Healthy Lifestyle – My journey to wellness (Part 1)
Transforming my habits to a healthy lifestyle
Born in Cambodia during Pol Pot war, I experienced food insecurity and developed an emotional dependency on food from a young age for comfort and security. Having a healthy lifestyle was not the priority at that time. The daily consistent meals we experience here in occidental countries was not the norm at that time where we were lucky if we had one meal a day. But as far as my memories goes, I always loved eating. Even after moving countries, it was difficult to overcome these unhealthy habits ingrained from early childhood. By my 30s, after my pregnancies, these habits was showing negative impacts physically and mentally. I knew could not continue the downward spiral and had to change to a healthy lifestyle. It was time to prioritize rebuilding my wellness from the ground up through nutrition, activity and mindset.
Three pillars for a healthy lifestyle
Our choices of healthy life across three key pillars – what we eat, how active we are, and our general mindset – impact significantly our health and quality of life. Adopting balanced habits in each area can significantly improve well-being. Through several years of trial and errors, I discovered practices that work harmoniously with my lifestyle goals and personality traits. While nutrition initially seemed the priority, activity and perspective shifts proved to be equally important for a healthy lifestyle. An integrated approach works as a sustainable progress over time.
As a child in Cambodia, my daily life was a struggle for basic needs. Food access fluctuated drastically depending on circumstances out of our control. My earliest memories involve craving anything edible after long periods with little to eat. This likely shaped deep emotional ties to food that had run into my adult age. Moving countries brought stability but old habits die hard without nutrition knowledge.
Lack of healthy lifestyle from childhood
To illustrate this, here is how was my teenage period. I grew up fast, big and gained 10 cm, and 12 kg over a period of one year. I remember that my primary school teacher was puzzled during a session of “lancer de poids” – shot put – and referred me to “la monstresse”- the monster, as I had so much strength that the ball the ball ended up the furthest as anybody else! The teenage period was not the greatest one for me, with the change in the body, I was also called a tomboy by my family, friends, which has not helped me to grow with confidence, especially amongst other girls. I then find refuge in male friends where I felt more alike thanks to sport activities.
In my 20s, constant snacking and indulgent meals became the norm. As a busy and poor student, convenience took priority over healthy foods. Healthy lifestyle was non existent at that time and was not the priority. Extra weight gain impacted my self-esteem despite maintaining constant activity levels. I was not too big, but looked more like a wrestler who scared people, with my trucker look.
By my 30s, through my 2 pregnancies, I thought I could eat anything for the sake of my babies. Especially when I was craving for food and mistakenly believed that it was good for the baby. I learned from my German and very strict gynecologist that told me: “you need to eat twice better, not twice more”. It was hard to follow her advice …but this was my starting point to lead a healthy lifestyle for the sake of my children. I wanted to lead my children to lead their own healthy life.
Time to change to a healthy lifefstyle
During my first pregnI ended up growing my weight up to 16 kg more than my normal weight. And was extremely difficult to lose the extra until 2 years later my second baby came with another 13 kg on my scale.
Losing these extra weight was extremely challenging despite regular exercise such as daily cycling to work. In addition, emotionally, as a new mom, exhaustion and relationship issues left me depleted. Something had to change or this non healthy lifestyle would damage long-term health and happiness.
It started with my nutrition, a good path to a healthier lifestyle, coupled with regular exercise to improve my mental health.
It took me over a decade to transform my habits to a healthy lifestyle. The list is not exhaustive but just reflect the ones that i have experimented.
Testing diet plans to find the path to a healthy lifestyle
I’m not an nutritionist and the following list is only sharing my own experience and effect on me. What worked for me might not work for you. I would recommend you to see a nutritionist if you want to test this plan for a longer term and fully transform into a sustainable healthy lifestyle. But nothing is preventing you to test, fail, succeed as I did.
-
Separation of carbohydrates from proteins
One of my friends in Kuala Lumpur was advising this method where carbohydrates were separated from proteins. The vegetables in this diet were illimited. I tried it and seems that the effect on me was positive where I could eat high quantities without weight gain.
So either I would eat carbohydrates like pasta, potatoes, rice, etc… with vegetables, or eat all sort of proteins with vegetables. It actually worked for me as I managed to maintain my weight for several years like this. However, as I’m a sweet tooth, I couldn’t help finishing my meals with a dessert. So ultimately was not really loosing any weight. Maintaining it was already good and was my main goal. I was glad to have a way of eating rather than having a diet to follow. This was my first breakthrough in nutrition to understand what it takes to the path of a healthy lifestyle.
