What Every Cohenite Newbie Should Know

Today is the day!!!  April 15, 2012 is graduation day.  That's a total of 93 days of the full Cohen cycle.  Of course, it could have been a couple of days less expect that I was abroad for 2 weeks and I kinda deviated from the Refeeding Plan.  During this entire process, there are a few things I realized about this plan that I think any new Cohenite must realize too:

1.  It is important to prepare your meals yourself.  Being the spoiled Pinoys that we are, many new Cohenites find the process of planning and preparing meals a pain.  True, it is a pain; especially if you are coming from the South Beach Diet where you can just call your favorite chef to prepare your daily meals and have it delivered in cute food boxes to your door step.  When you personally prepare your meals, you are conscious about the amount of salt and fat and other unhealthy ingredients that go into your meals.

I used to eat out every single day for the past 25 years.  Restaurants don't really care about the amount of salt or oil that goes into their dishes.  Actually, the more fat they put into their dishes, the more excited the customers get about their food.  Have you ever noticed how much oil goes into a typical Filipino dish?  How about a supposedly healthy dish that is topped with foie gras?  Remember that crunchy serving of bagnet?  How do you think it got that crunchy?

Personally preparing your meal also helps to tweak your mind into adjusting your meal portions.  When you weigh your beef, you now know what 150 grams of raw steak should look like.  It is definitely not the slab of meat I used to order at the restaurant!  And you know what, this new allowance is filling too.

2.  You don't have to eat until you feel like chocking.  The meal allowances are really just about right.  You get up from the table without that over-stuffed feeling.  It actually feels good!

3.  Meal planning is just a matter of organization.  Again, I emphasize that I never used to cook before Cohen.  I'm still not a good cook BUT now I know why I never got to cook in the first place.  It's not that I did not want to.  It's just that I did not know how to start doing it!

Pre-cohen, I would buy cookbooks and read through the recipes.  I would then mark the recipes I'd like to try and then list down ingredients to purchase for my meal.  The problem with this is that I end up with a pantry full of once-used ingredients.  There was no system to the entire meal planning process.  With Cohen, I was limited to just a few ingredients and I just worked all my meals around these items.

4.  Cooking doesn't have to be complicated.  Watching cooking shows on TV, you'd think that cooking required a lot of steps and a lot of ingredients.  Well, I learned that preparing a meal did not have to be so complex.  Take for instance breakfast.  You can simply take some yogurt, slice some fresh fruit, mix it in and you're done.  There is simply no reason to skip this meal!

I also discovered my best time savers:  onion powder and garlic powder.  Any good cook will always chop fresh onions and garlic.  Well, if you don't have the time, just sprinkle!!!

5.  Making "Baon" ain't so bad.  Actually, while we were travelling, it was great to have my baon.  Imagine how much was saved on meals?  This was my cheapest trip ever!!!

6.  Sugarless Gum is your new best friend.  I always carry gum wherever I go.  It's like my credit card, I never leave home without it.  Notice how your mind looks for food when you're idle?  When this happens, pop a piece of gum in your mouth.  I chew gum like my friends puff on cigarettes.  Best of all, my dentist approves of this!!!  Right, Bubut?

7.   When you finally lose all that unwanted weight, don't believe  when they say you lost too much weight or you look older.  Believe what my dear friend, Roz, said:  "Own it and walk that aisle".  Which aisle, you ask?  The one that holds size 2 or 0!!!

To that, I will have the chocolate bar I kept for just this special day!  Life begins at 44!!!  Cheers to you!