Day 20: Motivation-less

I think I have just reached a plateau in this diet plan. I feel no motivation to continue with this plan. I have not exercised for this week. I was eating after 9pm again. This is so contradicting when I did a post before about motivation and now I am feeling low and without motivation. This is not only happening for my diet plan. My motivation-less is affecting my work and my life as well. Everyday I will be going home, have dinner and stone in front of a computer (again) and watch some videos while eating something. 

I tried looking for motivation in my favorite fitness websites like Fitsugar and also motivation phases on Tumblr but it seems like I am not absorbing anything from them. I will just read, understand and close the page. I do not have the urgency, the feel to do the exercises or the recipes on these websites even if they look exciting, attractive to me. 

What is going on with me? I think the most likely reason is that I am feeling unsatisfied with my work now. I am now actually typing this blog post during my work. It is now about 10am and I have just started work but I do not feel like doing anything because I know I will finish it in a short while and will be left with nothing to do for the whole day. It seems like I am wasting my life over here. I want to do something important, something useful to the company. However, just because I am a contract staff here, I am unable to be involve in many of the projects here. I do not want to feel like this but I can't help it. 

What should I do?

|ser| 

Day 18: Eating Raw

Looking at my lunch today which is duck rice suddenly made me think that my food looks terrible. It is just a bunch of brownish-looking food that does not look appetizing at all. Not only does it look unappetizing, it is also not healthy. I am eating this because this is what was leftover from yesterday's dinner which is also duck rice and I will be eating it again tonight as duck noodle. This made me thought that I should probably start eating raw. 

Eating raw means eating food that are not processed or cooked under very high temperatures because these 2 kinds of processing causes the food to degrade and not have the nutrients that they should originally have. Of course, I am not asking you to eat meats raw because eating raw usually refers to eating fruits and vegetables. These colorful foods will instantly light up your day and probably you will feel satisfied because these food have a large volume but have lesser amount of calories which mean that you can actually eat more of it. 

One other good reason to start eating raw is it will help you to detox and to get rid of any unwanted items in your system. This is because eating raw is easier on our digestive system, it allows our digestive system concentrate on the "dirty" things in our tract and removing them. You will probably feel lighter after the detox. Probably I should start on a 1 week detox and see if it works. Do any of you have an idea on what to do for a detox session? Please share if you do have. 

That's all!

Bye!

|ser|

Day 16: Walking

Do you like walking? I love to walk a lot. I usually like to walk to my nearest MRT station which is about 15min away by foot and I used to walk to school  too. My friends always refer me to as "siao" when they know that I am walking again. Walking is actually a very good form of exercise too especially for people who do not have a lot of muscle or are overweight. 

Try walking about 30min everyday and I bet you will find a difference in how you feel.

Bye!

|ser|

Day 15: Treats

Carpenter and Cook

This is my treat after 2 weeks under the 99 Day Plan. In all diet plans, remember to listen to your body. If your body craves for a certain type of food, do give in but remember to follow these following rules. 

1. Keep your treat to only 1 portion or if it is a full meal, make sure you are only 70% full. 
2. Slowly savour the treat that you have so as to keep satisfied for a longer period of time. 
3. Always choose a healthier option of the treat whenever possible (eg. no whipped cream in your Starbucks)

Since it is my friend's birthday, we had a some sort of tea party for her with cakes and tea. I had a vegetable quiche and it was AWESOME! I think it definitely tasted better than the bacon quiche that my friend had because I am a very big fan with anything mushroom and tomatoes. Than, we had our cakes. I had a toffee pecan brownie which is super chocolaty and moist. My friends had sea salt caramel tart and passionfruit meringue tart. I did not taste the sea salt caramel but thought that the passionfruit meringue tart is light and tangy. A very nice dessert for people on a diet (I should be eating that, I know). Anyways, food is always delicious when you have great company around even if you have to brave the rain and the storm to reach.

Anyways, I may have a new exercise plan that I want to follow next week. Please look out for it.

Bye!
|ser|

Day 14: 2 Weeks down!

It has been 2 weeks after I have started on this 99 Day Plan. Honestly, I have not seen any weight drop at all but I do feel like I became lighter and cleaner (if this makes any sense to you). One thing that I am quite happy is that my humongous thighs has dropped about half an inch. YEAH! This is probably due to my exercises like running and muscle toning. Hopefully, I can see some losses in my tummy area soon. 

