The healthy way to drop dress sizes

Before going on a stateside vacation last month, I wanted to lose as much weight as I could. I had to be in shape for the long lines at San Diego Comic-Con, and I planned to stop by New York City afterwards, where my fashionista friends are always in the mood for some designer clothes shopping.

Ever since I had my daughter seven years ago, the pounds and inches just seem to keep creeping up, and my desk job doesn’t help. I don’t have time to exercise for an hour every day (the minimum for losing weight, according to the experts), and the food we’re forced to eat out of sheer desperation at the office invariably involves pizza (not a health food, no matter which way you slice it).

So I went to see Nadine Tengco, a US-certified fitness nutritionist and weight-loss coach, at her office in Organic Rituals Spa in Greenhills. Nadine’s motto is “bringing healthy back into sexy,” and she’s a walking billboard for her weight-loss methods, with a lithe dancer’s body I’ve always dreamed of toned through years of dance and marathon running. She also has smooth, flawless skin, and a nice tan that I wonder if you could get through artificial means.

Anyway, she tells me that a six-day detox diet, followed by a detox spa day at Organic Rituals, then two weeks of eating food prepared by her partners in The Sexy Chef — a healthy meal-delivery service run by the Alejandro sisters: singer Rachel and chef Barni — would be the most potent combination to jumpstart my weight-loss program.

Day 1: Pounds Away

I learn that losing weight isn’t just a matter of calories in, calories out, or eating less and exercising more — your age and even your hormones come into play, especially for women in their late 30s and early 40s. According to Nadine, our bodies are designed for one thing: survival. We can fool it with diets for a while, but it soon learns and adjusts.

But there is a healthy way to lose weight, and it’s through good nutrition, healthy food substitutions and, of course, exercising regularly. Nadine has designed special menus and programs for everyone who wants to lose weight, fat or inches … and fast. For me she prescribes Pounds Away, which starts with a hypoallergenic, anti-bloat, anti-inflammatory diet for six days. I am actually urged to eat white rice and avoid bread and pasta.

Day 3: Detox Diet

Tried to start detox dieting today, before realizing that almost everything we eat at home is on the Foods to Avoid list. No bread, eggs, meat or milk for breakfast means I have little to eat other than rice and sardines. Thank God we have bananas and mangoes. 

I make a run to Healthy Options, which rapidly becomes my favorite store, to stock up on rice and almond milk, protein-rich quinoa, rice crackers and stevia, a natural low-calorie sweetener.

Day 8: Detox Spa Day

To boost the potency of the diet, Nadine arranged for a spa day a week earlier, something I was looking forward to. I got to Organic Rituals promptly at 11:30 a.m. and was greeted with Nadine’s Wheatgrass & Citrus Antioxidant drink, which I had no problem downing because it tasted like lemonade.

Then she weighed and measured me … I lost two pounds! Didn’t seem like much at the time, but not bad for one week with some unavoidable diet cheats and mere walking for exercise.

Before any of the treatments we were served lunch. Part of the process is being fed with phyto-nutrient-dense cleansing soups and detox juices throughout the day. According to Nadine, who chooses non-gas-forming foods, they flush the system and banish bloat.

All Brides-To-Be Should Do This

Detox spa treatments started with a steam inside a little tent. My hands were free and I’d been told earlier to bring my laptop, so I partook of the spa’s free Wi-Fi while I sweated out my toxins.

Next was the Sunkissed Glow coffee scrub, which smelled so yummy I could have sworn there was some chocolate in there. The scrub’s caffeine and antioxidants are supposed to help slim and detoxify the body while exfoliating. A nice side effect is velvety-smooth skin afterwards.

Post-scrub we were served a Sexy Waist Protein drink, which sort of sated the craving for sweets induced by the café-choco aroma. Though the special ingredients in Nadine’s detox drinks are kept secret, I think I detected some banana and cinnamon in there.

We were also treated to Puff Buster: Eye & Face Revitalizer, an eye treatment and massage designed to reduce facial puffiness and dark circles.

On the spa schedule the therapist gave I saw a colon cleanse listed, which I have to admit scared me. I’m terrified of anything “backdoor”: suppositories, enemas, colonics, you name it.

But the moment arrived and couldn’t be evaded. Luckily Nadine donned a white lab coat and everything was very professional and clinical. Sanitary disposable equipment and distilled water are used. She gave me a pep talk beforehand, explaining how this coffee colonic would stimulate the liver to produce bile, and would stimulate both liver and gallbladder to release toxins that are then flushed from the body. The caffeine also stimulates your intestines to contract and loosen any waste that’s accumulated along the walls of the colon.

