The Nourished Co.

✨GIVEAWAY✨

It’s taken me over 25 years to feel comfortable in my own skin.

Conscious decisions to do the things that I truly enjoy - rather than what I was “supposed” to do or look like - helped me realise that energy is a sacred, finite resource, and the more we try to be someone we’re not, the more we devalue our own worth.

Over the last 4 years, I dove into nutritional studies to help heal my damaged body. I learned that the better I fuel, the better I feel. The better I feel, the more confident I am in my performance.

Aesthetics became secondary to all of that.

I may never look like your stereotypical Asian girl, but you can put 100kg on my back and I won’t bat an eyelid - I think that’s pretty freaking badass.

So, to help you start tapping into your own reserves of strength and courage, I’m partnering with my friends at to GIVEAWAY a 30-day ULTRA GLOW SET (worth $208) each to TWO winners.

With supplies of two skin-nourishing supplemantery products, you’ll be supporting your skin, joint and gut health to help you feel and perform at your best. 

To enter:
✨ LIKE this post, TAG a friend, and SHARE it
✨ FOLLOW and

The more tags and shares, the more chances you have to win! 👇🏼👇🏼

Winners will be contacted after 3 Feb 2022; open to residents in Singapore only.

👎🏼 Why I’m probably not going to give you a meal plan 👎🏼

4 week meal plans still seem to be a thing. An EXPECTATION even, from many clients.

I get it. It seemingly takes the guesswork out of figuring out your nutrition.
You don’t have to do any thinking.
Your calories/macros/nutrients are taken care of.

But how well would you actually follow it?

My guess would say: not very.

In your everyday life, how often do you ask someone else to tell you what to eat?
Sure, you may ask for suggestions, but at the end of the day I’ll bet you’ll still decide based on what you WANT to eat.

The same goes for meal plans.
You’re literally asking someone else to choose what you eat at every single meal for 3-4 weeks.
First of all, who’s to say you’ll even like the food on the plan?
I may know what you like/dislike, but I’m not going to cater for every whim and fancy. No, I’m going to pull recipes from my database that I know *could* work.

And second of all, what do you get out of it at the end of it? Nothing much.
You’ll probably go back to eating the way you used to because that’s the way YOU KNOW HOW to.

So, what do I suggest instead as a coach?
Education.
I’d rather educate you on why you need certain nutrients or why you need certain targets.
I’ll give you RECOMMENDATIONS on different foods you may want to add in or eliminate.
I’ll show you how to build a plate so you can take care of yourself, even when you EAT OUT.

This is sustainable nutrition.
If you want change to happen, then you need to UNDERSTAND what needs to change.
If you’re blindly following a meal plan which I can so easily copy and paste for you, your only benefit is maybe the short term changes you’ll see in the 3-4 weeks that the plan lasts.

But I’m more interested in what happens AFTER.

So no, I’m probably not going to give you a meal plan.
If you INSIST on it? Then sure. I’ll let you try it out.
But don’t think I won’t warn you and call you out if you’re not following it.

Nutrition needs to be INDIVIDUALIZED. And who better to craft a plan than the person who knows you best? YOU.

⚡️SHOULD CALORIES STAY THE SAME ON DAYS I DO/DON’T WORK OUT? ⚡️
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As always, the best answer I can give is: it depends on the individual.
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Evidence suggests that fluctuations in calorie intake don’t really affect body composition as long as weekly average target/intake is adhered to.
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Some points you may want to consider:
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❓Are you a highly trained or highly active individual?
❓Is your training high intensity or long in duration?
❓Are you training 4 or more days per week?
❓Are you on your feet for most of the day?
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If you answered yes to most of these, then you may want to keep your nutrition consistent across each day to ensure you’re fuelling and recovering properly. Remember, if you worked out yesterday and are planning to again tomorrow, your body is trying to recover today and fuel up simultaneously.
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Other points of consideration:
🔹 Keeping intake consistent is often easier for compliance i.e. you don’t have to think too much about high/low days
🔹 If your training and non-training days look vastly different in terms of activity level (i.e. you’re a total potato on rest days vs. on your feet all day when you’re training), then you may benefit from eating less when you’re not as active
🔹 If you have a tendency to under-eat, then it would be beneficial to keep your calories high regardless of activity
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Ultimately, you should be choosing what is most sustainable for YOU.
What may work for other people, may not work for you and that’s FINE!
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If this is all confusing and overwhelming to you, then I urge you to seek professional coaching to create sustainable, healthy habits :)