For the next week, what I will do to increase my intensity is to put in 5 - 10 minutes of exercises before going to work and when I reached home after work everyday. Exercises may include push-ups, crunches and lunges (with variations). This will boost my metabolism and keep my heart and lungs moving especially in the morning. Also, it can provide my body with energy to kickstart my day.

And today is the last day of school for all primary school children. How I wish that I am back in school now that I have started working. I want to go to a holiday. I remembered during my school holidays, I went to Genting! It was so fun! I want to go back there again! When doing my research on Genting, I found out they have many new things that I have never seen before when I was there. For girls out, they have actually a late night shopping at their First World Hotel which opens from 10am to 1am during this holiday period of 9 November to 31 December. This is so exciting. The link to shopping is this http://www.rwgenting.com.sg/en/shopping/index.htm

http://www.rwgenting.com.sg/en/shopping/index.htm

Not only their shopping, they have their awesome theme park which seems so much better than the one in the past. Coincidentally, First World Hotel is the hotel that I stayed in when I went Genting. It seems to have so much more facilities now. I want to take leave to go there!

Anyone want to go there with me? =D

|ser|

Day 13: Does Mom's Cooking Makes You Fat?

This is what my dinner for today look like. Sorry for not uploading the actual photo because the picture just do not want to upload onto the internet. Today I had the super sinful but super tasty nasi lemak that my mom cooked. I bet some of us will have this problem when dieting especially when mom cooks because it is not nice to reject the food that your mom cooks. Judging by my mom, I assume that everyone's mom will be like 多吃 多吃 (eat more) every time she cooks. How to diet like this? This is especially so for me since I will eat my mom's dinner almost every night since she is a housewife. This is where I have to think of ways to reduce my calories using creative ways. 

1. Reduce rice intake. For some nights, I do not eat rice at all and of course, mom will nag. But since there are so much other dishes, you will definitely be full with just the dishes.
2. Psycho your mom. Educate or nag your mom and say some things are not so healthy so must eat less. In this way, not only it can help your dieting, it can keep your family healthy too.
3. Ask mom for dinner menu and adjust your calorie intake in the morning. If you know that you are going to have a big meal in the evening, reduce your calorie intake by taking in more vegetables and fruits to have the "full" feeling to last you throughout the day. DO NOT skip meals. Skipping meals will cost you to go to starvation mode and thus metabolism will be reduced. So DO NOT skip meals. 
4. Cook for the family. Since you are cooking, you can control the ingredients that are going to be in the food. And therefore, you can make the meals healthier. 

Such a sinful dinner tonight. I better do some exercises now.

Bye!

|ser|

Day 12: Food Diary

Source

Do you have a food diary? I just started mine about a few days ago and have been very religious in updating it. The point of having a food diary is to keep track of what you have been eating daily so that you will not overeat and have a well-balanced diet. I used to have a food diary but once I stopped using it, I started to eat without thinking and this is why I am going back to having a new food diary at My Fitness Pal. Make sure your food diary shows you the amount of calories, carbohydrates, sugars, protein, fats, salt and calcium that you have consumed. These few parameters are the basic requirements that your body needs. Other requirements such as vitamins and minerals should be provided for if your meals are rich in vegetables and fruits. 

Some points to take note to have a good food diary:

1. Be religious to your food diary.
   Make sure to update it EVERYDAY. In that way, you will be able to keep track of your meals and make sure you do not step over the allowed intake everyday.
2. Be truthful to your food diary.
   What purpose is the food diary if you are not truthful to it? Do not lie to your food diary and if you have eaten something sinful, write it in so that you will take note of it and not eat so much of it in the future. 
3. It is okay to exceed the required amount.
   Lets' say that you have exceeded the calorie amount for today. It is okay for you to do that. Do not fret too much about it. Read into your food diary and find out the reason and work on it. It may be because the day require too much of your own physical energy and therefore you consume more food. Do not stress too much when you exceeded your calorie intake. 
4. Do not starve yourself for one day and think it will be okay for you to indulge the next day.
   If you starve yourself, your body goes into the starvation mode in which the metabolism slows down. When food comes into the body, the body will store these food as fats so as to prepare the body for another starvation period. 
5. Find a buddy to do this together with you.
   By finding somebody to track your diet together with you, you will have someone who keep you on schedule and to nag you regarding your diet. It will of course be more fun to have someone to go through the diet journey with you. 

