Do you believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day? It is said that the healthiest way to have your meals is to start with a heavy breakfast, followed by a non-over indulged lunch and a light dinner. How many of us do that? I think we usually eat the other way around, a little bit of breakfast, a rather sumptuous lunch and a heavy dinner to finish the day. Sometimes we may even have a light supper!

That’s definitely no way to eat for those who are looking forward to cut down a few pounds. At home, we have one of us trying to do that…so off we start to a heavy breakfast for the day and then having moderate meals for the rest of us who aren’t cutting down.

Also we’re all trying to cut down on carb diet as it’s the main culprit for weight gain. But obviously we don’t cut down on that for Ryan. He loves carbs, just like me. Give him rice, noodles, bread, potato, he loves them all. But due to his super-active “lifestyle”, he burns them rather quickly.

What are some of the ways you look after your diets at home? I’ve heard from friends of friends who recently learned about hcg diet. I really don’t think going for the unconventional way of losing weight is a good answer. You just never know. I’d say go for the low carb diet, do regular exercises and maybe do a monthly detox.

Any ways you have tried that work well?

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Today is the Isetan member’s pre-sales and it was complete madness in the house. Just to enter the parking entrances of KLCC itself was a nightmare as they were mostly closed off and only allowed season pass holders to get in. Through some creative ways, we managed to find our way in there and to our delight, parking spots were aplenty and even right next to the entrance to the elevators!

My aim to Isetan today was to purchase some OSK green tea as they were going cheap and it’s not easy to find them on offer. I was also tasked to help Busy Bee buy some San Remo instant pastas that were on promotion – 3 packs were selling for RM11 versus its usual price of RM4.50 each. I saw many people picking them up and the sales lady told me these pastas were great in taste and very popular.

I decided to give them a try. After all, it’s very easy to make and I think my boy may just like it. So I bought 3 packs – macaroni & cheese, mushrooms & herb and creamy mushroom & onion. They all seem very creamy and rich, don’t they? It’s a wonder that people won’t need things like ephedrine to lose all the weight they gain from such creamy and rich foods!

I’ve never tried instant pastas of any kind before and the more I think about it, the more I am quite impressed at how these can be big time savers for times when you need to quickly whip up a meal for the family. I just hope they will turn out as great in taste as everyone else is claiming them to be otherwise I would be quite disappointed. As it is, with so many people giving me positive recommendations on them, I do have quite high expectations already. Maybe I should lower them, huh?

Anyway, I’m looking forward to try some of these instant pastas. If my boy loves them too, then it’s another trait in me that he’s picking up – my love for pastas, any kind of pastas!

After we’ve tried them, I’ll try to write up some useful and honest reviews on them at my shopping site. If you are interested, do look out for it.

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Remember I was talking about how my little boy was asking for milk a lot more often ever since I moved him up a stage from Enfalac to EnfaGrow? Well I’m happy to update that he’s now not consuming as often and is back to his usual milk feed frequency. A quick check with the shopkeeper about the contents of the milk powder revealed that EnfaGrow is supposedly easier to digest and thus it could be the reason why the boy was initially asking for more feeds as his body adjusts to the faster burning rate of the formula. I think by now his system has adjusted and he’s less “addicted” to the milk.

We continue to feed him with more solid food throughout the day and supplement with milk whenever he asks for it. In the nights, we’re getting more hours of uninterupted sleep as he has gone back to waking up once, at the most twice to ask for milk. We’re happy to be getting more rest as it was worrying for us when we had to wake up thrice a night.

For those few weeks when we were so exhausted from waking up, we even thought of changing our bed to a more comfortable sleep number bed if this trend continues for long. Our logic was that if we aren’t getting enough hours of sleep, at least having a good bed should help to make us more comfortable in our sleep. Of course good beds don’t come cheap, and yet we are aware of the benefit of having one. I guess for now, since times are so uncertain and we are getting back our regular hours of sleep, we will just hold off the purchase.

Speaking of beds, the boy is still not taking to the bed when it comes to sleeping. We tried recently to encourage him to lie down on his bed to sleep but he got up in less than five seconds! He just wouldn’t lie still. So back he went into the sarong for the night and is still doing so. Though the more experienced mothers keep telling me this is okay and one day he will just learn to stay still and fall asleep on the bed, I do wonder if it will really  happen just like that!

But whatever works for now is fine by us. We’re just happy to gain back some sleep and the fact that he’s back to his regular feeding habit. It’s a big relief!

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I read this piece of news this morning in the newspapers, but it was just a tiny column hidden in the World news section and it didn’t have much information. Fearing that it would be a repeat of the tainted milk scandal in China, I decided to do a search to find out more.

The brand of the formula is not revealed anywhere in press releases, but all that is said is that it is an organic baby formula produced in France. This is the news article:

Harmful bacteria detected in French baby formula: South Korea

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korean officials said Tuesday they have found harmful bacteria in a French baby formula product and vowed to step up tests on future shipments.

The National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service said it detected a strain called enterobacter sakazaki in a shipment of 135 kilograms (297 pounds) of canned organic formula produced by France’s Vitagermine and imported last month.

E. sakazaki bacteria can cause meningitis and enteritis.

Since December 2007 eight shipments of the product weighing a total of 1,492 kilos have been imported and six of these, totalling 1,222 kilos, reached the market.

After last month’s shipment failed tests, inspectors are examining the latest 135-kilo delivery that arrived on February 6.

The quarantine service said it was also checking formula which had already reached the market.

“Most of the 1,222 kg has already been consumed by people who ordered the product online,” Na Byeong-Seung, an official of the service, told AFP.

He said the quarantine service had secured four cans for testing, including two sent in by a shopper alarmed by reports of the bacteria.

Results are expected sometime next week and the service may order a recall if contamination is found.

Source: Yahoo Health.

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As I understand it from other mummies, their little toddlers who have just passed the stage of babyhood are now consuming more solid food and less formula. It makes sense to me too and I’ve always assumed the same. But my little boy doesn’t seem to be slowing on the milk. Instead, he’s consuming even more!

Some two weeks ago I switched him to the next stage of formula, from Enfalac A+ to EnfaGrow A+. I gave him the same amount, which is 7 ounces during each milk time. Normally he would drink once in the morning when he wakes up, have breakfast and then maybe another time in the later part of the morning before his lunch on solid food. In the afternoons, he’ll probably consume another feed and then it’s porridge at dinner. After dinner, he may consume just one or two more feeds before he sleeps. In the nights, he would wake up once to satisfy his milk craving too.

But now that we’ve switched him to EnfaGrow, he’s asking for milk every hour or every two hours despite feeding him his full meals and snacks in between! It seems like he’s eating more solid food as well as drinking a lot more milk. One night, he even woke us up 3 times to ask for milk!

I’m wondering if this is normal since most mummy friends of mine are quite shocked with this story of mine. Anyone’s little one is taking on more milk like how he is doing?

One thought entered my mind. If I were breastfeeding him still and with his demand for milk shooting up like this, I think I would be eating non-stop myself just to keep up! And who knows, I may just grow too, to a point I might have to resort to things like Decaslim to control my “growth”! Good thing he weaned himself early on, huh?

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