Life without sugar. Day 3 to 8.

Here I am, 8 days long without sugar. I cannot say that I have strictly follow life without sugar, because there is so many foods that contain sugar that sometimes is just impossible to look at every single thing. But we are becoming more conscious of the sugar in the food, and I can say I notice almost immediately when something has sugar on it. I am becoming more sensitive to sweetness, I actually do not need it that much I think.. But the truth is, I’ve been compensating sugar with a lot of other food.. and that is not ideal.. but well, I am starting, so the point is not to be that 100% strict with yourself, but being really aware of what you are eating.. and that for sure we are doing! Tuli went shopping the other day and he spent twice or more trying to find food without sugar. It is amazing how sugar is really everywhere.  I understand now better the discussion that was going on recently in Colombia about more taxes to soft drinks.

Today will be the big day to proof my persistence. I am going to the baby shower of one of my best friends (if not the best, I must confess) and I will have to say no to a lot of French delicatessen.. oh.. I will really need to be strong!!! We will see. For now, I just could not avoid weighting myself today, one week later, and it is because I need some incentive, and I got it. I think I have lost at least 500 grams… Is not a lot, but it is something taking into account that I have not exercised, and that I have been eating plenty potatoes, rice and pasta… I know.. Shame on me!!! But the challenge was only sugar not carbohydrates (I know what carbohydrates do once in the body and blood, but let’s keep it simple this month).

Lesson learnt: Eating without sugar makes you aware of what you are giving your body to make you happy.

My first time to Asia, my first time to Cambodia

More than 16 hours after I said goodbye to “my little every things” and to my beloved Tuli, I was touching Asian soil. It looked far, but the true is that I have never been in a foreign country more similar than mine before.  I came here as a Dutch citizen, but who am I kidding? I’m 100% Colombian and 150% proud of being Colombian.

We started our journey in the Asian continent with the most beautiful sunset in less than 30 minutes, we stepped over in Honk Kong the time enough to learn that all airports look the same and are the same ridicules expensive for basic drinks as water.   

Our Cambodian experience is full with ginger thee, long working days, manful discussions, and delicious food.  We were assigned to facilitate training for the staff in Cambodia, but also for some colleagues from Vietnam and Afghanistan, so the group was really international, as my colleague is real Dutch. This is what I enjoy more of my work, the international environment.

Being surrounded by Cambodian people didn’t feel strange at all, to the contrary, I have never felt so close to my roots in a different country than my own of course. When I was facilitating the training I felt like being at my home town. People here look so much alike to us, that this has given me great confidence. The training went good enough to satisfy us and the participants, so we score high and we are very happy about it. It was not perfect of course, but “Perfect is good, good is beter!”

 We live and enjoy new things. The tuk tuk ride every morning and evening was a tour through the city center and through the cultures, their lives, their challenges. I did not see a single bus, but I did see thousands of motors, hundred bicycles and many “many” Lexus and Toyota’s.  Being my first time in Asia I had to endure the hectic traffic, the pollution, I had to witness a full family in one motor, the kids without protection, babies in the arms of the mother behind daddies in the motors,  old woman and men riding bicycles, people in sleepers and T-shirts under heavy rain. Thanks good the plastic was invented! It is a whole life on the motor, and it is a way of living and surviving. If you want to get somewhere, you really need to have the Dutch cyclist Philosophy: You can go anywhere on your bike, in this case, on your motor. I saw some traffic lights, but they look more like decoration than with a real purpose. Traffic in Colombia is also horrible, but this is above all my experiences. We were told today how easily one can spend one hour per kilometer in times of heavy rain, just stocked in the traffic. But what was really familiar to me was how in cases of traffic stocks, then someone would take the lead to organize the best the alternative routes.  

We had our private Tuk Tuk driver, his name is Pom. I don’t remember ever seen a driver so smiling and so willing to do his job. He was amazing on his motor, he would fit where no other Tuk Tuk was and he would take care to avoid the more holes on the streets as possible.

Last day on our way to the office we saw a big tent in the middle of the street, and a big celebration going on. Then we learnt that the weddings feasts are celebrated that way. I read in a book that the Cambodians say that a wedding is the union of two paths, that’s why they have to block one. J

In general, my experience was great, I had a great companion during the trip, during the training and during our free time. We could enjoy visiting the Royal Palace when the sun was not burning your head yet (I’ve never felt so heated by the sun anywhere in the world!!), and we learnt how the two main Asian religions live together in Cambodia, Hinduism and Buddhism  mixed together in the traditions, in the architecture, in the art, in the way people dress.. I learnt the story of Rashana, and even had time to watch one of the movies about it.

I cannot find something negative about the trip, not even the eye infection that I had the first 5 days or the coughing that I had the other 5 days of the trip. I used those experiences to learn that I have to be more careful when touching my eyes in long flights, and also to do not use air conditioning at night and use a kind of mask when riding a tuk tuk one hour a day for almost 10 days. So, even that was something positive as well.

I hope that my next time in Asia and/ or in Cambodia I can take my family so they can also enjoy the beauty of the country, the food  (including frog)and most of all, the people.

Thank you OXFAM for this amazing opportunity!

 

New year resolutions: I quit sugar! For a month.

One of my New Year resolutions is to quit sugar. The reason is simple: Health. Is not that I am sick, but I want to prevent being sick, and I also want to embark myself and my family into a more healthy life style. I’ve been reading and listening about different sugar-free experiences and all that I get is just wonderful changes in the daily life, despite the hard of the beginng.. But which start is easy?

My mom has reduced her sugar consumption for years already, and the changes are more than visible, in the positive way, so as a good daughter, I am also starting this one month experiment.This is also in meory of a good man, husband and father who recently passed away and to his wife, whom I admire a lot. And finally, I also want to support, even from the distance, my friend Gaby and her husband Piet, in their new challenge.