Go and create your own food diary. Enjoy!

Bye!

|ser|

Day 11: Snacking

HAPPY DIWALI TO ALL HINDIS!

On a side note, today's topic is on snacking which is especially prevalent during festivals and I am guilty to mindless snacking like many other people but I am trying hard to curb this habit and make it a healthy one instead. 

One of the few main reasons of snacking is because of stress. Some people tend to eat more when they are stress to make themselves feel better but in fact, it is making themselves worst in the long run. Luckily, I am the kind that do not eat when stress (which probably is not a good thing either). 

Another reason is what is known as mindless snacking in which I am highly guilty of. This means that you are eating for no reason whatsoever. You are actually not hungry, not craving for anything but you just automatically reach out for a snack as if you are programmed to do so. This is probably due to habit. You are probably so used to eating something at a certain time (eg. supper) or when doing a certain thing (eg. watching tv, movies) such that you must have something to snack on. As for me, I tend to snack when I have nothing to do or am doing mindless things like watching dramas. Having nothing to do is another big reason for people to snack because it takes up your time. 

Let see what are the few ways that I deemed to be useful to curb mindless snacking. 

1. Keep yourself occupied and focus.
   By keeping yourself occupied, you are keeping your mind away from any food thoughts. Your mind will be focus on the things you have to complete. Making a to-do-list for work and when you are back home will hopefully keep your mind off food and on the things you want or have to do. 
2. Keep food away from you.
   This is especially so in the office. If your office have a pantry or a food corner or you have a stash of snacks at hand, keep them away from you. By not looking at food, you have even lesser chances of wanting to eat them. This is to make food less convenient for you to reach for it and hopefully to reduce the times that you want to snack. 
3. Get healthy alternatives of snack
   If you really have to snack so as to keep your energy up, get healthy snacks instead of chips and biscuits which are high in fats and refined sugar. Get snacks that can keep your blood sugar level constant and thus will not make you to reach out for more food especially during the afternoon after lunch. 

These are a few snacks that I would like to snack on.

1. Granola without any milk or anything else. (100 grams per serving)
   I love to snack on these crunchy bits of granola which can provide me with fiber, complex carbohydrates and enough energy to last me to the next meal. Granola gives enough satisfaction through the crunch that it have which can be a substitute for people who enjoy crispy chips. 
2. Fruits/vegetables (1 serving of fruit/vegetable)
   Fruits are sweet and can be crunchy or juicy and best of all, it is a snack with few calories and is healthy. A medium size apple is just about 70 calories and a pear is about 80 calories. Why not switch your snack option to fruits and vegetables and you can get the satisfaction and also the vitamins and minerals in it. 
3. Baked tortilla chips with cottage cheese dipping (1 sliced of tortilla with 30 grams cottage cheese)
   If you are the kind that enjoys salty food, you will like this snack option. Bake your own tortilla chips using fresh corn or any wholewheat tortilla with a drizzle of olive oil and some spices (optional). If you require any dipping, use cottage cheese dipping instead of any other processed cheese as it is healthier and contains lesser amount of calories and fats. 

Hope you enjoy your version of healthy snacks and do not go back on mindless snacking.

Bye!

|ser|

Day 10: Motivation

What motivates you? There are 2 types of motivation. One is the positive motivation which is the one I like to use. This type of motivation, as the name suggests, is to have an incentive after the completion of a goal. The other type is the negative motivation. Negative motivation is where you punish yourself when you broke a rule or when you did not do what was expected. Is like reducing spending money after eating something sinful for example. 

I myself find positive motivation more useful than the negative one because the positive one makes you feel good and gives you "energy" to move on. Whereas for the negative motivation, it may backfire on you because it does not make sense to torture yourself further when dieting/exercising is difficult to your mind. 

Why do people not exercise even if they do know that it is good for them? Technically, the health benefits that people get out from exercising should outweigh the time and energy required to do these exercises. However, people think of short term benefits rather than the long term ones. These people do not think that exercise will make them happy and feel good in the short term because is tiring, is a waste of time. They would rather do something that they think will make them happier or have more benefits to them (eg. working). This is the economics of motivation. 