We talk a lot about learning to eat intuitively and listening to your body on this page. And I truly believe that you don’t need to meticulously track your food if you are wanting to just live well and healthily.
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BUT
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If you have a specific goal in mind and are looking to make changes - then things need to change.
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Obvious, I know. But if you don’t actually know how much you’re consuming without tracking your food, then it’s hard to blindly assume that you’re in a deficit (or surplus, depending on your goals).
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I always recommend people weigh and track their food for at least a short period of time as tool to learn what portion sizes look like, what different weights of food look like, and how many calories in different serving sizes.
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And if you just SWEAR you’re in a deficit, but don’t see any changes to your body, then let’s look at a few things you may be overlooking:
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❗️Restricting food drastically during on weekdays, then going all out on weekends - average this out over the week and you may actually not be in a deficit
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❗️Not taking into account cooking oils, sweeteners, sauces, and dressing that you’re adding into your food
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❗️Not considering any calories you may be drinking - e.g. milky coffees, juices, sweetened tea, alcohol
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❗️Eating out often. Nothing wrong with this, but restaurants often add more oil/butter/sauces than you think to make their food taste good. Always OVERestimate.
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❗️Nibbling/snacking throughout the day. Eating a quarter of a cookie 4 times throughout the day still equates to a full cookie - it adds up!
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At the end of the day, you truly don’t know unless you know.
Even if you don’t want to weigh or track your food on an app, then you at least need to be HONEST with yourself and CONSCIOUS about what you’re consuming.

A common question that crops up as a result of being inundated by diet culture.

In a nutshell: no.

First of all, eating and working out don’t have to be in a transactional relationship.

If this is ONE MEAL we’re talking about, or even one DAY, then the effect it’s going to have on your overall progress is going to be pretty negligible.

Regardless of your goal, as long as you are within your caloric targets, having a higher ratio of carbohydrates (vs. protein and fat) won’t necessarily have a negative impact.

Carbs in and of themselves do NOT cause weight gain.
Eating a low carb diet does NOT make you ‘burn more fat’.
Weight loss or gain always comes down to overall energy intake vs. energy expenditure.

So why do people report losing more weight on a low carb diet?

1️⃣ Reducing carbs will result in glycogen depletion and less water retention - i.e. a quick drop on the scale.

2️⃣ A lot of “high carb” foods are also calorie-dense foods (think cakes, chips, bread, pasta). Cutting this out means simply reducing a lot of calories.

3️⃣ Going “low carb” often involves substituting carby foods with extra veggies, fibre, and fat to feel fuller. Essentially, they are consuming less calories overall.

Carbohydrates are the main fuel source of your body. Carbs are preferred in our muscle glycogen stores, which give us that power output. Having sufficient fuel in your muscles allows you to work harder, faster and stronger 💪🏼

Consuming adequate carbs is important if you’re very active and/or participate in high intensity training like CrossFit, bootcamps, weightlifting, and spin.
If not, you could be putting your body in a compromised state where it is struggling to obtain homeostasis (the state of balance).

If you are an active individual eating high quality food for the most part, trust that your body knows what to do with it.

Carbs are not the devil and should not be demonized as the instigator of instantaneous weight gain.

