Meatless

So last weekend I went to 4 Fingers and end up ordering their Tofu and Mushroom salad and thought it tasted not bad.
Then I thought - why not not eat meat for a week? I've been wanting to try this but didn't have the balls  resolution to do so so why not now - anyway there's no harm, is there? I have several vegetarian friends(by religion, not choice) but none of my friends were vegan.

Just a clarification, the definitions:
Veganism: practice of abstaining the use of animal products, particularly in diet, as well as following an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of sentient animals
Vegetarianism: the practice of abstaining the consumption of meat, may also include the by-products of animal slaughter
(adopted from Wikipedia)

Most of my non-meat eating friends were ovo-lacto vegetarian - meaning they just don't eat meat, but dairy and eggs, and its by-products(e.g. whey protein, creatine) were allowed. Or so I think its the definition of their dietary status.

So for one week I tried staying away from any kind of meat(includes my brother's nearly expired strawberry flavoured whey protein, eggs) and any obvious sources of dairy like my usual cow's milk with my overnight oats, and milk chocolate!!! Oh goodness. Life without chocolate sucked the life force out of me. However I did eat bread, so i guess I'm not entirely successful in being strictly vegetarian. Thank you Nabisco for making Oreos vegan!!!

At first it was to train my resilience and lets just say I have ZERO tolerance to food and if I could make through this, I'd prolly be able to be disciplined enough to do other things in life and set my priorities straight. Then I heard about the benefits of going meatless, loosely mentioned in random conversations:

(note that these are subjective and not ENTIRELY TRUE) in a way or another, as our bodies work differently and are idiosyncratic
(taken from here and here)

1. Lose weight - vegetables carry bulk but not calories.
2. Reducing exposure to added antibiotics, hormones, and all that lab stuff they inject into animals and their products
3. Our bodies can't digest milk(or rather, lactose) properly after being weaned out. Removing dairy clears the digestive system and underlying lactose intolerance.

I probably can find a whole other reasons to support and at the same time disapprove of the benefits but lets just put it as that. Also, the whole science and theories behind it but it'll probably bore you and make you not ever visit this place again.

and so I decided to pack my lunches(school lunches were a huge load of rice and with a tiny amount of meat anyway): meatless, cheeseless, etc etc etc



1. Miso boiled red rice, pan fried tofu, baby carrot, broccoli and japanese cucumber
2. Miso boiled red rice, Pan fried tofu sesame oil and shoyu tofu, pan fried mini portobello mushroom
3. Sprouted wheat bread(best stuff ever), chunky skippys, pomegranate arils
4. Overnight oats and chia seed in soy milk, dried cranberries, walnuts, pomegranate and goldfish crackers and oreoes

Some meals I've eaten in the course of going meatless! More can be found on instagram :-)

The experience? What I felt during my week of going no meat and minimal dairy:
1. Staring at my friend's chicken rice/chicken chop/fish and chips sadly
2. Clearer system - my bodily functions were more optimal: I could feel less breathless during exercise, feel more energetic, digestive system was also more effective in doing its usual thing. If you know what I mean. Stuff inside were moving more.
3. Cravings for meat were strangely not VERY much. It was kind of bearable.
4. Feeling more airy - less groggy and bloated - this was one of the better benefits I got out of this week to be honest as I felt better and healthier in general in a sense?
5. Farted like crazy (sorry)
6. I lost 1kg in the first 2 days, and then weight became stagnant(not sure because it was meatless or)

Overall a very interesting experience but I wouldn't go long term vegetarian, maybe going flexitarian sounds like a good choice (see semi-vegetarian)!!

On a side note I found Hershey's soymilk at NTUC the other day!!


And also to the person on ask.fm, I made oat cookies to bring to school as snacks :-) Good to try if you don't like the taste of oats/oatmeal

Healthiest ever cookies

Ingredients:

cookie dough

3.5 cup whole rolled oats(250ml cup)

5 large bananas

toppings

100ml dried cranberries

3 tbsp chocolate chips

A handful of walnuts

cinnamon

1. Blend 3 cups of oats till it becomes oat flour, but not to a very fine consistency

2. Mash bananas(blending is more efficient though)

3. Mix oat flour and bananas into a mixing bowl, together with the whole oats

4. Add cranberries, chocolate chips, walnuts and cinnamon

5. It should be between a cookie dough, but slightly more firm. If too watery, add oats. If too dry, add half a mashed banana and mix again.

6. Cover baking tray with vegetable oil(so that cookies won't stick) and make cookies with mixture. Make sure cookies are about the same size so that they all will cook at the same time. 

