photos. I bet 90% of the people in this photos has left Accenture. Wonder if you can identify where I am! This are all good memories to be honest. It was really good fun. 3 or 4 weeks in St Charles. Pretty awesome. First time in the US – was a good experience 🙂
I have probably posted this so many times, this is still my favorite picture of all time. Its a testament that you do not need to have a damn good camera to be able to take picture. Whats needed is the hands to click the shutter (and good composition).