Think of this:
You’ve got a very limited disposable income this month
You have rent to cover
You have bills for electricity and water
You need to get groceries to eat
School fees need to be paid
Your car needs fuelling
Taxes are due
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Are you really going to invest a large sum of money into stocks and try to grow it?
Probably not.
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This is the same way your body compartmentalizes its limited resources.
When you’re stressed out, either physically or mentally, your body’s first priority is to keep you alive.
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This means it’s going to shuttle all fuel to your vital organs and systems, while down regulating systems that aren’t essential, like digestion and reproduction.
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You don’t want to be wasting precious energy trying to digest food and you certainly don’t want to try and grow another human for 9 months.
As such, menstruating individuals will often experience changes in their cycles or it may disappear completely.
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Remember, stress is not always emotional. It can manifest itself through:
🔸 Injury
🔸 Illness or chronic symptoms
🔸 Lack of sleep/rest
🔸 Intense exercise
🔸 Chronic calorie restriction
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We all have our stress buckets, and the limit at which these overflow are individual to each person.
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So, if you’re experiencing changes in your cycle or you notice it getting scant, then maybe have a look at your lifestyle. What stressors can you REMOVE or what care practices can you ADD in to balance out that stress bucket?
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Even if you’re not interested in having children, the status of our reproductive system is still an important indicator of our general health, because the cycle of hormones affects many other areas of our body.

Fun fact: for most of my adult life, I’ve been “overweight” according to the BMI scale.
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I have swung from severely restricting my food intake to wilfully eating whole cakes daily to just not eating like an as***le, and I’ve never been a “healthy” weight.
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My body has looked a spectrum of ways, I’ve been healthy and unhealthy based on multiple other indicators, I’ve been at my peak of athleticism…and yet, if you were to judge my health based solely on my BMI, you might think I should be on the brink of disease.
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BMI is TRASH.
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The calculation is simple: divide the individual's weight by his/her height squared.
From this equation alone you can already see the flaws of the scale as a measure of health - it takes into account just TWO physical factors.
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The body-mass index was originally created as a quick and easy way to measure the degree of obesity of the GENERAL POPULATION.
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Ancel Keys even admitted that even though BMI was good for studying populations, it was INAPPROPRIATE for INDIVIDUAL evaluations.
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There are SO MANY other indivators of health that you can go off of, and very few of them have to do with your weight.
🔺 Blood work
🔺 Lean muscle to body fat ratio (i.e. body fat %)
🔺 Menstrual regularity in females
🔺 Energy levels
🔺 Strength and mobility
🔺 Mental health
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And if your doctor is assessing your health solely based on this archaic scale, then you better freakin’ run for the hills.

I don’t know about you guys, but I get into these cycles of feeling quite bleh about life and then deciding to do all of the things following on from that…
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…and then I crash and burn. Woops.
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I feel this is pertinent now especially when most of us are working from home or don’t have many places to go.
We can get into this mode of working, caring for others, focusing on our food and fitness, and trying to do everything right, that we neglect the little signs of burnout.
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(FYI, burnout during COVID is a real thing, even if you feel like you’re not doing much. )
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So, before s**t hits the fan and you find yourself in a bad place, tune in to what your body might be calling out about:
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🔸 How are you sleeping?
Can you fall asleep? Do you stay asleep? How are you waking up? (Hint: you shouldn’t be waking up tired everyday)

🔸 What’s your mood like?
If you’re irritable all the time or feeling low, it may be time to look at how much stress you’re subjecting yourself to.

🔸 Tune in to physiological signs: having cold hands and feet may be an indication of low thyroid function due to increased stress on the body.

🔸 Where’s your libido at?
Often times when we’re too stressed or tired, the last thing we want is to get it on, i.e. our hormones are probably out of whack.

🔸 Are you recovering from your workouts?
DOMS shouldn’t be a way of life, nor should you be injuring yourself all the time. Even frequent tweaks and niggles could be a sign that you’re going too hard.
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Stress shows up for us differently. For me, it may look like overtraining/under-eating. For the next person it could be 14 hour work days with an over-reliance on caffeine.
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There’s nothing wrong with wanting to pursue eleventy billion things, but your body has its limits. Get to know them!

