Macro:
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Micro:
FrugalSingaporeGirl's food prejudices.
As I have stated in the introductory blog post, I fell victim to lifestyle creep over the years.
During at least the past 5 years, I was seldom satisfied with a simple, bare basics lunch. I feel compelled to eat something fanciful (double of the price of a cai png**?) - a Soup Spoon set meal (approx. SGD 10, USD 7.30), an entry-level restaurant noodle soup dish at Xin Wang (approx. SGD 13, USD 9.50), or a takeaway Cold Storage salad (approx. SGD 9, USD 6.60). If I eat cai png, I would forsake rice, ordering a lot of meat and vegetables to upgrade it to a low-carb meal. This approach inevitably cost a premium. If I ate at a cheap place like a non-air-conditioned hawker centre, I would round up the meal with a freshly squeezed fruit juice (approx. SGD 3, USD 2.20) to use up what I saved on the main meal/ compensate myself for eating at an uncomfortable location.
** Cai png, that humble meal consisting of a staple base of rice accompanied with a selection of pre-cooked vegetables/meat/fish/egg, had fallen so far below my radar that I nearly forgot that it can be a meal choice. It is the cheapest type of meal available and it offers good variety in terms of taste and nutrition. It is value for money.
Why have I grown to dislike the Cai Png?
Cai Png is not necessarily the healthiest food you can find
Because of white rice and palm oil. I have grown snobbish with the years and developed a disdain for white rice. It is too high-GI and contributes to weight gain. Sugars in refined white rice surge into the blood stream and wrecks havoc with the skin, causing collagen elastins to collapse. Palm oil is the other evil - hawkers not only use it liberally but also use the worst-quality, cheapest version they can get their hands on. Cai png is gross!
Cai Png is .... depressing
Nutritional considerations aside, cai-png is associated with a particular way of life in Singapore - the humble and the poor and the unglamorous. It is a fixture in the (not unfunny) stereotype of the fat and unattractive male office worker who buys cai png and eat it alone at his desk, spooning out of a styrofoam box in front of his computer. Lifestyle creep meant that I outgrew it. But being now determined to be humble (for blessed are the humble in spirit), I decide to fully embrace the cai png every lunch!
Intermittent Fasting promotes frugal eating
Since I started practising Intermittent Fasting after Chinese New Year, I am only eating two meals a day, breakfast and lunch over a 4-hour window. This opens up a leeway for me to eat starchier, more filling foods during these two meals. I have observed myself for the last two weeks after I reverted to cai png. My weight has been under excellent control - white rice during lunch has had no adverse impact.
Moreover, my strictly controlled eating hours ensure that my body fully burns up the carbohydrates as fuel during the time when I require energy, which is essentially the office hours (9am to 6pm). When I reach home, I dive into bed on an empty stomach, ensuring no lingering ill effects from carbohydrate ingestion in the afternoon.
How to address the nutritional concern?
Nutrition can be achieved by selecting better cuts of meat/fish from the caipng stall - I usually order a fish steak that is cooked and served on its bones. I value protein and must have a portion every day, and Cai Png is one of the rare places that still cook fresh fish in their bones.
Food Spending - SGD 6.60 (USD 4.82)
In the morning, I begin feeding at 9am. Breakfast consists a soya-flour muffin with tuna fish filling from Mr Bean and a wholemeal bread sandwich with organic hazelnut spread. The sandwich is prepared with materials from home. All coffee and tea from the office pantry.
1) Soya-flour muffin with tuna fish filling - SGD 1.60 (USD 1.17)
2) Cai Png (white rice, palm-sized stingray steak, sliced potatoes) - SGD 5.00 (USD 3.65)
Food Tips
1) Eat Less - By practising Intermittent Fasting. Imposing a feeding window naturally ensures that volume of food intake reduces over time. I have also observed a genuine decline in my appetite with time - physical needs do shrink with psychosomatically. I have lost 3 kg over 3 months on IF, may not sound impressive but considering that I am 1.6m tall and began with an already relatively low base of 52kg.
2) Prepare Food at Home - In time, I shall cut out that breakfast soya-bean muffin habit.
GOAL REITERATION
I aim to spend SGD 310 (USD 226) on food per month including occasional trips out with my friends. Will I achieve this?
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