SINGAPORE: Mr Terence Koh used to be overweight at 105kg, but his desire to be a good role model for his then-newborn son in 2021 saw him changing his lifestyle, eating clean and exercising more.
In just eight months, he lost 35kg.
“I had been struggling with weight loss for close to 10 years. I had been stress eating and leading an inactive lifestyle, so I wanted to get healthy and active for my son,” said Mr Koh, who started by reading up about nutrition and coming up with a progressive health plan.
“In the first month, I only exercised once per week. I didn’t change my diet, except (cutting out) supper. In the second month, I started to get serious. I increased my exercise frequency to three times a week, and I started implementing a healthy diet by removing processed food.”
“Over the years, maybe our taste perception also has changed. Without our knowledge, we have been increasing the salt and we are used to that taste,” said Dr Kalpana.
“In fact, until these results came, we were definitely not aware that we have been eating so much sodium.”
Observers said lowering one’s salt intake requires discipline and consistency.
“For some, completely removing sodium is not going to work. So you go for sodium alternatives like potassium-based salt, they naturally taste less salty,” said Dr Kalpana. “So you get used to it.”
The prevalence of obesity has also risen, from 10.5 per cent between 2019 and 2020 to 11.6 per cent between 2021 and 2022. The increase was mainly observed among residents aged 18 to 29 and 40 to 59.
The proportion of residents here engaging in sufficient physical activity – defined as at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity in a week – also fell from 84.6 per cent in 2019 to 74.9 per cent in 2022.
This was seen across most age groups, said MOH, adding that the trend was likely because of reduced commuting with more people embracing hybrid work arrangements.
“You really cannot out-exercise a bad diet,” said Ms Goh.
“When we talk about trying to manage your health (and) weight, diet plays 80 per cent. 20 per cent comes from exercise. Eventually, you still need to work on improving your diet quality.”
“People always think if you want to eat healthier, you have to eat salads,” said Ms Goh, adding that hawker centres have healthier options too.
“But you can also eat healthy if you eat economy rice. So you can have plain rice, you can have two stir-fry vegetables, and then you choose a lean meat option – it can be like a steamed fish or like stir fry meat.”
As a rough guide, a well-balanced meal would consist of a half plate of fruit and vegetables, a quarter plate of a good protein source and a quarter plate of wholegrains.
“So when people don’t have that carbohydrate, they tend to get hungry very quickly,” said Ms Goh.
“They may overeat later on because they don’t have that energy from that carbohydrate from that meal.”