To get people motivated, government or health authorities have make sure to educate people about the health benefits of exercise. However, there are still people who does not listen. Then, they proceed on to scare tactics (negative motivation) where they post gory pictures and statistics to force them to live a healthier lifestyle. To many people, these scare tactics does not work at all because of the overwhelming advertisements of the many unhealthy food to encourage people to eat. These lead to having some governors to lobby for Soda Tax. 

We are smart but we are eating to die unlike the animals who eat to live. Why are we, the smart animals, doing this to ourselves? This is what many people should actually question themselves. 

Till next time! Bye!

|ser|

Day 9: Interval Training

Source

It is always good to add interval training into your workout routine. It is actually a must if you aim to be toned and have a nicer looking body. It is very good for people who are busy as a half an hour interval training can actually give you more benefits than a 2 hours gym session. Not only does it allow you to have an efficient workout using a shorter time, it actually allows you to burn more fats and calories. Also, by pushing your heart towards the anaerobic situation, the heart can be strengthen as well. 

This is my version of my interval training:

1. Warm up run from home to running track. 
2. Sprint 100m, Jog 100m, Sprint 100m, Jog 100m
3. Do 2. for 3 times
4. 12 x standard push up (arms tucked in)
5. 12 x push up (arms out)
6. 20 x crunches (feet flat on the ground, upper body come halfway up)
7. 20 x side crunches on each side (both legs to one side with one of the hip off the ground. upper body come halfway up)
8. Repeat 2 - 7 for another 2 more times.
9. Cool down run home. Stretch

What is your version of interval training? Comment down below.

Bye!

|ser|

Day 8: Convenience

I know I said in my previous post that I am going for interval training today but I only ran for 30 minutes due to my flu. I will probably update it tomorrow.

Source

Convenience can kill! I saw a colleague of mine going into the pantry to the vending machine to get a can of Coca Cola Zero and a packet of M&Ms at 3pm on Friday. Is the high accessibility of these "rubbish" food making us fat and unhealthy? 

Have you ever been in a situation where you feel very hungry and there is nothing to eat at home? So your solution is most probably to get some food outside but because of food delivery, you do not have to step out of the house to buy food. Due to this convenience, most of the food you buy from food delivery will be fast food which are very unhealthy. Even if you went out and eat, the food outside will mostly be unhealthy as well. The healthiest food is probably home-cooked food made from unprocessed foods. However, this to many people is not convenient, is not fast enough. Thus, to them, the extra time that gained from buying outside food outweigh the health benefits of home-cooked food. 

So start with cooking your own meal at home with this simple recipe I am showing you below. This meal can be for lunch or dinner and is packed with healthy ingredients. It will also make you feel full for at least 4 hours due to the complex carbohydrates in this meal. And best of all, it is simple and fast. 

Chicken, mushroom and tomato pasta (1 serving)

1 handful of dry Wholewheat Fusilli / Penne pasta

1 Tomato, diced

1/8 Onion, diced

100g minced chicken breast meat (or 1/2 chicken breast mince with food processor)

2 fresh mushrooms, sliced

1/2 tsp oil, preferably olive oil if not any vegetable oil

50ml water/stock

1 tsp tomato paste

Salt & pepper to taste

1. Boil a pot of water and salt it well to cook the pasta as stated on the package. 
2. Saute the onion over hot oil till onion soften. 
3. Add in the minced chicken breast meat and mushroom and cook it till almost done.
4. Add in the tomatoes, tomato paste and water/stock. Let the mixture come up to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. 
5. Taste the sauce for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Mix in the pasta and you are done. 

Hope you have fun cooking your own meal. 

Bye!

|ser|

Day 7: 1 WEEK DOWN!

Is already one week after I have started my 99 Days Plan. And I am suddenly down with sore throat today. Spam water and green tea like crazy for the whole of today. Luckily for me, I am much better now although I am rather lifeless during work today. 

Exercise

My aim of doing 3 hours of exercise per week seems to much for me to handle currently. I am only doing about 1.5 hours this week with 1 session of jogging and 2 sessions of toning exercises. Maybe that is why I am sick now because of lack of exercise. I have not done any interval training but will be aiming to do that tomorrow (if I am well) and perhaps I would share my interval training schedule tomorrow. 