7. Preheat oven

8. Pop cookies into oven 

9. Bake for 20 mins, 170c(not sure about this as my oven is abit wonky, do check other 2 ingredient oat cookie receipes online)

Makes about 22 cookies. Each cookie is about 100 calories. Toppings can be changed to liking but calorie content will change too.

Do feedback on ask.fm/beefballs with questions/etc :-)

Past week

(From my Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, processed with VSCO)

The photo quality gives me a headache... Sorry for anyone who's reading this if its doing it to you too. Anyway here's how I spent my holiday in a nutshell thus far? Not everything is documented(obviously)....
And so I've been trying out part-time jobs in the F&B industry so that I can earn money so I don't stay at home broke and crying and lets just say I'm not cut out for it. Not even surprised if I piss any of the guests off.
In the pockets of days that I'm not working I'm either cooking, shopping or getting creative. And other times are left for training. And stalking London Fashion Week.
Thought it'll be kinda erm. Cool? To post what I have for lunch/dinner on work days(they provide food before work. Yay free food! Never say no to food.)

1. Work Lunch #1

2. Work Lunch #2

3. Work Lunch #3

4. Work.. Dessert? From the same workplace as work lunch #3

5. Sneaks for thelabcoat re-launch(I need to step up my game, brains getting rusty... Drop me an ask on my ask.fm if you have any suggestions)

6. Random breakfast(and people thought I eat salad all the time)

7. Random home lunch. Got too lazy to cook everything individually so just threw everything together into one giant omelette.

8. Knit pouch for my MP3(which has taken quite abit of abuse from the other things in my bag.... sorry)

9. New dangly earrings!!! Normally I stay with studs but studs are a hassle now that I have to take them on and off all the time. Probably would go back to get more. Switch up my look maybe. And thank goodness I didn't throw the random corkboard I bought from Daiso because it has now been given a new lease of life!

Trying to keep my holidays not only consisting of being in bed/pigging out/watching tv or shows or youtube videos..... Going pretty well. Hyped for the rest of my holidays.

But not for my results.... Bleargh. Fingers crossed.

Korean food

(Taken with my Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, GIFs from Tumblr, here)

So in attempt to keep my life experiences in a physical form why not put it here?
Basically this is how my day went! Didn't get to take a photo of my outfit but I was looking pretty vintage. I mean who the heck takes an outfit in the middle of a bustling mall?!
Instead of studying for my Engineering Mechanics test on monday I've decided to head out for some good food and a movie, well its high time I did something about my weight which is slowly spiralling out of control and its a little scary.
After picking up my new frames YH and I had Nene Chicken at Star Vista and then picked up some chocolate(my ultimate weakness) at Candy Empire!

Nene Chicken is definitely good but I can't say so for the environment for the one at Star Vista given the confined space. Had to non-intentionally shove through 2 people just to get straws for YH and I. Which made them and I quite uncomfortable.
But the food was awesome 'cos unlike other fried chicken restaurants(Is this the right terminology for places like these) the chicken was obviously cooked with a considerable amount of oil but it didn't feel like it and the sauce wasn't the omg my throat is about to shrivel up and die kind of feeling and I deff wanted more. The fries were nice and had no oily aftertaste and the pickled radish was a nice touch. Definitely come back here again. I tried the new sesame one and YH had the freaking hot (LOL) one and both of us loved it.

Had Awfully Chocolate Hei double scoop ice cream 'cos why not!?

And then we watched Lucy which you can read about here in their Wiki. The movie was overall OK. Good plot and the reason why these kind of sci-fi-ish movies attract me is because it just might happen in real life but in actual fact, probability is like 0.0000001. Like In Time (wtf it has been about 2 years already!?). I was sliiiiightly disappointed though because it could have been better at the whole... execution? Of the movie.

Headed to Marks and Spencers Food Hall(of which has appeared several times in this blog like the ice cream) and had dinner at Paik's Bibim

Paik's Bibim

1 Harbourfront Walk

#02-125

Vivocity Singapore 098585

Opening Hours 1130 - 2130

The food is about the price range of Nene Chicken and I wasn't disappointed. I ordered a CupBap and YH ordered a Beef Bimbimbap(I think) and a Cupbap is basically a Bimbimbap in a cup. Which was really nice and they even had spicy korean sauce at every table. The setting was like a fast food restaurant's and was really pleasant!

Did some shopping and so that's pretty much it. Can't wait for tomorrow's test to be over and then I can get started with things I want to do and probably/hopefully blog more.

If anyone still reads this space!

