Healthy, Low-Carb Meals Compilation

It's getting easier for me to follow a healthy diet plan because I have explored various healthy meal recipes which eventually makes cooking healthy food something that I enjoy doing besides working out. My diet plan involves no simple carbs and consists of mostly protein, complex carbs and fibre. So when I go to the market for grocery shopping, the food items I would normally grab are farm eggs, chicken breast, minced chicken, salmon, mackerel, fresh lettuce, brocolli, strawberries, blueberries, banana, other vegetables and fruits I feel like buying.

So here are my healthy meals for the week!

 Korean egg roll.

Grilled chicken meat ball.

 Chicken meat loaf.

Mustard crumbed grilled chicken breast.

 Roast chicken.

Guacamole (Avocado salad).

Banana and blueberry vanilla protein pancake with cottage cheese.

Banana protein pancake with cottage cheese.

Tuna and cottage cheese salad.

I love cottage cheese recently because it has high content of casein which is a longer lasting protein and it is low in fat. However, one cup of cottage cheese costs me RM12.90. Sigh.

So which one of the above is your favourite? Protein pancake is my favourite because you can never go wrong with pancake. 

I guess that's all for today's health conscious post!

P/S: Happy Birthday to my bestie, Hui Ming!

by

CSY

Couple's Protein Supplements

Hello! Today's short post is about the protein supplements we got for ourselves recently. We were both very excited about it because we love working out and these protein babies are gonna be very helpful in helping us to achieve our desired goals!

Tadaa! So here are the products we got.

a) Shakers for our protein shakes! Both the blue and black shakers are from GNC Live Well. It feels good to bring a shaker along during workout session in the gym so you can consume protein shake right after your workout session. It's important to consume immediately because time loss is muscle loss!

b) CSY's green tea flavoured soy protein drink from Nutrilite Amway. It contains 8g of protein per serving. It's not a lot compared to the amount of protein in the Whey protein supplement but still it's sufficient for my daily protein intake. My other protein resources will be eggs, lean meat, low-fat yogurt and low-fat cottage cheese.

c) CYK's Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Protein from GNC Live Well. It contains 24g of protein and 5.5g of BCAAs (branch-chained amino acids) per serving so it' more suitable for hubby who focuses on muscle building. Awww my green tea protein powder looks so mini next to hubby's gigantic whey protein.

Hubby also signed up for GNC membership!

You can also opt for protein meals to enhance your muscles. Here is my protein meal for the day. Banana Protein Pancakes!

Made with a piece of banana, two whole eggs, a scoop of vanilla flavoured whey protein powder, blueberries, topped with strawberries and some low-fat cottage cheese. It's alright to not add in the protein powder, you can still make pancakes by using only banana and eggs! The extra cottage cheese gives the extra boost of protein but it is an expensive food product here =(. Anyone knows where to get cheap cottage cheese? I got mine from Ben's Market @ Publika and it costs me about RM12.90 for a small cup.

On a side note, both of us will be joining the Standard Chartered Marathon on June 30. I'm getting nervous because it's my first time joining a 10km marathon and I wasn't a good runner in the past though I have been doing a lot of cardio lately. Hope the effort will pay off.

That's all for today!  

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CYK & CSY ♥

Simple Life Vegetarian Restaurant @ Sunway Pyramid

Right after our Korean class, we headed straight to this Simple Life Vegetarian Restaurant inside the Sunway Pyramid Shopping mall to satisfy our cravings for healthy yet delicious food. We did not regret having our late lunch here because we were satisfied with the food served and would definitely pay it another visit next time! 

 Situated at the blue concourse near AEON.

Me with my healthy drink. Forgot what I ordered. =P

Hubby!

Hubby ordered brown rice nasi lemak and it's delicious! Served with sunny side up egg, sambal, acar, peanuts, fried ikan bilis, cucumber, keropok and a slice of watermelon. It's healthy, it's vegetarian but rest assured that it will not disappoint your taste buds =).

 Looks good isn't it?

 Some close-up shots =).

Whole grain naan with curry vegetables that I ordered. The naan is super delicious! Naan is mostly carbs but I consider this as a cheat meal as well! Haha, so many cheat meals in a week. I will definitely need more workout.

Eat clean and be happy!

That's all for today!

by

CSY

Zen Korean BBQ Restaurant @ Ampang Korean Town

In my previous post, I mentioned about the post-exam cheat meals I had. Well, Korean food is one main culprit in the list. No regrets though because this Korean restaurant that I'm going to blog about is certainly the best among the many that I've visited. Yeap, I think it even beats Daorae, the famous Korean restaurant chain in Malaysia. Even the Mr. Lim Korean Restaurant at Desa Sri Hartamas with many good reviews didn't live up to my expectations (just realised I haven't blogged about it). But this Zen Korean Restaurant is the bomb. Love every single food here even the side dishes. Not one of it lets me down. Gained one or two kilograms as a result of the exorbitant amount of food that I've had in the past few days but you only lived once right? Will lose those fat once I hit the gym.

