I’ve just finished reading Skinny Bitch, a no-nonsense book on how girls can stop eating crap and start looking fabulous. I was a bit shocked when I saw the title but intrigued enough to buy it after a quick flick through. The language is a bit coarse and I felt like the authors were speaking potty-mouthed to me at times (I have read enough novels written in strong language not to be shocked anymore but come on, this is supposed to be a self-help book). Anyway, coarse language aside, the book is certainly an eye-opener. Let me share some of what I read:
1. Give up – all your vices: smoking; drinking alcohol (it raises the level of hydrochloric acid in tummy and wreak havoc on your digestive process – hence why people suffering from hangovers eat crap), soda (liquid Satan), caffeine (raises stress hormone levels, inhibits important enzyme systems responsible for cleaning the body and sensitizes nerve reception sites. Oh and coffee, regular or decaf, is acidic which leads to fat cells. Coffee also robs your body of nutrients. Got addiction? You control coffee, it doesn’t control you); junk food (artificial aromas and flavours, chemical food colours, toxic preservatives and heart-stopping hydrogenated oils); and popping pills for every sniffle, sneeze, ache and pain.
2. Carbohydrates. Simple carbs suck and hardly beneficial nutritionally. Go for complex carbs (starch and fibre) which make us feel full and satisfied and are easily broken down to release their energy. Eat lots of fruits – best eaten on their own as they get easily and quickly digested and not with other food as they cannot pass through our bodies as quickly, instead rotting and fermenting in our tummies.
3. Sugar is the devil. Refined sugar (simple carbs) has been linked to hypoglycaemia, yeast overgrowth, a weakened immune system, hyperactivity, ADD, enlargement of the liver and kidneys, increase of uric acid in blood, mental and emotional disorders, dental cavities and imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. Go for natural substitutes (evaporated cane juice, brown rice syrup, barley malt syrup, raw sugar, beet sugar, date sugar, maple syrup and molasses. Stop eating/drinking products that contain aspartame (diet sodas and sugar-free food that have NutraSweet or Equal)!!
4. Stop eating dead, rotting and decomposing flesh, i.e. meat. Our alkaline saliva is not meant to break down animal flesh (carnivores’ acidic saliva is perfect for this). The book also details in great length the stomach-turning realities of the meat-production industry.
5. Diary disaster. Drinking milk is apparently just propaganda. We don’t need our mother’s milk as adults and yet we are the only species to drink the milk of another species. We lose the enzyme lactase (needed to digest lactose) between ages of 18 months and 4 years. The undigested lactose and the acidic nature of pasteurised milk encourage the growth of bacteria in our intestines. And cancer thrives in acidic conditions.
None of the researchers at Harvard, Yale, Penn State and the National Institute of Health found drinking milk to be a deterrent to osteoporosis; in fact dairy products have been linked to a host of other problems. Doctors don’t necessarily know anything about nutrition and nutritionists who say dairy products are good are misleading us it seems. So much for the Got Milk ads.
6. You are what you eat. Eat crap and you are crap. Eat animals reared in stressed and overcrowded farms fed with hormones, arsenic-laced drugs and steroids and we eat all these poisons, fear, rage and grief too.
7. Myths and lies about protein. Too much protein (especially animal protein) can impair our kidney; leak minerals and vitamins from our bodies; cause osteoporosis, heart disease, cancer and obesity; and damage our tissues, organs and cells, contributing to faster aging.
8. Pooping. This is no small or smelly matter as pooping is a vital tool for weight loss and optimal health. Drink lots of water to rid your body of waste, eat fibre-rich food and pay attention to the order you eat food.
9. Government agencies don’t care about your health. The authors are referring to the American agencies but I don’t see the situation being any different here.
10. Be strong. Immerse in the new lifestyle now or set goals and tackle them one at a time. Spend the first week of your new life removing one dirty vice item.
Chapter 11 provides suggestion for what to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner, acceptable snacks and suggestions for a month-long menu. It also lists all the bad ingredients (so next time you go grocery shopping, don’t check the calories but check the ingredients instead!). Chapter 12 dispenses various advices of what to eat and look out for in our everyday life (toothpaste, perfume, toiletry and make-up). The last chapter urges us to use our heads in making our decisions.
Well, I must say it is certainly an eye-opening book and am convinced that I should give up some food or alter my diet. But give up meat and become a vegetarian and then a vegan? I don’t eat a lot of meat as it is (I’m a semi-vegetarian at home) but don’t mind the occasional chicken, meat or fish meal. Give up cheese (and pizza and yoghurt? Whoa. As a Muslim, I can eat meat as long as it’s halal. I’m sure even our beloved Prophet ate meat and drank milk (goat or camel). We are not prohibited from eating halal food but I suppose conditions back then were different. Food was more organically grown, reared and produced.
As for other vices, I don’t drink, hate even the smell of cigarette (I refuse to be a second-hand smoker) and while I love the aroma of coffee, I don’t drink it. I don’t drink soda/gassy/carbonated drinks either and I drink eight glasses of water in the office alone. I have stopped eating processed meat and buying flavour enhances for my dishes.
I’m far from perfect though. My vice is junk food, chocolates and ice-cream. Don’t hold it against me; I strive to enjoy life and maintain a healthy lifestyle. I’m only human. But I will strive for a better, healthier life.
And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll become a full-fledged vegetarian. Or better still, a vegan.
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What a crazy season it is – we beat Everton away easily on the opening day of the season and on Saturday afternoon, they disposed off ManUre. This ten days after they disposed off Chelshit (why couldn’t we be like them too?). We closed the gap with ManUre with a win over Sunderland. Bendtner tapped in a pass from Eboue in the first half and at the death, Cesc converted a penalty. I love it when the announcer went ‘... player number 4, Cesc...’ and the crowd went ‘Fàbregas!!!’ ;’) Oh the score could have been more like when we beat Everton and Blackburn (at the start of the season, we were the team that could not stop scoring, now we looked like we could not start scoring) but we only had one lone striker (and he’s still working to get here; he still has to attend some session at the finishing school) – why didn’t we invest in one in January?! I was getting impatient, frustrated and agitated as the match progressed. But I’ll settle for two goals ;) despite it being a skinny score. Sunderland have not won any game since they beat us in November. Again, what a crazy season.
Our skipper apologised to the fans for the Porto defeat using the plane’s PA system, no thanks to the referee’s errors. Awww, he must be devastated ;’) as all Gunners and Gooners should be.
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