Weight Management

Recently started volunteering at a weight management center. The center director is a great professor at our school. The simple act of shadowing a couple of sessions has already greatly inspired me to get to know more about individual counseling, especially nutrition counseling: yes, we all have some basic ideas about what to eat and what not to; yet no, we don't always have the best access to those foods, nor are we constantly motivated to regulate our behaviors to the extent of turning them into healthy eating habits.

Granted, I have friends that hated one-on-one counseling due to the frustration of dealing with similar conditions and clients who were so demotivated to change their lifestyles. I'm never really good at encouraging changes among friends, not to mention trying to influence some strangers with my limited knowledge.

International nutrition has been great, I love it, enjoy the scope of impact and the big pictures. However, it is the skills of actively interacting with clients to assess their health conditions, needs, desires, limitations and setting goals with them that better showcase a nutritionist's qualifications (or, should I say dietitian?)

Looking forward to more assessment sessions! I'd love to hear more personal stories. Wish all the clients a satisfactory weight loss!



Alright, some quotes that help me better crystalizing my mind lately:

"What we resist persists" 

"There's no end to comparison, because there's no end to our expectations" 

"Know that you have everything you need to be whole, happy, and complete, right inside you; Know that if you feel something is missing that you can have it, you can achieve it"

Mentioning photography, my favorite should be underwater photography. Dreamy products, epic arts, combined with the beloved salty taste of blue oceans. I know it's the complete opposite of reality, it's pure art and pure illusion. Yet who are we to deny our dreams?

Among all underwater photographer, the first I knew and my all-time favorite should be Zena Holloway (http://www.zenaholloway.com/indexzena.html). Her series of "Swan Song" deeply touched me when I first caught a view of them.

The Swan

Swan Song

Swimming babies, of course! <3 <3

Mermaids have been haunting me for so long. Always mesmerized by them.

This one was my desktop background for a year in college

Food Allergies T_T

A cup of fresh cherries. Thankfully all he developed after consumption was itching lips, mouth and pharynx, not some more severe symptoms such as vomiting or ingestion. Phew.

Oral Allergy Syndrome (OAS), it turned out to be, is a type of food allergy that typically featured by oral allergic reactions. My grandmother used to tell me that her "throat would close" if she consumes honey. Me, slightly differently, would have immediate gastric irritation when eating large scoops of honey.

Despite my rich personal allergy experience, I was still surprised by the richer pool of allergens in our daily life. 

However valuable the nutrition value of some food is, it is always advisable to test out specific allergic items, especially when you have history of major allergies. The test I went through was extremely user-unfriendly --> 30 injections, 15 on each upper arm, with common allergens. Hours later the enlargement (beyond certain diameter) of the injection site would be deemed as a positive result. Painful and ugly.

Stay safe! If you are not allergic to peanut, dairy products (technically not allergy but intolerance), pollen foods....try to explore something else! Oh, and enjoy the Olympics!


Thanks S.Wells for quote below - my favorite quote from sci-fi so far! Let's enjoy the insignificance of mankind ;) "Ignorance is bliss"

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
                                                                               - H.P.Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

One must-mention artist: "The King of Forests"- Shishkin. Have you ever felt mesmerized by some art piece, however common it seemed to other people? When I was 15, I used to stare at Shishkin's paintings and let my mind run to the forests with him, wild and free, with a touch of coldness of Russian air. Unfortunately, I cannot find my favorite piece right now.

Artist: Ivan I. Shishkin（Иван Иванович Шишкин) (1832-1898)