I think I would need to be more motivated and make it a habit to exercise during my free time instead of just lazing around and watching shows which is not productive at all. I am very impressed with people that manage to get their butt out of their house to go exercise after going back from work in the evening. I need to find ways to motivate myself to exercise!

Food

I have not had any fried food and have been drinking green tea every weekday during work. But I did consumed sweets =( I try to reduce my guilt by choosing sugar-free options as I still require a small amount of sweets to keep my hunger pangs at bay during work especially from 3pm onwards. This is because I do not want to get any other things to eat as I want to reduce my calorie intake. I will limit myself to only 1 piece of sweet but I still feel a little guilty of that. I should look out for more healthy but convenient snacks to relieve myself of hunger pangs and to keep my metabolism kicking. 

One thing that I am very happy about is that I manage to cut back eating at night. I started to eat at night after about 9pm on most nights after starting work. This is when I feel that I am starting to get fats accumulating around the tummy. Now that I manage to stop any food intake after 9pm, I actually feel lighter physcially even though my weight did not change. Hopefully, this good habit can last throughout my life.

Bye!
|ser|

Day 6: Green Tea

GREEN TEA! My favorite hot drink. I drink this almost every day in the office (because office provides this. HAHA!). However, even if the office does not provide this, I will definitely buy it and drink it everyday in the office. Lucky for me, I am very sensitive to caffeine thus I am unable to drink even a cup of coffee. However, I am able to accept the caffeine level in green tea which can provide me with more health benefits than a cup of coffee.

Superb Antioxidant

As our body ages and be exposed to the external environment, our body will react to these external factors and become oxidized to produce free radicals. These free radicals will then proceed on to "steal" electrons from other molecules so as to stabilize themselves. By doing this, our cells may become even more vulnerable to other forms of attack. This is the same concept as the aging of our skin. Aging due to sun is because the UV rays are able to attack our skin and produce more free radicals which will remove electrons from our cells and thus making the skin vulnerable and thus will aged faster. 

This is the reason why antioxidant have been so popular lately and you can see many different kinds of antioxidant supplements appearing in your local pharmacy or drugstore. Why buy these expensive supplements when you can actually get it cheaply by drinking it?

Green tea contains a large amount of polyphenols, a type of antioxidant, which is known to be able to fight cancer. This type of antioxidant can also be found in apples. However, green tea has the most powerful type of polyphenol known as catechins and not only can this antioxidant able to reduce the chances of having cancer, it can also reduce signs of aging. 

Fats Fighter

As many of us may know, tea in general helps to "clean" the fats out of the gut. The same applies to green tea. It can actually help to reduce the amount of the "bad" (Low Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol in the body by preventing the absorption of these cholesterol into the bloodstream. 

Green tea can also help to increase fat oxidation when coupled with exercise (source). I was pretty surprised when I saw this study. Next time I shall try going exercise after drinking a cup of green tea and see if it does work to reduce the fat percentage in my body. 

Since green tea can help to reduce signs of aging, prevent cancer and to reduce amount of fats, why not starting drinking green tea from now on =)

Bye!

|ser| 

Day 5: Core toning

Source

What is sexier then toned and flat abs? To achieve this, the core area must be strengthened. The core area not only includes the tummy area as many people may think so. The core area actually includes the waist, stomach, hips, butt and the thighs. 

Like most of the Asian females, I am also much more bulkier around my core area especially my thighs which make it very difficult for me to find good fitting jeans. Whenever the thighs fit nicely, the waist area will be too loose. Therefore, I started to look for ways to tone my core and I found this video on Fitsugar which teaches a few exercises to tone and strengthen the core area.

I will try to do a few of these exercises everyday. Do join me in doing this exercises become more fit and toned.

Bye!
|ser|

Day 4: Breakfast

http://greenbabyguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/easy-oatmeal-for-a-cheap-breakfast2.jpg

BREAKFAST!! My favorite and the most important meal of the day! The picture above (taken from internet) is an example of how my typical breakfast will look like. Breakfast is very important as it is the energy that you ingest to kick start your day. Without breakfast, the body may go into "starvation mode" and the next time food enters your system, the food get stored as fats. The body gets an impression that it may go into starvation and thus it stores the food as fats for future uses. Therefore, breakfast is a MUST!