Zen Korean BBQ Restaurant is above Shin Shun Mi Korean Supermarket.

If I show this picture to people, they would all think that I was in Korea with the background view of shop signages in Korean words.

Quiet because it was a weekday.

Hubby!

 First thing first, what would Korean BBQ be without their signature soybean paste, garlic and green chiliies. All of these are meant to be wrapped with fresh lettuce (plus the bbq meat) and eaten in a single bite.

 And also not to missed out, the Korean side dishes! 10 sides dishes in total.

Clockwise: marinated anchovies with peanuts, spinach , marinated white radish and mashed potatoes with hard boiled eggs.

Clockwise: marinated long beans, marinated yellow bean sprouts, kimchi (my favourite, the kimchi they serve is mature kimchi with sourish fermented taste) and firm tofu with yellow sauce (taste like kunyit).

Up: me and hubby's favourite! Onion pancakes! 

Below: brocolli and cauliflower mix.

We even refilled the side dishes. Just can't get enough. =)

 BBQ chicken sprinkled with sesame seeds and served on a hot plate! Love this, the chicken was cut into bite-sized pieces and very tender. 

Hubby's Kimchi Jjigae. It is very well done with the right amount of spiciness and sourness.

 My favourite steamed egg! Super hot when it was served so my tongue got burnt a bit! Always happens with Korean steamed egg. Haha.

 BBQ Pork Belly marinated with red pepper sauce. Awesomelicious with the right proportion of belly fat and lean meat. It was marinated with the house red pepper sauce (gochujang) hence the flavourful taste and goes well with lettuce wraps.

 Hubby said this is my gluttony face. =D =D =D

 Look at my contented face to be fed with this much of food.

'Burps'

Both of us would strongly recommend their BBQ pork belly and chicken. There are so many other dishes that we would like to try on our next visit. Their bibimbap looks tempting too! Ahhh my love for Korean food will never die.

Address:

Ampang Putra Residency, 14-L2, Jalan Ampang Putra, Taman Putra Sulaiman, Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, 68000 (Same row as Shin Chon Korean Military Soup)

Mon. 18:00-22:30

Tue.-Sun. 12:30-14:30 (Lunch)

Tue.-Sun. 18:00-22:30 (Dinner)

by

CSY

Work That Muscle

I was feeling the soreness all over my body as a result of yesterday's hardcore workout with hubby in the gym. Definitely loving it! Today is a rest day for me but that doesn't stop me from going for a 15 minutes run around my house and stairs climbing in the morning. I also did some workout videos to give that extra burn on my muscles.

I made today's meal very clean as I had too many post-exam cheat meals. Had a super satisfying cheat meal at Zen Korean BBQ Restaurant yesterday which I will be blogging about.

Breakfast: Avacado with chicken breast and 2 hard-boiled eggs salad.

Lunch: Butterhead lettuce wrap with chicken and cucumber cubes. 

For dinner, I made this ultra delicious blueberry and banana protein pancake as my resource of protein and energy. Recipe here by Casey Ho.

 Even if you are not keen on healthy food, you will be loving this because it is just so good.

 Aren't strawberries and blueberries the cutiest and yummiest fruits in the world? I always have them in my fridge and they are like siblings, one must exist with another for the perfect match.

 Natural purple tinted pancakes. A truly nutritious and satisfying meal. =)

Got this green tea flavour protein powder from Hubby (Thanks hubby!) and I loveee it! It is now my daily addiction because it tastes really good plus low calories with all the protein you will need for post-workout! I used one scoop of this protein powder for my protein pancake too!

Yummy~

Will blog more about my fitness routine and inspiration because there might be times when I browse through the old posts to find motivation and stay strong.

Happy workout and cheers to healthy lifestyle!

by

CSY

Healthy and Natural Banana Cookies and Pancakes

Food blogging time! Since I'm on a loooong holiday right now, I've set myself a new fitness goal which is to get nice and defined abs! I watched Iron Man 3 twice and I would never forget that scene when Gwyneth Paltrow walks out from a fire and flaunts her abs in her sports bra. It made me go 'wowww' because I never thought she would have such nice abs with her age. If you are also feeling the same, you might want to start browsing abs workout videos on youtube and start working out! Btw Casey Ho is one of the famous fitness instructors on youtube right now and her squat challenge is awesome. Try it to feel the intense burn on your thigh and butt! =D

It's important to lose fat and train those muscles but the golden rule to have a nice fit body is to eat CLEAN if you want to see your abs coming out.

