Thursday, June 26, 2014

I'm fat, I know. But I don't need you to tell me so.

It's a fact girls and boys. Yes, I never try to hide from the fact that I am fat. In medical term, obese. Oh yes, obese because my BMI is way over where it is supposed to be. I know my facts..I learned about healthy eating, healthy lifestyle, nutrition and what have you in dental school, and from professor Google.... but still.. I am what I am.
 
Living in Japan is tough for woman. Especially woman with weight problems.  Everyone here is soooo skinny. Except for their national warriors, the sumo wrestlers of course.. but other than that.. fuh... Even my daughter who is just in 2nd grade always talk about how she has to control her diet because her friend told her that her legs and arms are rather thick. She is not what I would say a fat child. She is 135 cm, and weighs 31 kg. Perfectly normal for a kid her age. But no... people have to say what they wanted to say.. *sigh*.
 
So full these people are with their weight issues (even though in my humble opinion, it is not an issue at all), you can see the booming of these slimming centres and weight loss supplements. This did not only affect the girls but guys as well..
 
By the way, there are two people in my lab who always talk about other people's weight. These two are very very very skinny. But they kept on saying, especially the female that they need to watch what they eat or they will end up being fat like our professor. And they will laugh at how the professor is fat, has short legs and so on. Is the professor fat and has short legs? Well, she is not skinny. But she definitely is not fat. As for having short legs. I think half of the Japanese population has kind of proportionally shorter legs. Its's genetic perhaps..but it's not something that you should laugh about.
 
Sometimes these two would joke about how the professor is wealthy, and being fat is a sign of wealth. And then they would look at me and snigger.. And the female would say, ah..Naa, you must be very rich then...Well... Not Funny. I just laughed along though. I assume that these two are just so stressed out working under the professor that they found this joking about her could actually lighten their burden. Ah well.. Certainly not something someone around 50 years old would do.. right? Now I have to cross my fingers that they don't read this blog. Hahaha...
 
And I know it already! It's obvious. I have a mirror.. a full lenght mirror at home so I can see how fat I am now. You telling me that I am fat is not going to help me or do me any good other than hurt my already sensitive soul. Ouch.
 
Well, did I tell you, a few years back I lost almost 30 kilos.. yes.. 30 kilos (Americans, you do the conversion to pounds yourself) because I was so bored and had nothing much to aim for in life. So I made it a point to go on a diet. Oh boy.. I only ate very little, sometimes no rice at all a day. I took lots of salad and lean meat like turkey breasts, and white meat instead of red meat. I stopped all kind of sugary drinks. I only had ice cream once a month maybe..I also sweat a lot during sauna sessions..... It was crazy tough.. I didn't like the process a bit.. But..
 
After a year and 30 kilos lighter, I really felt and looked good. I was still in the overweight zone, but it was such a major change, every one who saw me were so surprised and did not even realize that I still had a few more kilos to shed. But... but... the sad thing was..the glory of looking and feeling great was not meant to last. I got pregnant with my second child and I just lost to temptations. And now I am back to square one.  Only God knows how frustrating it is..I still dream of losing weight .. but all my efforts to go on diet only lasted around 3 to 4 weeks... What can I say, I just love food!  :)
 
Anyway, I think I would love to start a weight loss progamme again before I graduate in 2015. Hopefully within the next one year, I can lose a few kilos to look good in graduation pics. Pray for me. Send heartwarming thoughts and comments!
 
 
 

2 comments:

fatimah zaharah said...

Hi Dr

It is already end of Dec 2015. Hope you have already graduated (does that mean you now have double Drs? ;) ).

You haven't been writing at all this year. Hope you will get my comment though.

I want to be a dentist but I am already 25. Do you think it is too late for me now? I mean...everyone keeps saying so..but then I was like, why not. There shouldn't be an age limit for anyone to further studying..I have already had a degree but I want to do something that allows me work directly with the public especially in health science. Do you think some dreams are meant to be dream only?

Naa said...

Hi there Fatimah, I have graduated in September 2015.. more than a year ago. Thanks for asking :)
I want to write. Really.. writing non-academic stuff is my passion. I suppose I can re-start.. Been a little bit under stress after I started work.. with all the KPIs and what not.. sigh..

Btw, I had a colleague who graduated from UiTM and went to do her dentistry in Pakistan later. She was over 30 when she graduated and started working. So I won't say it's impossible for you to start anew. Perhaps Malaysians are not that used to this but if you are ok working with people 5 or 6 years younger than you. Why not? In fact, there's this one Chinese lady who graduated from a local private university and she's pretty old.. really. But she graduated and is now practising dentistry with her husband at a well-known clinic in KL

So you see.. if you have the passion ( and the money) .. you can! You definitely can. But why dentistry? Why not other fields like say.. Nutrition? I think we need more nutritionists than dentists nowadays. There are just too many dentists around...

Well.. what ever the path that you choose, I wish you all the best dear!