The last treatment was my favorite, the Bloat Banishing Massage, a.k.a. manual lymphatic drainage. With gentle strokes, this form of massage is supposed to stimulate the lymphatic system to eliminate metabolic waste products, excess fluid and bacteria. This massage felt like hilot but was much more specific and relaxing. Surprise, surprise, Edith said I had a lot of toxins from the waist down, and somehow my lymph nodes weren’t doing a great job of eliminating them. Thank God I can avail myself of these manual methods then.

The Organic Mani-Pedi

Detox spa day was capped by a vegan mani-pedi courtesy of Organic Rituals owner Nikki Ang-angco, who uses toluene-free Zoya nail polishes that come in every fashionable color you can think of. I chose hot-pink Whitney for my hands and gunmetal Freja for my toes, and fell in love with Get Even, Zoya’s ridge-filling base coat, which even whitens nails.

Then Nadine gave me her version of takeout food: Morroccan veggie detox soup for dinner and a fruit-veg Tummy Trimmer to drink before bedtime. Most people think that health food so often means “sad food,” but I can honestly say that I enjoyed Nadine’s healthy spa cuisine as much as I do the rich, cholesterol-laden specials served in many fine-dining restaurants.  

Day 13: The Sexy Chef Visits

One afternoon, three weeks before I was due to leave, my brother announced, “You got a delivery from The Sexy Chef!” 

A guy on a motorcycle with a pink cooler had pulled up to the house with a plastic bag full of goodies — next day’s meals in microwaveable containers — all clearly labeled and classified into Breakfast, Snack 1, Lunch, Snack 2, and Dinner.  

This aptly named business is owned and run by two very sexy women — singer Rachel Alejandro and her sister, chef Barni Alejandro — former clients of Nadine who now work in concert with her, especially to hold “sparties” for brides. Nadine does all the research and diet-formulating, the Alejandro sisters do all the marketing, cooking and delivering, and together they’ve devised special menus to help clients lose weight healthily yet quickly.

On the 14-day Pounds Away program, every day for two weeks my meals for the next day are delivered fresh, and I don’t need to weigh my food or count calories. Though I’ve been limited to 1,400 calories a day, all the work has been done for me; all my daily nutritional requirements have been factored in. One of the things I like about it is that I can take it as baon to work — no more bingeing on oily pizza!

On the first day, I never felt weak or hungry. The food’s really tasty, portions are generous and larger even than what I would normally eat, which goes to show that if you prepare food healthily, you can eat more of it. I notice that breakfast is always substantial, with rice, while dinner usually consists of a lean protein and vegetables. 

I only had difficulty the first night because I’m a late-night snacker — I saved my second snack (sugar-free Jell-O) as dessert after dinner but it was a long stretch till bedtime with nothing else to nosh on.

Day 15: Success!

Did my weekly follow-up with Nadine yesterday and was so happy with the results: in one week I lost 3.8 lbs. and two inches from my waist! That’s one week since my detox spa day, and three days since meal delivery started.

To sum up, in the two weeks since I started Nadine’s detox and Pounds Away program, I’ve lost 4.4 lbs., three inches from the waist and 1.5 percent body fat.

In addition to weight-loss coaching, Nadine also gave me her brochure, “Tips for Healthy Living, Shopping, Cooking & Eating,” which informs you on simple changes you can make to help you lose weight for good, like using the appetite-suppressing color blue in your kitchen.

Dropping Dress Sizes

I was worried that all of Nadine’s good work would be undone in the States, land of huge portions and fast food, but even if I indulged in the occasional celebrity-chef meal I found that my two weeks on Sexy Chef had tutored me on portion sizes, what to eat, and the wisdom of frequent small meals a day. It also helped that both San Diego and New York are both excellent cities for walking, so I never lacked for exercise.

By the time I shopped at New York’s bargain designer outlet Century 21, I found that most of my pants had to be held up by belts and I had dropped a couple of dress sizes. Not only was I able to get into the Vivienne Westwood pieces my friend chose for me, they actually fit well.

According to my weighing scale I’ve lost over 12 lbs. since I started my weight-loss saga a month ago, and compliments on my fitter state keep coming in from people I haven’t seen in a while.

I have to credit Nadine for pointing me toward a better, safer way of bringing sexy back to healthy.

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For your own customized weight-loss plan, consultations with Nadine Tengco are by appointment only at Organic Rituals Spa, located on the mezzanine floor of the Atlanta Centre, 31 Annapolis St., Greenhills, San Juan. Call Geraldine at 380-4413 or 0906-252-0983.

To place orders for healthy meal delivery with The Sexy Chef, call 721-SEXY or 0917-SXYCHEF.