My Favorite Breakfast Choices

1. Oatmeal with soymilk (with or without fruits)
   
   I love this combination a lot. I usually cook my oatmeal with Nutrisoy Reduced Sugar Soymilk and it gives a amazing taste together with so much health benefits. Since the soymilk is slightly sweetened, there is no need to add any extra sugar and sometimes I add apple or banana to add more texture and natural sweetness to the oatmeal. People who have some acne problem can try eating oatmeal for breakfast as it contains a high amount of Vitamin B which is useful for skin renewal. Since oatmeal is rather bland, there are many combinations that you can make your oatmeal breakfast interesting. Try this and you will love it for sure.
2. Cereal with soymilk
   
   My go to cereal is Post Great Grains Crunchy Pecans Cereal. This cereal is make of wholemeal grains with lesser amount of sugar used as compared to some other commercial brands. Also, I love the pecans that adds crunch to the cereal. And together with the soymilk, it is so delicioius and filling.
3. Wholemeal bread with cheese/peanut butter/egg with soymilk
   
   This is probably the breakfast that I eat most of the time as it is easy and super fast to make. You will just need 2 pieces of bread and the condiment of your choice. As you can already tell, I love soymilk. I drink soymilk to take in my everyday calcium requirements instead of cow's milk. This chance is after I read an article saying that the hormones present in the milk may cause hormone imbalance in our body and thus lead to bad skin. Thus, I switched from cow's milk to soymilk and now my skin is actually looking better. 

So the above are my favorite breakfast choices. What are yours? Do share your breakfast in the comments.

Until next time. Bye!

|ser|

Day 3: Bring lunch to work

http://justbento.com/files/bento/images/bento_79_500.jpg

Do you always eat out during work? What do you always eat? Is there always more brown then greens on your plate? After lunch, do you feel sluggish and have no energy to work? If so, you need to change what you are eating during lunch. 

For me, my lunch is usually brought from home. I am one of the lucky few that my mom still cooks for me so that I can bring nutritious food to work. Bringing food from home instead of eating out has a lot more benefits than you can imagine. 

1. Change of menu everyday instead of looking at boring food which you will get bored of after 3 months eating at the same place. 
2. Do not have to go out and buy food when you are very busy during work and have to work even during lunch time. 
3. You can choose what you want to be place inside your meals instead of eating outside where you do  not know what they may put in your food. 
4. Cooking is therapeutic.
5. Save money $$. 

Some people may think that bringing lunch to work is very troublesome and a lot of work has to be done. However, once you get the hang of it (get super awesome in cooking), you would not want to buy lunch outside anymore. 

Some suitable lunches to bring to work are:

1. Sandwiches
   They are super easy to make and I LOVE bread. Sometimes I will make them myself when my mom do not feel like cooking lunch for me. You can put anything you want in there, like ham, boiled chicken, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. I like the combination of tuna-in-water mixed with mustard and lemon juice and topped with vegetables of my choice. You can change the flavor of sandwiches by changing the type of bread and the sauce you use. The healthier sauces are usually mustard and tomato salsa. But note that these sauces may cause the bread to be soggy so remember to pack them separately and combine them together when needed. 
2. Pasta
   For pasta, remember to pack the sauce and the pasta noodle separately as well to prevent it from being too soggy. Same as the sandwiches, you can put whatever ingredients you like into the pasta. What is different is that this requires a bit of cooking which can be done the night before. 
3. Rice with a side dish
   This is just like pasta. You can just substitute pasta for rice. Preferred rice is of course the brown rice because it will not cause your sugar level to spike and cause you to be sleepy after lunch. Although my family does not use brown rice, white rice work just as well. Just make sure you have the same quantity of protein and lots of vegetables to go with it.
   Or you can go for pumpkin rice (which I am having it today=)) that can be easily cooked inside a normal rice cooker. Pumpkin will keep your sugar level constant and to keep your hunger pangs at bay. It also contains high levels of Vitamin A and fiber which makes it a very good food for people on diet. 
4. Salads
   I know there is quite a number of people who will bring salads to work for lunch. However, I do not recommend it. I feel that there is not enough satisfaction and energy in a meal of purely vegetables or at most with a serving of protein. However, if your work do not require that much of energy, perhaps a salad will be a good choice. Remember to pack your dressing separately as well. 

So this is all, I am going to eat my lunch soon. Let me know what are your favorite lunch choices to bring to work.

