Big in Beijing- A Battle With Sugar That is Not So Sweet

Food has been very important to me. I have worked as a chef for 15 years, so my life has revolved around food for some time. My mother is a very healthy cook and we had no unhealthy snacks or fizzy drinks around at home. As a teenager does, I would go out to buy unhealthy food, and when I left home at 17 the culinary world was my oyster – or at least the chips and candy lane at the grocery store. My food obsession did not end there. I always had a super healthy appetite, but luckily never really gained weight; I always was thin and stayed around a healthy 60 kilos.

The first time I thought I was fat in College

But even at this weight I felt overweight. Society, and the media, made me believe I was fat. We make our daughters think that they should look like the models in the magazines, forgetting that health and happiness are most important in a young girl’s life – most important in anybody’s life. Having had struggles with mental health problems and medical problems, I now know that looks are not everything.

But then I moved to Texas, and as we know everything is bigger in Texas, including the portion sizes. I always felt like I need to empty all the food on my plate, so slowly I started gaining weight. Food has always made me happy, cooking it, buying it and eating it. Finding a different way to achieve happiness is one of my new goals. Sugar and chocolate would be the greatest offenders making me as overweight as I am today. Keeping me awake and happy for short periods of time, sugar is the most addictive food group out there. I tried to eliminate sugar from my diet and the effects were like kicking a drug habit. This only confirms my fears that sugar is indeed a drug for me.

Tribe Cookie Without Sugar

I needed to step away from buying, cooking and ordering food, having failed many times in achieving a healthy balanced lifestyle. Tribe has created a menu for me lasting a month with no added extra sugars: three snacks and three meals a day, with varied and balanced dishes. Each morning a delivery arrives at 7am with my food for the day. It feels like a relief to not having to cook or go to 7/11 for lunch and then gorge on unhealthy stuff. The mission now is to start treating food as a way to nourish my body and soul, instead of using it as a celebration for happiness or a reward for sadness.

Tribe Nutrition Lunch

Tribe Nutrition Dinner

Pauline is a passionate international mother who wants to show that Beijing is not a unhealthy city, proving that its possible to become a healthy mother and woman, with the right support and resources. Mommy friends, colleagues, family, Tribe Nutrition, B Active Fitness, and now the rest of Beijing will be her support, proving that every mother deserves to have a healthy body and mind; tackling her own food issues along the way and showing the rough, the ugly and honest way she does this.

Tribe Nutrition offers a promo of 5% off for anyone that purchases a meal plan that’s 2 weeks or longer. Promo Code is “TNPAULINE5”  Get on that healthy train with me!

Picture Credit Pixabay and Pauline van Hasselt