-
The 5-2 diet
Very popular when I lived in Australia for a year, advised by my colleagues, I tried the 5-2 diet. It was 5 days eating normally – not excessively of course- and 2 days almost “fasting” with 500 calories. That was actually very difficult for me. The cafe next door the office was baking delicious muffins, and just only one of them was already 350 calories… then keep up the day was almost impossible. As the variation in terms of eating habits was huge, I could not keep up. I managed to do it for a month but could not sustain. I was not enough disciplined to track the calories of all my food intake. For few of my Australian colleagues it works and they have adopted it as a new way of eating.
I tried, I failed. And on top of it, as I was mixing carbohydrates and proteins, my body was no longer used for this, and i ended up putting on weight…
The fact I had an habit and trying to change it, it takes a bit of time for the body to adjust. I did not experiment this diet for long to see the benefit on my body.
-
The intermittent fasting
Impossible to skip meal?
In one of my business trip in Indonesia, one of my colleagues join the team for lunch but was just watching us having our meal… He told us about his new diet habit – fasting during the day and eating in the evening, with his family. I was a bit puzzled as I could not imagine skipping a meal. After reading “Le jeûne, une nouvelle thérapie?“, I found out few benefits of doing so. In today’s world, we’re usually eating a huge quantity of food compared to what is needed. At the time of the cavemen, we used to eat a lot, as we spent all our time hunting for the food, especially before winter and stock up our body as the food became scarce during the cold period. Nowadays, we still do the same, but we do not need to hunt, and just get any food from the supermarket. This result in continuously stoking up in our body, without understanding the impact in our path to a healthy lifestyle.
Benefits of fasting with shorter period
I discovered that fasting is triggering a process of burning the fat in a better way than the first 2 diet plans. The fact that we are resting our stomach and our digestive system, have strong benefits.
I have tried the 16-8 plan. This consists in 16 hours without eating and an 8 h period where eating is allowed. There are even existing app that helps you keeping up the pace. The one I used was “Fasting Tracker“. It was a real challenge when I started while I was in Kuala Lumpur in 2020, where all my Malaysian colleagues were eating heavy breakfast such as “Nasi Lemak“, and were constantly eating. At that time, Malaysia was considered the fattest country of South East Asia…
And now after many years I stopped using the App as this new practice became a part of my daily routine. Intermittent fasting has become part of my healthy lifestyle. I started it right after my No Sugar Challenge month.
During my business trip, where jetlag is the norm, it messes up my diet. However, when I’m eating in the morning, I don’t feel that great changing my habits. My body is telling me that something is wrong. However, on weekends I’m allowing myself to share a breakfast or a brunch with my family.
New habit is formed for a healthy lifestyle
My fasting practice is now done without much pain. There is a false perception where you feel less energetic without a filled stomach. It’s actually the contrary. The less you eat, the more energetic you feel! In the morning, I have a coffee. And sometimes I could treat myself with a latte 😊. As long as I’m consistently doing this as a lifestyle, I’m fine to deviate from time to time. It’s no big deal as long as I can go back to my standard practice, becoming now part of my healthy lifestyle.
This is a diet that I have introduced 4 years ago and you could read it in my article in reference.
-
Glucose goddess method
I discovered Jessie Inchausspé’s book from my friend Manue. She’s developed a method to prevent the glucose spikes, responsible in creating craving for sugar, hypoglycemia, anxiety, stress and anger. The sequence of ingesting the type of food is important for your body to process in a way that prevent sugar spikes. These spikes are the ones that are detrimental on your behavior and body. What Jessie Inchausspé is advising in her book is the following:
- Before any meal, you can have a spoon of vinegar – this is optional, but has a benefit on the glucose spike. Some people don’t like it so, not mandatory. This is to inform you on the benefit.
- You should start with any vegetable, ie fibers, such as guacamole, salad of carrot, tomatoes, raw vegetables, etc…
- Then proteins, meat, fish, cheese, butter
- End up with the carbohydrates, such as potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, etc…
- And finish with the best – if you can’t resist – desserts
This way of eating would create in your stomach a layer of fiber, processing the rest of the food in a slower pace than if you were to eat the carbohydrate first. Because carbohydrates are sugar… and it is the easiest element that your body can process, creating the peak of glucose that are creating all the detrimental effects. This could be leading for instance to weight gain, risk of heart disease, acne, type 2 diabetes, may accelerate aging process, lost of energy and can increase your risk of several serious medical conditions
Recipe to a healthy lifestyle
Adopting balanced habits in each area can significantly improve quality of life. Through trials over years, I discovered practices that align with my goals and personality.
It took me over a decade to get to a healthy lifestyle routines. My journey is just starting and will continue with balancing nutrition with active lifestyle that will be described in my next article.
It’s your turn to share your challenges
Does anyone else struggle with snacking habits or cravings between meals? What small steps have helped you establish a routine that supports your healthy lifestyle goals? Feel free to share challenges as well – we’re all have work in progress. Let’s discuss solutions and draw inspiration from each others.
Neary
What if we kite?