You can choose to do the hard thing.
Show yourself that you are capable.
Capable of committing.
Capable of putting in work.
Capable of setting a goal and progressing towards it.
Capable if being consistent, even when there are setbacks.
Capable of having grace for yourself when things don’t go your way.
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It’s not always about being the best, winning the thing, hitting your goal in the shortest amount of time.
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S**t is going to hit the fan.
You’re not going to feel 100% every day.
The universe is going to give you every reason to quit.
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But, you keep showing up.
Because you are capable of SOMETHING
Even if it’s something small
Every single day.
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You don’t have to be perfect
You just have to move the trajectory forward
A single degree, even if that’s all you can do today.

Part ✌🏼

⚡️WHAT’S THE BEST PROTEIN POWDER?⚡️
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If you’ve decided that protein powder is right for you, here are some considerations that’ll help you evaluate all your options and choose one that’s appropriate.
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1️⃣ PROTEIN QUALITY
Proteins are made up of amino acids, of which our bodies use 20: seven are non-essential, four are conditionally-essential, and nine are essential (EAAs). This is important, because EAAs play key roles in building and repairing tissue—like muscle—but also in building hormones, enzymes, and neurotransmitters.
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A complete protein contains sufficient amounts of all nine EAAs. Many plant proteins are low in or lack specific amino acids, but you can still meet your overall protein needs as long as you eat a variety of other sources throughout the day.
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2️⃣ PROTEIN DIGESTIBILITY
The main measures scientists look at are digestibility and bioavailability, or how well your body is able to UTILIZE a given type of protein. IN GENERAL, animal protein sources are more digestible than plant proteins because they are more complete proteins (with the exception of soy).
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3️⃣ ETHICAL REASONS/INTOLERANCES
Whether you choose animal vs. plant protein may be:
- An ethical decision
- Due to food intolerances (e.g. dairy, eggs, peas or soy)
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More processed options, (e.g. isolates and hydrolysates) are usually easier on the stomach (though they are often more expensive)
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4️⃣ INGREDIENTS
Generally, you want to look for products with fewer ingredients. Protein should always be the FIRST ingredient on the list. Others you may find are sweeteners and flavouring.
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Emulsifiers and thickeners may be added for texture and mouthfeel, but may aggravate digestive issues.
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In short: the higher the % of protein in the product vs the rest of the ingredients, the better.

🥤DO I NEED A PROTEIN POWDER IF I WORKOUT? 💪🏼
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Short answer - not necessarily.
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Supplement companies tout the “anabolic window” of when you should be smashing a protein shake within 30 mins of your workout to maximize muscle protein synthesis and recovery, but there’s not much scientific backing to this.
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Your body will still be recovering 24-48 hours after your workout, so really any protein (and carbs) you eat in that window will be “anabolic” and contribute to your recovery.
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✨So, when would you use a protein powder then? ✨

The main reason to use protein powder is to help you hit your protein goals. Remember, protein powder is a SUPPLEMENT. You should be prioritizing protein from whole foods first as they also combine other micronutrients.
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As an active individual, you’re likely going to need 0.8-1g of protein per lb of bodyweight. For some individuals, this may be a fairly high number to hit with just wholefood sources like meat and eggs. Also, the use of protein powders helps with the convenience factor when you’re short on time.
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🤔 Can I have too much protein powder? 🤔

If you choose to use protein powder, 20-40 grams of protein per day (usually 1-2 scoops) from protein powder is a reasonable amount. For most people, 80 grams per day (about 3-4 scoops) is a good upper limit of supplemental protein intake.
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This isn’t a hard and fast rule, just a GENERAL guideline.
Any more than this means you’re probably compromising on your intake of whole food sources that provide the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients our bodies need.
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Tune in for my next post where I'll go over how to CHOOSE a protein powder that’s best for you!

That is all. That’s the post.
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Happy Monday, team 😘