I have been able to convince Tuli to live this with me; I honestly won’t be able to do it without him supporting me as he always does.  So here we are, at the second day of our one month sugar free:

Day 1: Sunday, 1^st of January. It went really easy, we do not eat that much sugar any way and if we don’t buy cookies or sugar, then we really don’t miss it (That much), so we had our usual breakfast for Sunday which is Pannekoeken, without sugar, but again, that is usual, we accompanied them with banana and cheese. Easy –peasy. For lunch we had a tosti with ham and cheese, as we were in a children indoor playhouse and the options were very limited.  That was the healthiest that one could get. For dinner we made a delicious salad with lentils, broccoli and apple, served with andivi stampot (A 100% Dutch plate), and white yogurt as dessert. This was not difficult at all, as it was our usual way of eating… the difficult came at night with the tea before going to bed, we usually have a cookie or four, and yesterday we just had tea. A bit sad, but with the support of Tuli, we made it!!

Day 2: Monday 2^nd of January: I woke up full of hopes that I had already lost some weight, but I knew I was being too much optimistic, so I didn’t bother to weight. I won’t do it till the end of the month, just to avoid frustrations.  The main reasons of not eating sugar is not losing weight… but my jeans know very well that some kilos less would benefit us both. For breakfast I had to improvise as my initial plan was oats but the one that I had thought contained sugar, so luckily I found one with no sugar… With this experiment I am becoming more aware of all the food that has already sugar on it… and it is a lot!!! I mean, even oats? Well, anyway, I grab some  snacks for work, which were seeds, and fruit.. Thanks God one of my colleagues is allergic to sugar and she shared a date with me because I was starving in the afternoon. For lunch I had  a salad, but the quality of the salads at my work are not the best, and somehow my stomach was pretty aware of it. But I survived! On my way home, I went to the biological supermarket and spent 30EUR in healthy food. If I would have bought the same food in my usual super market, I am sure I would have paid at least the half of it… Eating healthy is expensive… that is my second conclusion of this experiment so far.

And the third conclusion (wow, I am only in day two and I had already 3 conclusions.. If I am not getting thinner, I am getting wiser, that for sure, hihi)  is that eating sugar free with kids is really an utopia. Or maybe I am just in the automatic way and then I have to change it, but puff… it is really difficult. Today, my son baked some cookies in the BSO (daycare) and he was eating it in the way home, and I just wanted to share with him the joy so I asked him for a piece which he unexpectedly quick agree to give me, and then when I realized it, it was already in my mouth.. My tongue is already more sensitive and I could feel the loads of sugar on my mouth, so I had to take it out. It was difficult then to explain to my 4 year old son why I did it if that is the most delicious thing for him… But he and my daughter are also the reason of why I am doing this, I want to teach them a healthy way to eat, and to taste the pure flavor of natural food, the real stuff!!!!

For dinner we had a delicious pasta (integral) with spinach and fish. They loved it, and we too. So, second day was also a success. I am happy that the 5 dates I have eaten the last half hour do not count as sugar in my experimentJ

Thanks Marjan for the good tips today, and be aware that I will be asking you for advice the coming weeks.

 

 

Las campanas de la Iglesia están sonando..

Para no quedar fuera del grupo que hace su balance de fin de año, aquí estoy yo, aprovechando que mis dos angelitos duermen y que mi querido Tuli me apoya en todo (se parece a mi mamita adorada).

El 2016 se fue como vino, en un santi-amen. El mundo estuvo demasiado revuelto, pero la vida y los angelitos fueron muy buenos con nosotros, y nuestra vida fue muy buena en este año, que dejara huellas imborrables en mi vida y en mi memoria. Este fue el año en que mi Raquelita comenzó a andar, comenzó a correr y comenzó a saltar, el año en que comenzamos a escuchar su dulce voz y en el que su personalidad se comenzó a perfilar más que en su primer añito de vida. Raquel nos dio tantos momentos de alegría que sin duda repetiría cada segundo a su lado. Y que decir de este año con mi Wouty lindo. Mi niño comenzó el colegio, se volvió ya un niño grande que le gusta ir a la escuela, ir a museos, hacer manualidades, y jugar a ser el tigre del libro de la selva, pero sobre todo, es el niño más dulce y noble de todo el planeta. Así que en cuanto a mis chiquitines, este año fue más que perfecto.

En cuanto a mi Tuli, no existen palabras para describir lo bien que me siento a su lado, solo a su lado puedo realmente estar tranquila. En cuanto a mi familia, este año fue el año de estar orgullosa de mi hermana y de mi mamita. Ver la transformación interior de mi hermana me llena de esperanza, así que este 2016 me llena de mucha satisfacción. En cuanto a mis amigos, me alegra saber que a pesar del tiempo y la distancia hay algunos amigos que realmente son amigos del alma y con los que puedes conversar como si los hubieras visto ayer. Gracias amigas! Per so hay algo que me marco este año fue la lucha tan grande que unos amigos tuvieron que vivir y sufrir con sudor y lágrimas. Desafortunadamente, o quizás, afortunadamente, su lucha llego a un final no feliz, pero quizá si el más conveniente para las circunstancias.

Laboralmente fue un año de crecimiento y de fortalecimiento, grandes retos, buenas compañeras, un ambiente laboral flexible, viajes.. wow. La verdad es que la vida y el destino se ha portado fabuloso con nosotros este año, así que mi deseo más grande para el próximo es continuar así, y mejorar, pero sobre todo contar con mucha salud, mucha paciencia y mucha energía para todo lo que vendrá.

A todos mis amigos, amigas y familia, un muy feliz 2017.