Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to 2011. So what are your resolutions? Lose weight? Go out more with friends? Job promotion? Spend more time with family? Drink a glass of wine every night? To stay in the spirit of resolution, I have decided to start talking more about health. I love nutrition and health so I thought this would be a good place to share information with you.

Last year I focus more of Vietnamese cuisines. I adore my mother's cooking and love cuisines from this country. However, I found that I didn't post as much as I would like. Why? Well after have two kids I gained a lot of pregnancy weight. Let's say I was over the 200 pound mark. I stopped stepping on the scale after that. I was always on the heavy side even as a child I wore size 12 in my teens. I do not know why, but for some reason, my hormones were just very off. I come from a Vietnamese family and everyone in my whole family is Asian thin except me. Is it because of my diet? Not really. I did not eat as healthy as I do now, but I ate the same food and same amount as my sister and brother at home and I was the only overweight one. Was it because I was inactive? Well I was not a jock growing up, but I became very active after high school. When I was pregnant with my first daughter I was jogging at least 4 miles a day 4 times a week and playing competitive tennis up until I was 5 months pregnant. So why was I heavy? I truthfully do not know the full reason, but I know my hormones were off because I was diagnose with PCOS after I could not get pregnant for over 2 years. This was probably part of the reason among many such as environmental factors such as pesticides, epigenetics, diet, insulin resistance, and others. So as you can see trying to lose that pregnancy weight, I did not eat much Vietnamese food. I actually ate a completely different diet that consist of lean meat, tons of vegetables and fruit, very little to no grains, and nearly no process food. For the first time in my whole life, I am now a size 8 due to changes in my lifestyle and the last time the doctor ran a blood test on me all my hormones were in balance and no longer showed signs of PCOS. I still eat lots of Vietnamese food, but most of diet is based on a more green lifestyle. So I will still include lots of Vietnamese cuisines, but will also include lots of health information.

Just a quick little note about me and my health knowledge. I am a molecular biologist who currently works over at NASA. I have a degree in molecular biology as well as psychology. I have taken many nutritional courses. And yes, I am a nerd. For fun, I actually like to go onto pubmed to find research articles or check out books about health and just read them. I am no longer dieting, but just sustaining a different mind set when it comes to what I place in my body. Food doesn't just enter your mouth and go out the other end. It is through food that your body gets the building block to sustain your life. Your body is constantly breaking now and building up its component. To have a good foundation for it to build up your body it needs your help through the food you eat. Just be more aware of that the next time you eat for yourself.