What's on the menu?

Writing this menu was by far one of the hardest things I've had to do this week. Half way through, I had to ask myself if I was actually ready to do this and the answer bounced from yes to maybe and back. Alhamdulillah I'm done done done with my menu.

Before I dive in, I'm in no way a nutritionist so follow this at your own risk. 

Don't say Aisha said, ba ruwana!!!

There is a typo but honestly, I can't be bothered to fix it. 

The hardest thing was figuring out what to eat. I'm so used to not having to plan my meals cause I eat whatever is available. But with this I needed to plan ahead so I can get my grocery in time. I tried to think of how to make Nigerian soups without meat and it just wasn't working. My cousin suggested using beans but I'd rather wait and stick to the oyinbo stuff. Starting from Thursday 17th September, I will not eat any meat or its by products. This is the first time ever that I'm trying this and I won't lie, I'm a little worried but I can do it. I don't think I will notice much change but we'll see what happens at the end of the week. 

Now, I'd like y'all to know that I'm still doing intermittent fasting which is 16-8. Basically what that means is I only eat solid food for 8 hours in a day. That is why I don't have much variety for breakfast because I don't eat breakfast everyday. My breakfast is usually tea or coffee with something from the bakery or yogurt but since I can't eat any of that, I will just stick to tea/coffee with almond milk. 

*insert photo of almond milk*

To replace meat in terms of texture and flavor, I got a lot of fresh mushrooms, tofu and chickpea. Since lunch will be my heaviest meal, I've added carbs to that cause I get moody when my sugar drops lol. I need my energy. I already keep my dinner light. This is going to be a lot lighter than usual. 

Some of what I'll be using to get the taste/texture of meat.

That's it. See you on the other side!!

xx

What has Aisha been doing in 2020?

2020 is a weird year cause this time last year I was eating my way through life without a care in the world.

Like a lot of people, I walked into the new year full of energy to the sounds of my favorite guy Bruno and my sisters by my side. Fireworks, cheers and a long night of fun exhaustion. 

Few weeks later, I ended up in Nigeria to celebrate with one of my oldest friend as she tied the knot. I wasn't too worried about ms rona because I mean they said it was just the flu. We lived through ebola and Lassa, so how bad could it really be? Long story short, that was the beginning of a nerve wrecking few weeks as anxiety and paranoia peaked. Alhamdulillah regardless. 

Being a home body, I wasn't at all worried about the lockdown at first. I watched people have tiny meltdowns and as a form of reassurance told myself it would only last a few weeks. Here we are 6 months later, life slowly returning but not quite there. I think about 2 months into the lockdown, I decided to set 2 goals for myself that I wanted to achieve regardless of what was going on outside. 

To achieve what I wanted, I had to get my mind right. I decided it was finally time to stop wishing and dreaming and actually make things happen. My 1st goal was to still make money but now I had to figure out how I could make money from the comfort of my father's house. My 2nd goal was to finally introduce myself to a healthier lifestyle and shed off the weight I'd gained since moving to AD. 

I said 2020 was going to be my year in sha Allah and I meant it therefore I'm taking baby steps and measures into figuring out how to get that pay out.

First I had to figure out what was next for AR clicks. I tried wedding photography and didn't like it, I did events as well and I soon realized those weren't for me. So this year I've been focusing on a lot of self portraits and documentary style photography. It's more up my alley and I thoroughly enjoy doing that. Obviously I have been super quiet on ig and extremely quiet on here and its not deliberate. I'm working on myself by learning and improving my skills. I'm hoping I will soon be comfortable enough to jump right back into it. Until then enjoy my IG stories of absolute randomness.

The one thing I was going to focus on this year was my baby AICHA. I got the idea to start a brand when I was doing my NYSC in 2017 but it never kicked off because procrastination. During the lockdown I was able to complete a business plan and come up with branding, designs and everything in between. However, production will have to wait a little while.

Next on the money train came from the encouragement of my older sister. I wasn't exactly sure it was the business for me but she pretty much said "if anyone is looking for a personal shopper, I'm referring you." So in other words, get your sh*t together Aisha lol. 

Teamed up with my sister to revamp her online store and we renamed it Little Souq. We are pretty much a shop and ship business so check us out, hit us up and show some support in anyway you can. It is 100% an excellent learning experience for future jobs and businesses.

On to the next goal!!!

 

I've always been on the heavier side. All my life my weight has fluctuated. I'd like to think subconsciously I made the decision to get healthy when I turned 25 (no joke my knee started hurting the day I turned 25). However, I didn't start the work until 26. So my first goal was to take my workouts a little more seriously than I was taking them and in the process obviously lose weight and get stronger. I wasn't about to be a 26 year old with a weak ass knee (GOD FORBID). 

I started working out on October 1st 2019. I started with simple basic exercise for 30 minutes a day. So walking on the treadmill/attempting to run, HIIT workouts etc. Even though I was getting stronger, I hadn't lost any weight. In April 2020, I stumbled on intermittent fasting and that was a game changer. It doesn't stop me from eating what I want but it limits the number of hours I eat and subconsciously thought me portion control. I increased my workouts to 1 hour a day and with a combination of workouts and intermittent fasting, I was able to loose 6kg from April to September. I've never felt this healthy and strong. Which is why I started entertaining the thought of giving up meat for a bit. 

I LOVE CHICKEN! I've never thought of a day I'd give it up.

Honestly, I found it weird when people said they were vegan. I mean why? But here we are, September 2020 and after much consideration, I've decided to try it out for a week. I don't have a particular reason for wanting to go vegan. I thought it was to lose weight but after my mum asked, I soon realized that wasn't the reason. I just wanted to try it and see if I could survive. After all its always good to cut down or at least eat meat in moderation. If I end up losing weight then that's an added bonus for me. 

Now the first thing I had to do was figure out what exactly I could and couldn't eat. I already had an idea but I wanted to be sure. Basically a vegan has a strict diet of plant based foods only. This means apart from not eating animal flesh, a vegan also doesn't eat animal by products. So we are talking butter, eggs, yoghurt, ice cream, milk etc. From what I've read, there are vegan options but I'm not about to stress myself looking around for these products since my diet is for a short period and the only thing I will miss is milk (because tea!) and yoghurt but I have almond milk so I'm good. 

With that said, let's move to the positive bit. I thought it would be fun to share my journey with whoever ends up reading my post. At the end of the week, I will be sharing my meals, whether or not I lost weight, how my energy was affected, if there are visible changes to my skin and everything in between. So I'm excited and scared at the same time but if there's anything I've learnt this year is if I set my mind to it, I will eventually achieve it. 

I'm currently working on a menu and my mum has decided to join me on this journey. We will be starting on 17th or 18th of September and I should have a post up by 25/26th. 

That's pretty much all I wanted to say. This is unlike my other posts cause its just words and no pictures. I unfortunately lost my pictures from 2013 - 2018 so I can't even do a throwback. It will be different next time.

Thank you for reading and I wish you all a blessed week. See you on the other side.

With love,

Aisha.