Eat clean means eat natural, whole food that you can get from fresh food market like veggies, lean meat (chicken breast is my fav), salmon, fruits, complex carbs including brown rice, whole grain cereal etc. No unhealthy processed food such as sausage, ham and refined carbs such as white rice, noodles etc.

Eating clean doesn't mean you can't eat yummy food. You just need to start appreciating the natural flavour of healthy food such as this Banana cookies and pancakes recipe that I'm going to talk about. This is inspired by Casey Ho and I made this almost everyday because it's just so delicious and nutritious at the same time. Love this recipe so much so I might as well share this with everyone.

Banana cookies are literally the easiest cookie to make in the world. You can even make these cookies using microwave or oven if you have one. Steps are simple. Mash a banana with rolled oats until they blend well together. Then gather a small round ball and flatten it on a tray or plate and microwave the cookies until they become hard. It took me about 3 minutes.

Seriously taste so good. I love Casey Ho. She's amazing!

Casey Ho's tutorial video on how to make Banana Cookies here.

Next will be Banana Pancakes! Super easy too! Cut a banana into slices. Add two whole eggs in. Beat all of them together until they blend well and you will get a nice fluffy pancake mixture. Heat oil on frying pan and start frying the pancakes piece by piece!

I'm salivating already! I can't choose between Banana cookies and pancakes, they are both equally yummy!

Tutorial video here.

I understand that it's a difficult task for Malaysians to eat clean because most Malaysian food is either salty/oily food, fried stuff and more fried stuff.  Besides, refined carbs is a main staple in asian diets so it's hard to change your diet completely all of a sudden. However, I believe that you can slowly achieve this by eating clean in one of your daily meals and gradually proceed to two clean meals per day. Then eventually eat clean meals for 5 days a week and you will be almost there. Reward yourself by eating cheat meal on weekends to satisfy your cravings for pizza or fried chicken.

It's not a difficult thing to be lean and healthy but a change has to be made. So change to see the difference =). That's all for today's fitness post. Will share more about my experience next time!

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CSY

Holiday Mood On!

 This is it! Results were out and this draws the end of our third year. Soon we will be marching towards our final year. And then we graduate. Oh man. So gan zheong.

For now, I have to spend my holidays wisely and productively because this will be my last long term holiday before the challenging final year starts. It makes me shudder to even think about the final year project proposals and practical exam that we will be having. ><

On another note, a photography studio was in our college today so all of us head over and get our photos taken. We were given so many cute props to pose with. ^^

Our lecturers wearing hats and holding cute props. Haha.

These are just unofficial photos taken using smartphones. An official photo album will be given to us. Wooooo, can't wait to receive it. = 3

Btw I'm super happy with my results! Glad that all those efforts were finally paying off. For those who didn't do as well as they've expected, I hope they will do better in their future exams! I'm sure they will!

That's all! Happy Holiday everyone!

by

CSY

Restoran Hee Soon Fong @ Telok Panglima Garang, Kuala Langat, Selangor

Before my clinical placement in March, daddy the food traveller decided to take us to Kuala Langat to have some awesomely fresh seafood!

According to daddy, Restoran Hee Soon Fong's steamed Batin fish is one of the best steamed fish you can get in Selangor because the fish they offer is extremely fresh and contains a lot of tasty fish fat *slurps*. You know when it comes to fish, the fattier the tastier right? ; )

This restaurant is located right next to this temple.

 Hubby who travelled to this remote part of Selangor with us!

A very simple and old-fashioned Chinese restaurant with round tables and red chairs. It is not even indoors so beware of flies!

Here comes the main dish, steamed Batin fish with soy sauce!

Look at the texture of the fish meat! It's very different from any steamed fish in KL. Super fresh and tasty I don't even know how to explain any further. I couldn't remember the price of this dish but it is certainly not very cheap because this Batin fish is freshly caught from the river and is a more expensive Batin fish breed I think.

 Fried tofu with minced meat! Nice!

 Pork belly with salted fish! Nice!

Fried long beans with pork belly I guess? Couldn't remember because we visited this restaurant two months ago.

Every dish is delicious here but the food might be a tad too oily and salty for people who prefer healthier food. The cooking style here is very 'ka-heong' which means hometown style and it certainly can appeal to many city folks who wish to have a taste of genuine Chinese homecook food. I personally think all city folks should spend a day travelling to this remote part of Selangor because there is just too much good food to be offered in this so called 'kampung' area. 

Address:

Hee Soon Fong - Jln Klang-banting Batu 11 1/2, Telok Panglima Garang, Selangor.

Tel: Wong Tin Soong 03-3191 4681 , 012-308 1866

by

CSY