Valen’s Vanity Square

My body weight keeps fluctuating between 57 and 59. Gosh, it’s so hard to go lower than 57!

Hubby told me to better start exercising regularly and watch my weight. He said he doesn’t want me to become so heavy that he can’t carry me anymore. So, honey, when it comes to the day that you can’t carry me, are you going to use a car lift to lift me up from the bed? Haha!

My physical activity has actually increased. I walk a lot these days, but may be not as rigorous as it should be to be qualified as a cardiovascular activity.

While my physical activity increases, my number of meals has also increased! May be that’s the reason why my body weight forever remains the same. Can’t help, my brain needs fuel to keep working and coping with the current workload. I practically eat 4-5 times a day now, including tea breaks.

Oh well, may be I will start off by doing some stretching exercise… on the bed!

Hubby bought a digital body weighing scale that can calculate and show our body mass index (BMI), percentage of fat and percentage of water in the body. That’s cool, huh?

And after weighing ourselves and jotting down the figures shown, we compared the numbers with the reference points stated in the manual.

Based on men standard, hubby’s BMI exceeds the normal range slightly, his percentage of body fat is higher than normal, and the percentage of water in the body is lower than normal. The conclusion to his results, according to the manual - he is not healthy and should modify his diet. Haha!

For me, everything falls in the normal range, and I am 100% a healthy person.

This is difficult to believe, as hubby seems to be the fitter one between two of us. But I will accept what the manual says and continue to eat decently and do light but regular exercise to maintain my healthy status. At least I know I won’t have to visit buyphenphedrine.com to look up for weight loss pill yet, hehe.

Hubby now becomes so conscious about the type and volume of food he eats, and insists to work out three times a week, whether at home or in the outdoors. And he will monitor both our status every fortnightly. (Hubby has turned into Mr Doctor!)

Me have enough exercise already just from the daily walking to and fro the train station and office, that I have actually started to feel that my waist is not as bulging as before, haha!

For quite some time I had never felt knee pain or heard the cracking sound whenever I walked up or down the stairs. But I think they are coming back again, the both the pain and the sound.

The reason is simple. I had been working from home for two months plus, so I was spared from a lot of walking. For that two months’ period of time, I almost forgot I have knee problem. However, since I started to work in the office since two weeks ago, I stand, walk and climb a lot daily.

I stand in the train, I  walk three levels down from the train station in order to cross the road towards the shopping mall building, in which I have to walk up the elevator (because it won’t be switched on until 10 in the morning), then only pass through a side door to access the lift up to my office. It is quite a journey just to go to work!

And I do the whole thing again in the opposite direction after work.

I’m afraid that soon I will end up like my father, who has to wear knee sleeves for support when walking or driving. He sometimes still feel the soreness even with the knee sleeves on; may be he should start wearing donjoy knee brace instead.

Perhaps I myself should start wearing one of those knee sleeves when I go for brisk walking in the park, may be it will offer the support my knees need during exercise, and help minimize the pain and prevent further damage to my knee joints.

Went to our favorite park this morning, looks like we are resuming our weekly outdoor exercise routine after months of ‘inactivity’! Although I tend to get headaches after that, somehow I feel much more healthier.

We like to go that park, although it’s quite far from our house, is because it’s not only a place for exercise, as the park is always buzzing with healthy activities and frequented by people who want to live a healthy life. It truly represents a healthy outdoor recreational area, whether for groups of family to do a picnic by the little stream running through the park, or for mountain bikers and roller skaters to practice and showcase their skills and physical endurance.

For anyone who wants to pick up mountain biking as a hobby and wishes to learn the basics or find out where to get the necessary equipments, you can just go to the park in the morning and ask any of the bikers there. They may not know where to buy curt trailer hitch, but they surely can tell you where to get the best hitch bike rack with the best deal.

And, oh, the bikers all look goooood and fit, hehe. Hubby is so envious of their shaped body and toned muscles, and that kind of spurred his desire and commitment to get rid of the spared tyre around his waist,  haha!

Did I eat something wrong last weekend? I have been experiencing this intermittent abdominal pain for a few days.

The pain starts all of a sudden in the stomach, slightly crampy, but I don’t feel the urge to go to the toilet. Then about 5 seconds later, the pain slowly subsides. About one hour later, the pain comes back again. Disappear. Come back. Disappear. Come back….

Few days ago, I felt the pain right at the stomach. Today, the pain seems to have moved down to the lower abdominal area. But it’s a relief that today the pain doesn’t happen as frequently as before. And usually only when I am standing up or walking.

Tried checking the symptoms online to see what I could be possibly having, whether it’s an ordinary gastric problem? Overeating? Or more seriously - stomach ulcer??!!

The answer is - I don’t know. Of course I couldn’t get a diagnosis by simply checking the symptoms on the internet! There are so many possibilities; a common symptom can be shared by many different conditions, especially when there are several organs that lie within the abdominal cavity.

I think it’s easier to identify any of the low testosterone symptom than to pin down the cause of a gastrointestinal symptom!

But if I continue to have episodes of stomach ache tomorrow, I think I should go see a doctor.

Oh no, weekend is coming to an end! What have I still not done?

Have spent hours on the internet to get some online work done. Nope, I was not searching for office supplies online for my new office, nor browsing for Coach handbags. Just some website projects that I have implemented in hopes to make some money to sustain my shopping habits, haha!

Now, it’s time to get some exercise.

Bought a book yesterday; a book written by a Korean mother who managed to lose 20 over kg in 3 months!

Yeah, we all heard about dramatic weight loss stories quite frequently, but whether the methods are practical or sustainable will always be a question. I usually don’t put my eyes on this type of weight loss books. What made me pick up the book is the simple exercises that she teaches. Those that can be done while one is watching TV, and takes only about 15 minutes or so.

