Chapter 21: The Battle between Choi and the Weighing Scale, Round Two

I was packing up to leave the office when Choi appeared in front of my desk with a pair of sorrowful eyes.

“Hey Beng, I need your help.”
“Sure, dude. What is it about?”

With Choi’s ego, it was uncommon for him to ask for help. So whenever he requested for my assistance, I would not hesitate to see what I could do to help. I stopped packing and sat down with him.

“You remember how I managed to lose about five kilograms and my blood pressure went back to normal after those workouts and the organic apple cider vinegar?”
“Wait… Are you trying to tell me that you’ve gained back all those five kilograms and your blood pressure had rebounded like the STI again?”
“Yeh, I’ve gained back my five kilograms. In fact I’ve gained more, and I haven’t measure my blood pressure yet,” Choi sighed.

With all the ala carte dinner buffets and eat-all-you-can high teas that he had been telling me about, perhaps I should not really be surprised by the return of his old friend fat and the friends it tagged along.

“Nowadays when I walk up the stairs I could feel myself getting out of breath,” Chai said wryly. “I suspected that my blood pressure is up again but I’m not measuring it till I lose a few kilograms.”
“So how can I help?”
“I know you’ve learnt quite a bit from your physical trainer friends in the gym regarding the right food to eat. I need you to guide me on my diet.”
“Yeh, I can do that. But you’ll still need to exercise.”
“No problem. I’m planning to swim once a week during the weekends.”
“No Choi, just swimming alone won’t work. You’ll need to do some cardio exercises like jogging.”
“Okay, I’ll jog.”

Choi had that unyielding determination look on his face that told me that the diet program had to work. I just hoped that his determination could hang in there for at least a few months this time.

“Okay Choi, I’ll tell you more about eating the right stuffs tomorrow. I’m slightly late for my appointment already and I’ve got to run”
“Cool! Thanks dude!”

That night, my mind went through all the unhealthy food that I had seen Choi taken and I tried to note them down so that I could warn him about them. He would have to bid farewell to his pig trotters, stuffed crust pizzas, fried banana fritters, char kway teows, chicken rices, laksas, nasi lemaks, chendols and nasi branis.

On the following morning, I saw a dazed looking Choi working into the office.

“Hey dude, are you okay? You look so blur!” I asked in concern.
“Yeh, I think I’m okay. Just hungry,” Choi replied in a tired tone.
“Hungry? Didn’t you take your breakfast?”
“Of course I didn’t! Beng, I’m serious about losing weight this time. I’m sure I can make it without breakfasts.”

Okay, it seemed like we had to start from the basic.

“Erm… Choi, I think your concept of dieting is all wrong,” I pulled a chair to sit next to Choi. “Look, it doesn’t mean that if you eat less you’ll be able to lose weight.”
“Why not? The less I eat the less fat I store right?”
“No Choi, it doesn’t work that way. Our bodies work in such a way that if we attempt to starve them, they will store more fat so as to protect our organs. Conversely, what we lose are actually lean muscles.”
“Gosh, the less I eat the more fat I stored, the more I eat the more fat I stored! Then what am I supposed to do?” Choi exclaimed in shock.
“Okay, maybe I should start by explaining to you how your body works. When you’re hungry, your blood sugar goes up. When it reaches a certain elevation, insulin is secreted to drive the sugar out of your blood stream and into your cells, where it is used as fuel for running your body functions. When these cells had enough sugar, insulin will re-route the excess sugar to your liver where it will be converted into fat and stored in your muscles. If you don’t exercise enough to loss the fat stored in your muscles, you gain weight.”

“Which means that if I don’t get hungry, I don’t gain weight?” Choi looked at me with a puzzled face.
“Err… Sort of. And since your body gets hungry in every three to four hours, you need to feed it every three to four hours so that your blood sugar won’t spikes to high level. In average, you’ve got to eat about five times a day.”
“Eat more to lose weight? You’ve got to be kidding!”
“No, you don’t eat more! You just eat more often. Instead of the usual three big meals, you’ve got to divide your food into five small meals.”
“Oh…”
“And you’ve got to eat right. Take out those refined carbohydrates from your diet and put in more fiber.”
“Bro, you’ve lost me.”
“Okay, I tell you what. I’ll send you some articles to read.”

That afternoon, I downloaded some articles from the Internet regarding the differences between simple and complex carbohydrates, the benefits of fiber and protein, and what are the high fiber and low fat food. I sent the articles to Choi and carried on with my work. Minutes later, my MSN Messenger popped out. I had got a message from Choi.

