The illusion of Rachel

I went to UK for my A-Levels on 6th January 1996, at the tender age of 17, roughly one month or so after the SPM exams in 1995. I came back to Malaysia for good in 2004. That makes it 8 years plus of being overseas. Throughout the time I was there, the series Friends was a household name. I literally evolved with the series, and as you can imagine, Rachel and Monica where a huge influence in my young adult life.

*Image googled @ gofugyourself.celebuzz.com

It was well known at the time that Jennifer Aniston was permanently on the low carb, high protein Atkins diet to maintain her svelte figure. Since weight gain was a non-issue for me during that period in my life, I never took notice. However, when the side effects of marriage and motherhood crept up on me, the Atkins diet was what I turned to for solutions.

The low carb craze was what initially made me see rice as the essence of evil. More on the rice issue in future post. It was easy to not eat rice, but much harder to stay away from sugar and carbohydrates. Being on Atkins was easier said than done. I never went through the ketosis period I don't think, but my weight would yo-yo up and down as expected when one follows a fad diet.

When SlimWorld prescribed to me a low carb and relatively high protein diet, I thought it made sense, thus further disillusioning me that an Atkins-like diet was the key to weight loss. But deprivation of carbs became a vicious cycle of cravings and binging. After the success at SlimWorld, I continued to struggle with choosing the right food to eat. The subsequent weight gain was unfortunately inevitable...