Malnutrition

I just had my first health screening since I changed job. Yup, this is the first one in almost 6 years. Knowing how terrible my diet has been thanks to COVID, I am worried if I have damaged my body's metabolic functions. Thank God that my blood pressure, my fasting sugar and my cholesterol levels are still in healthy range, similar to how they used to be. My diet is also successful as I am below 60kg even at their weighing machine. It is my first time with measurements of waist hip ratio and body fat percentage. While they are both are also at the healthy range, I know I still have belly fat which I want to get rid of. 

It is ironic that I still feel fat and aim for another 3-5kg loss when the health screening result suggests that I am having malnutrition. My urea is low which according to the remarks in the report may be due to malnutrition, decreased muscle mass or liver disease. With normal liver function test in this same screening and I have never been muscular to begin with, malnutrition is the only reason left. Anyway, I will aim for the ideal weight first before thinking about increasing protein intake. After all, I am still struggling with potato chips and bottled sugar drinks.

One thing for sure, I am staying away from protein drinks or shakes. Getting enough protein from diet is rather tough since I avoid anything with bones i.e. chicken, fish and pork. At most I will eat char siew and roast pork (even roast pork sometimes contains bones!) once a week. With beef almost impossible to find in hawker centre meals, I am left mainly with carbs and vegetables. Even then, I am consciously cutting down carbs and try to have the bare minimum only to avoid having gastric.

I am honestly impressed that all the blood test and urine test results are ready within the same day. I skipped the stool test since I cannot imagine having to scoop my own shit. Anyway I had colonoscopy in 2021 and the result should be good for at least one decade before another screening for colon cancer is required. Only abdominal ultrasound report is pending but I was already informed that this one would take a bit of time. Let's see if there will be any surprise.

I finally managed to attend Advent Penitential Service at Novena this evening. Thank God for stopping the rain as rain was my excuse to skip my original plan to attend at Holy Spirit and the replacement plan at Cathedral last week. Of course the evil one has been tempting me not to go since I just went for confession less than a month ago and that it is quite pointless to go since I will sin again.

It is also quite discouraging to keep confessing the same sin and hearing similar advice from the priests repeatedly reinforces that the problem is with me. Nevertheless, I am reminded with an article I came across previously that it is normal to struggle with the same sin instead of having new sins each time.

The most interesting thing was the priest telling me to treat myself to a good meal for dinner just as I was about to leave. I did not tell him anything about diet so it was like God speaking through him that I better pay attention to my malnutrition health screening result. Haha.. So I had donki for dinner and I tried to get protein through chicken karaage which normally I would not consider if not for 20% off. Unfortunately, it is so so and not something I will consider repeating so finding protein will be tough... Lol.