“hey, those stuffs tat u sent me are not easy to digest”
“but u’ve got to know those in order to eat correctly”
“actually I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t I follow u for lunch and u just pt out the stuffs I can eat?”
“oh, ok!”

During noon, Choi, Nicky, KZ and me lunched in the food court at Suntec City. Before Choi proceeded to buy his lunch at the mixed vegetables and rice store, I advised him to select more vegetables and instead of his usual pork dish, take chicken or fish. I also reminded him to take a smaller portion of rice.

When Choi returned to the table with his lunch, I saw see a small mountain of rice with overflowing vegetables and a large piece of fried chicken chop.

“Erm… Choi, when I said chicken, I was not thinking of something that’s deep fried.”
“Oh yes… I forgot about the frying part.”
“And is your portion of rice, erm… already reduced?”
“Yeh, of course! This is half of what I usually eat!”
“Okay Choi, from now on, your single serving of rice has to be reduced to a quarter of your usual portion.”
“What?!! Oh… Okay,” Choi stared at me as if I was asking him to stop eating for a week, but still agreed with my suggestion.

After lunch, I advised Choi to get a piece of fruit for his afternoon snack. Knowing how my instructions could be mistaken like the case of his lunch, I followed him to the fruits stall.

“How many slices of water melon can I have?” Choi pointed at the red slices of water melon.
“None. There’s too much sugar content in water melon,” I was so glad that I followed him.
“Oh… then can I take the mangoes?”
“No! Too much sugar content as well!”
“Hey, why don’t you get the fruits for me instead?” Choi sounded miffed.

I picked up an orange, paid for it and passed it to Choi. Choi stared at the orange as if his stare could kill it.

“Beng, I don’t like oranges.”
“Choi, oranges are high in fiber and low in sugar content. Say ‘hi’ to it. It’ll be your fruit of the day from now on. ”

Back in the office, I briefed Choi on what he should and should not be eating. Fried food like fried chicken and fried pork chop were ‘no’, sweet food like green bean soup and ice cream were ‘no’ as well. Choi was glad that at least he got to drink his daily coffee. Since he took his coffee black and without sugar, and the caffeine could help him burn some fat, I did not take coffee out of his diet. However I did reminded him to drink more water to prevent water retention due to the coffee’s dehydration effect.

As we left for the day, I told him to take two slices of wholemeal bread with tuna for breakfast, and bring a small pack of low-fat milk to work for his morning snack.

“How about my dinner then?” Choi asked while we waited for the lift.
“Ask your mom to cook you fish or chicken porridge for your dinners.”
“Argh! I hate porridge!”
“Well, you’ve got to start liking them now, pal!” I patted his back as we entered the lift.

On the following morning, I saw a dazed looking Choi walking into the office again.

“Hey Choi, did you take your breakfast?” I hoped he did not skip his breakfast again.
“Yeh, the horrible wholemeal bread and tuna,” Choi sighed.
“Oh… and you’re still hungry?”
“Sort of. Never mind, I’ll look forward to the morning snack,” Choi mused as he took a pack of low-fat milk out from his bag and put it on the desk.

But that pack of low-fat milk did not look right. It had a brown packaging.

“Erm… Choi, about this milk…”
“It is low-fat right?”
“Yeh… but it is chocolate flavored.”
“You’re not telling me that…”
“Yeh, you’re not supposed to take chocolate flavored low-fat milk because chocolate is high in sugar.”
“Argh!!!”

In the few weeks that followed, Choi followed my diet instructions strictly, though with grumbles included. For breakfasts, he took wholemeal bread with tuna sometimes and peanut butter on other occasions. For lunches, he switched between yong tau fus, roast chicken sandwiches and mixed vegetables and rice without pork and fried dishes. For dinners, he took chicken and fish porridges. He also had low-fat milk for his morning snacks and oranges for his afternoon snacks. Suppers were taken out from his diet totally, with more grumbles included.

With the controlled diet and regular jogging sessions, Choi managed to lose six kilograms this time. He then made an appointment with the doctor to check his blood pressure. The fact that he returned from his appointment with a wide grin boded well for his blood pressure examination result.

“Beng! Guess what? My blood pressure is normal!” Choi shoved a piece of paper in front of my eyes.
“Great! Congratulations! You’re healthy again!”
“Thanks to you, Beng! Your diet plan worked!”
“No, you should thank yourself for following through the diet plan and jogging sessions.”
“Yah! Let’s go celebrate! I know of this Chinese restaurant at Tanjong Pagar that has black pepper crabs in its ala carte buffet menu…”