Chinese New Year 2013

We went to Hsinchu to celebrate New Year's last month. (Sorry it's taken so long to post.) We left home early morning, came home later that night. We lunched at a delicious restaurant there, ordered many dishes; and had a great time with my family.

Yes, we were exhausted, having gotten up so early.

Mom, ready as ever.

A few hours later...

Can I have some? (Dog was taking a time-out.)

Us kids played cards.

We headed off to lunch. My brother was well prepared.

So was my mom.

Forgot the name of the dish. It had all sorts of meat, corn, and something with mayonnaise.

We kept asking a refill for our rice. According to my cousin, the waiter seemed very amused.

Chinese Chicken Medicine Soup.

Yam coated with sugar.

Would've been two cousins, but the one on my left had to hide.

Virtually all of our dishes.

A bowl of tomatoes and guava.

Five refills total. Oh, boy.

After playing an intense card game, we decided to rest and stack them up.

We were so concentrating on what we were doing. If we wanted to laugh, we had to choke it down.

This was mine.

We settled for some basketball later.

Then we rested.

Part of my Ah-gong's Chinese painting.

At the HSR station, ready to go home.

My mom and my brother.

Us good o' siblings.

We grabbed some dinner when we got back to the Taichung HSR station. Mine was fried pork chops with noodle soup.

My brother's chicken with rice.

My mom's vegetarian soup.

Metabolic Balance Diet Review

Update from 2018: Uhh... I was randomly reading through my blog and came across this post. I gotta say, I would definitely not recommend this diet. However, I'll leave this post here. I like to keep my journals and memories and all that good stuff, so while I don't agree with this method anymore (I was young when I wrote this post, please forgive me), feel free to read it!



Losing weight is one of the hardest things a person has to accomplish. I sympathize with anyone who goes on the diet. (I'm sure practically everyone would agree.) I thought I had tried every diet in the world, but then I realized there are a lot of older women than me out there, and they have their own struggles as well. 

However, following this particular diet, many people have lost weight. I felt hopeful when I heard about it and when I heard this diet was different than most. So this is about my story and success!

My Story

At the beginning of this year, my mom and I started to follow a German diet called Metabolic Balance, created by Dr. Wolf Funfack. (Thank you so much for developing this recipe, Doctor!!) My mom stumbled upon this diet program by accident. She was looking through some articles on a site, and she saw a group of comments discussing "MB". At the time, my mom was confused, thinking, What on earth is MB? That's when she went to do some research and discovered a book about the diet. She told me about it, and about how effective it was for so many people. I agreed we should buy it and try it out. We would have nothing to lose if it didn't work. So she purchased the book, the Metabolic Balance Diat - Diet book.

I never had any doubts about this diet. I had a good feeling about this particular one, and I was right! I have come to love this diet. I never felt I was deprived of eating anything I wanted, because I had just returned from Taipei, and I ate a lot then, so when I came back home, I felt that was a good time to lose a few kilos. At the beginning, I referred to this program as a diet, but as time went by, I started to believe this to be a more nutritious diet. It was not only effective, but healthy.

I have lost a total of four kilos. I initially lost two kilos in the first week, then the weight loss speed gradually decreased. As a result, I lost more than one kilo the following week. I'm pleased with the result, though. My aunt, who my mom introduced the diet to as well later, has been struggling with her weight for most of her life. She lost only 0.2 kilos the first two days, then a little more, then suddenly it dropped dramatically. Hence, she lost about 4.8 kilos total so far.

What the Metabolic Balance can do

My mom insisted on calling it a nutritious diet because it apparently works wonders. She told me about this woman, who had not menstruated in two years, but during this diet, the woman started again. She was ecstatic! Every time I look at the recipe, I wonder how that happened. I think it is pretty amazing. Moreover, this diet can increase your metabolism, improve your health, increase your confidence, and helps you feel good about yourself.


Brilliant program. It is highly effective, both physically and psychologically. It makes your overweight body "fit" again, and my mom told me unhealthy skinny people who don't eat right, gain a little weight, but that was because they were not eating correctly in the first place. This program makes your body "right" again.

Considering it? Read on!

Recipe

I am delighted to say, instead of counting calories, it counts the weight of the food you are supposed to have per day. (I hate counting calories. I did not have a very good experience with that.) Anyway, the main point of this diet is that you always have to eat every five hours. That's right, no snacks in between. When you do start your meal, start with protein first, such as fish, meat, mushrooms, or tofu. If you feel like grabbing a bite to eat in  between those long five hour periods, start with protein first as well.

There are three stages to this diet - four if you count the rest of your life, which is when you keep this up forever, basically. For the first two stages, you cannot have a drop of oil in your food at all. Essential point. Stage one consists of all fruit or all vegetables for the first two days, to clean up your system. Next, stages two and three, the recipe lasts for the one week each. Since the recipe is hard to elaborate - especially the morning meal - I will only acknowledge the basics. During the diet, I usually have a bowl of oatmeal with fruit for breakfast. As for lunch and dinner, the recipes include protein, vegetables, and fruit. Stage three is when you are allowed to have three tablespoons of oil a day, and have a huge meal one day a week.

Remember: drink tons of water, eat every five hours, and start with protein first.

Like I said earlier, it is hard to elaborate on the recipe, so I would recommend buying the book. I promise you, it is worth it.

Here are some testimonials from this Metabolic Balance site: http://www.metabolic-balance.com/us/home/Testimonials.aspx