Of course, this has to be coupled with a healthy diet, that most of us know what that comprises of. The important things to remember are never ever to starve oneself or limiting the diet to just a type of food. Try to eat frequently, but in small amounts.

In fact, the author eats up to 6 or 8 meals a day, just that she emphasizes on well-balanced meals, piles up on vegetables and fruits, keeps the portion reasonably small and eats as soon as she feels hungry. And when she’s out with friends and family, she eats what other people eat. (This, I like!)

She also emphasizes on the overall shape of the body, instead of the weight. So her exercise regime is focusing on shaping the body, to what a woman’s body should be. The right curves at the right places.

I shall write no more. It’s time to go and do some body shaping exercise!

Have started my new job for a week - working from home! The new office is not fully set up yet, so I handled my work using my little netbook and the internet connection at home.

I thought I would have quite some ‘exercise’ to do by walking to and fro the train station to the office every day, and would be able to lose a bit of weight once I started working. But I think I had got the least amount of exercise in the past week coz food, water, toilet were all just a few steps away from my working desk. Haha!

Well, at least I tried to control what I ate. No mid-morning or mid-afternoon snacks, just three main meals, with a big bowl of cereals in the morning, and limited myself to only one cup of coffee each day. Quite healthy I would say. Haha!

I do understand that losing weight actually needs a combined strategy to modify the different areas in our lifestyles. I try to work on both areas as much as I can, albeit in a balanced way. No dieting, just eat on time, eat moderately, and know what to eat.

The body’s metabolism rate counts a lot, too. When your metabolism is sluggish, be it due to lack of exercise or eating the wrong types of food, whatever goes into your body stays there, get turned into unwanted fat. But if you have a high metabolism rate, the food you eat will be efficiently turned into energy to keep you on the go for the whole day. Eating a healthy, wholesome breakfast is one of the ways to kickstart ones metabolism early in the day.

If you want to know more on how to achieve that, this FREE “1 Week Kickstart to Your Metabolism” short e-book written by Isabel De Los Rios should give you some good guidance. If you are planning to lose weight, it could be something to help you jumpstart your weight loss endeavor.

In this free ebook, Isabel talks about 3 very important tips to follow for anybody who wants to lose weight or maintain their ideal weight. She actually gives examples of meal plan that one can follow quite easily. And there are also two very scrumptious looking but definitely healthy recipes. Isabel always believe that one can eat delicious food and still lose weight. Apart from that, Isabel also provides links to some of her videos on weight loss tips in the book.

Feel free to check out her ebook “1 Week Kickstart to Your Metabolism“, and you can save a copy of the book and pass it around to anybody who wants to eat healthy and lose weight.

I will definitely will try that almond crusted chicken recipe next weekend!

* You can right click here and choose ‘Save the link as” to download the ebook to your computer.

Just spent over four hundred bucks on a new pair of glasses. Oh, it’s actually two pairs!

Bought the first pair with bifocal lenses at the price of four hundred plus; donated 10 bucks to a St John’s Ambulance charity fund, and got the second pair (single vision lens, selected frames) free! :=)

The pair with bifocal lenses allow me to look at both near and far things. Yes, I have long-sightedness! With the right eye worse than the left one. With this pair of glasses, I am able to see exit signs from afar, as well as to work with a PC or reading instruction labels on lotion bottles closely without having to squint my eyes.

The pair that has single vision lenses will be specially used for looking at things at near distance, particularly for reading. No wonder people call those reading glasses. Now I know why. ;P

More importantly, the two pair of glasses have different frames, and they are quite retro in style! Can’t wait to get my new spectacles next Monday…

Finally, I had gone for my first hair cut of the year, haha!

Just went to the shopping mall across my office, found one saloon that provides a PC with internet connections! As opposed to the traditional magazine-flipping while having your hair meddled with a pair of hands, these days you could actually enjoy surfing the internet and get a new hair style one or two hours later!

I went for a wash, cut and scalp treatment that the saloon charged at RM180. I also bought a bottle of hair tonic (from Shiseido) that helps to prevent hair loss. It’s high time to pay more attention to my hair and scalp.

Previously I tried a hair grow tonic from some unknown brand and didn’t find it useful. But what I learned from the hairstylist that day is that:
1. Hair growth tonic won’t help much if you’re losing hair faster than your hair grows.
2. Oily scalp promotes hair loss.

So, the first step to prevent my hair from getting thinner is to actually control, if not totally stop, hair loss. And, I also need to keep my scalp clean by washing my hair every day, if possible, and use the right type of shampoos.

But hair and scalp are not the only things that I have to worry about. I am also concern about my knees and hips. May be it’s lack of exercise, or wrong sitting posture, I have been getting aches around my back and hips. Knee pain comes on and off.

I definitely don’t want to suffer from arthritis pain or osteoporosis prematurely!

I have started to drink calcium-enriched milk formula, since bone mineral loss is increased at this age of mine. And I drink coffee a lot, which actually promotes the excretion of calcium from the body (through urine), indirectly reduce the calcium reserves in the body. So topping up my calcium intake every day is the way to keep my bones from become fragile. Osteoporosis can put women at higher risk of bone fractures, especially the hips.

But I’m not sure how to go about preventing protecting my knee joints. While I know that I should avoid wearing high heels often, and perhaps to exercise appropriately to strengthen my leg muscles that support the knees. When it comes to dietary measures, I really have no clue. I don’t know if taking supplements will be of any real help.

Wonder if a chiropractitioner is able to offer good advice or treatment on knee problems?