Life in filter

Omg I have not posted here in about 2 months?
Photos are processed through VSCO (love that app), hope they have Afterlight for android soon. And maybe a square camera.
Photos are not in chronological order... Anyway. To summarise.
1. On weekends, I read magazines and drink water.
2. Mock up of a watch I designed for a school project. Embroidered and all.
3. Picking up embroidery amongst other things, so much that my friends call me an "old granny" for picking up these skills(i guess)......
4. Oversized floral shirt: Miss Selfridge, Mesh shorts: Adidas.
5. Oats and chia seeds soaked overnight in milk, topped with blueberries, grapes and peach pieces.
6. Egg in a basket sandwich with tuna, baby spinach and cheese. With dates at the side. My new found loec for dates... I didn't know they tasted so good? Maybe try out one of those healthy eating non bake cakes sometime.
7. New gym corner beside the pool and it was kinda cool!!! The resistance mechanism used water and it was so apt.
8. Actually quite surprised I won even bronze for this competition.
9. Also going to pick up crocheting. I ended up flipping the pages of this book and giving up how to learn through a book lol (plus it was due even before I had time to read properly). Also, Reebok resistance bands at the back.
10. Graduation dinner video production team.
11. One of the meals I prepped when I had to lose weight to make it for my weight category.
12. Post competition school meal: Bento set from the japanese stall and its a good and bad thing that my school sells nice food!
13. Baby blue Volkswagen Beetle that I chose to draw for my school assignment.
14. First competition I've participated on a national level. Won my opponent for the second time in two different competitions! *triumphant music*

Holidays are coming up soon and I can't wait!! Fingers crossed that it'll be a good one. Also bought quite a few clothes and what not maybe I'll do a mini haul (if anyone still reads this space)!

3am

(photos taken on Sony Xperia Z1 Compact)

I have no work due tomorrow so yay I'm typing here!

Re-organised the blog abit and for those who don't know the header is my handwriting. After what feels like hours scrolling thru dafont.com, I've finally decided on using my own font - personal touch maybe.

I couldn't sleep. 

I've been living in this new room now (Yours Truly designed it, and assembled most of the furniture) and I'm loving it! All white/black so getting sick of colours/moods changing because of colours isn't an issue. Probably need some ideas on how to spice up the room..... 

Everyday I sleep with 3 friends(lol I sound like a slut) - Meet Chlorophyll, Pororo and Lotso, they're my sleep buddies and its sort of a.... assurance? There's more kept in the wardrobe and here and there but occupies too much space so here's my current 3 favourites. Stuffed animals are love regardless of age. Oh and Lamb and Tux Penguin accompanying my lamp. People always go like "omg you're so childish lol stuffed animals when you're almost hitting 20?" and shit.

Life's been great and honestly it has come to a point in life where I'm lost (lol teen-age crisis) and not sure if what I want is what I really want but heck I'll go for it. Maybe it'll work. Idk. Sometimes I look at successful teens my age doing great stuff, representing the country in terms of sports and etc, setting up charity organisations, being famous, travelling the world... And then there's me. Maybe I don't have to be great in that sense but be the best version of myself. It's like, "your best is good enough" thing.

And so I've been kind of upgrading. And today I've unlocked an achievement a.k.a almost doing a pull-up!!! Will aim to do about 5 by the end of this year maybe? It has been by far the furthest I've come in terms of physical fitness and will strive for improvement since I started trying to lose weight (eternities ago). Maybe go to the gym or run more often. Some people might think its stupid and shit but their opinions are none of my business. "The Lion does not lose sleep over the opinion of the Sheep."

Oh and plot twist - I've picked up reading, more on fashion design and dress making and hope I am able to make my dream dress very soon (and build up a portfolio so my dream of being a Lasalle student is more realise-able), I hope.

Speaking of making stuff do follow @thelabcoat on Instagram! Its my baby I've been working on since a few months ago(lost count, have been procrastinating) and it'll be featuring minimalistic/stackable accessories and when I master dress making/fabric manipulation/sewing then I'll move on from there, but now its just bracelets, necklaces, maybe a chance of rings and will be open in a mid June - do give it a signal boost for me and I'll love y'all. Personally loving the swarovski bracelets because it is not too "oldish" and "high class" - y'know how those aunties with tudungs love to hot-fix swarovski and older ladies love to bedazzle everything and it doesn't appeal to teens? I've given a more casual, dressed down, less glaring take on these crystals hope y'all will love it :-)

Recently I've also been looking for my personal style - trying different sorts of clothing which includes dresses(can't wait to shop) of different... styles? I guess. I love all 3: the high neck skater, Ruffle cami dress and cami shift dress/slip dress but if I were to pick one that fits me most it'll be the shift dress because I'm lazy.

Speaking of personal style..... Shoe lust for the month.

(available here)

Dear pair of shoes:

YOU'LL BE MINE AT THE END OF THE MONTH

Love, me

Oh and getting sick of my hair.... Suggestions?