Bye!

|ser|

Day 2: Good Read

I picked out this book from the library about a week ago and have just finished reading it. This book actually motivates and teaches me to live a healthier life to get rid of yellow fats and to increase the amount of brown fats instead. 

What are brown fats and yellow fats?

To simplify the definition, brown fats are "healthy fats" and yellow fats are the squishy fats that you see under the chicken skin which is what you do not want to have.

Essentially, to increase the amount of brown fats and to reduce the yellow fats is to exercise and to eat right which is typically what every doctor is saying. Also, to prevent the body from storing the food you eat as unhealthy fats, eat complex carbohydrate and to not eat less than what you should. The body should not go into a "starvation mode" as this will cause the body to think that there may be no food for sometime and thus the food that you eat will go into fat storage. One way to prevent this as the book recommends, is to eat small meals frequently. So in a day, you will have to eat about 6 meals so that the rate of metabolism can be kept high.

In this book, it also includes examples of how each meal should look like and also some simple exercises to tone the body. I am definitely going to try some of their exercises and perhaps recommend a few of their exercises in future posts.

Do go pick up this book to read. Is a nice book to help you understand your body more.

Bye!
|ser|

99 Days Plan

http://www.freeimageworks.com/images/2012/09/2013_snake_year_of-2.jpg

You may be thinking why am I blogging about the New Year so ahead of time. It is because I am PREPARING for it. My 99 Days Plan will start on 3 November 2012 and end on 9 February 2013 so that I can look my best when celebrating Chinese New Year.  

My 99 Days Plan include:

1. Exercising at least 3 hours per week (with at least 1 session of interval training)
2. No fried food (luckily I am not a fried food eater)
3. Reduce sugar drinks intake to once a month
4. Drink green tea at least every other day for cleansing
5. If eating out, choose grilled/steam food. Do not make the meal a set so as to reduce calories intake. 
6. Reduce any sugar intake to once every 2 weeks (include cakes, chocolates, sweets, pastries, sweet bread)

The last point is a killer for me. I LOVE bread!!! However, sweet bread like those you see in BreadTalk and Fourleaves will have a great amount of white flour, sugar and butter in them which will cause your blood sugar level to spike. This will then caused insulin to be activated. If your glycogen storage is full, these sugar will be translated into yellow fats which is what I do not want. This is why I have to sacrifice them and instead I will go for wholemeal/wholewheat bread and make my own sandwich so as to make my meals healthier. 

There are definitely more points I would like to add to my 99 Days Plan. What do you think I can add to it? Please join me together in this plan to become fit and healthy!! =D

Bye!

|ser|

HELLO BLOGOSPHERE!

HELLO!

I was bored during my work as I have absolutely NOTHING to do so I decided to start writing on this blog. Since I have an interest in health and fitness (although I am not that healthy and fit myself), I decided to base my blog on this theme.

I hope I will continue writing this blog as frequent as possible. I have ATTEMPTED to write blogs in the past and most of them do not pass 5 entries before I abandon them. I shall motivate myself to write in this blog as frequent as possible.

Let me introduce myself. I just entered the workforce and am now in my first job. I just graduated from NUS in applied chemistry and have been living rather unhealthily like most undergraduates where I sleep late hours, have irregular meals and insufficient exercise. However, it is not during this period where my weight increased. My height is 165cm and I weigh about 50kg just before I started junior college. Even though I played touch rugby in junior college, my weight increased to 55kg in just within 1 year. This weight increase is very apparent at my lower part of my body but I did not place any care with it. Then when I was in NUS Year 2, my friend from pharmacy took me to have a health assessment at their pharmacy booth and I was shocked that my weight increased to 59.1kg. After which, together with my friends, we have yong tao foo for most of our lunches in school and did more runs. My weight went back to 55kg and it has been stagnant since.

My current physique can be defined as normal but bottom heavy like most of the Asian girls out there. I am not tone but not exactly very bouncy either. Therefore, in this blog, I will share with you my journey to achieve a toned and streamlined figure by methods that I deemed to be good and therefore share the usefulness of the methods.

Just to clarify, I am not those health and fitness junkies that only eat and do things that are good for them. I LOVE an occasional treat (sometimes too much =p). 

Please look forward to my posts in the future!

Bye! 

|ser|