Valen’s Vanity Square

Did you know that today (29 May) is World Digestive Health Day? Don’t worry if you don’t know. It’s a relatively ‘young’ world health campaign. This global campaign has just been around for only 6 years. The first one initiated in 2004, by an organization called the World Gastroenterology Organisation.

The health campaign was initiated because there is a need to increase the awareness about the importance of our digestive health (ie the health from your mouth right to your anus).

If you think that it’s okay to feel nausea, bloated or suffer from constipation or diarrhoea all the time, you are so dead wrong. While these symptoms don’t usually cause any harm when they are mild and happen occasionally. But if they happen frequently, that means something in your body is not right. Your stomach, or perhaps your intestines are not working as they should.

To take care of our digestive system is not that difficult. It’s about adopting healthy practices when it comes to eating and the lifestyles we’re living. We all know pretty much everything about healthy eating and the importance of exercise, right? But how many of us really put good habits into practice?

I do understand why it is not so easy to practice in reality. Say we all know the benefits of eating organic foods, but locally such produce are much expensive than the normal produce. Somehow quality food products are always more expensive than the rest.

But then, we are talking about our health here. It’s not about buying the cheapest car insurance that will give us the minimal protection required, it’s about giving our health the maximum protection we can afford.

So, for the sake of our good health, start paying attention to your digestive system, and be prepared to spend for quality food?

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It has been two weeks since I last saw my now going to be 3-month old niece. I wonder if she now smiles more often or chuckles a bit. She has been such a grumpy-looking little baby girl, always frowning. Haha! (Better not let my sister know that I said this about her baby. :P)

I didn’t visit her during the weekend because I was not fully recovered from my flu yet (still am not!). Don’t want to spread the disease to a cute vulnerable creature, as her immune system is still not fully developed yet. But I believe she is quite strong since my sister breastfeeds her. She may have some mild skin rashes, but not the usual baby eczema I’ve seen before in other babies (usually on their face).

Eczema can be a sign that one is prone to develop allergy later in life. It can be a great discomfort to the baby (the itchiness) as well as the mother. Breastfeed is the best way to help a child lessen his or her risk of getting allergic diseases later. Mothers should try to breastfeed their baby exclusively for 6 months, meaning not even feeding her baby with plain water. Complementary food should only be started at 6 months. Introducing solid foods too early has been associated with increased allergy risk.

Wow, I’m not a mother yet, but I knew so much about breastfeeding already.

Hubby was away in the east coast yesterday, but came back by flight this morning. At least, we have the whole Saturday together. Married couples need to date on weekends, too!

We did what typical couples do - lunch, movie, tea, and now hubby is napping on the sofa. Haha! Me? Have to think what’s for dinner later.

Oh dear, my weekend seems to evolve around foods and drinks only. And I haven’t done the most ‘important’ thing of the day - my bowels….hehe. Well, I bet this is how most urban dwellers spend their weekends too. Poor eating habits and inactive lifestyle (nope, shopping on Saturdays is not considered regular physical exercise) have affected our bowel movements and are taking a toll on our intestinal health. it’s no wonder more and more people these days are going for detox programs or the best colon cleanse supplements.

I’m part of the affected lot myself. On weekdays, I tend to have upset stomach and sudden urges to pass. On weekends, I tend not to go because either I oversleep or there’s something else distracts me from paying attention to those bowel cues.

Weekdays - we get busy with work. Weekends - we get busy to make ourselves forget about work and indulge in entertainment and food. When will we get busy to make sure our health is at its best condition?

Two weeks ago I thought I had lost a little weight. I have been eating only three meals a day since I stared to working, no afternoon snack or whatsoever even if I was hungry. I ate moderately every meal, and I was suffering from some mild form of diarrhea. I felt that my tummy was slightly flatter. So I thought finally “I’m losing weight the natural way!”, haha!

But now, my bowel movement is back to normal and regular, I have some muesli bars in my drawers to munch on in case I get hungry in the office, and I eat heartily during dinner time. When I checked my weight on my sister’s digital scale. Darn, I’m back to where I was before.

Oh well, I think the only way for me to cut a couple of kilograms is really to hop back onto the elliptical machine. (Haven’t been exercising lately!) Although I read that one of the ways that celebrities use to lose weight is to drink black coffee, without milk and sugar. I like coffee, but don’t think I can take it without milk and sugar.

Some people said that it’s the caffeine in the coffee that is causing the weight loss. It’s still a debatable issue. What caffeine does is it helps the body to lose additional water, suppress our appetite, and may has some calorie burning effect. But whether those effects can last or cause significant weight loss remain to be answered.

One of the weight loss products that I know of that contains caffeine-type ingredient is Nuphedragen. It is advisable to check out various nuphedragen reviews before one first try it for weight loss plan. Certain people who are sensitive to caffeine should not take this type of weight loss supplement.

I’m not sure if I’m considered sensitive to caffeine, but I do find my stomach feel uncomfortable after drinking those 3-in-1 coffee. Not so if it’s coffee from Starbucks of Coffeebean. Jeez, even my stomach prefers ‘branded’ stuffs. Haha!

Last week was ‘intestine’ week for me. This week is ‘bacteria’ week. What am I talking about here? Well, I’m referring to my projects at work. Because last week all I wrote about was about the health of our intestines. This week is all about the bacteria living in our intestines! Haha!

Oh, I also wrote about probiotics, you know, those friendly bacteria that you drink along with Vitagen or Yakult? Jeez, this reminds me of my Vitagen in the fridge, which is going to expire end of this week! Eeks, better drink them tomorrow when I go home (today I’m still at my mom’s).

Did you notice that if you are taking antibiotics because you’re sick, you would later get diarrhoea after you finished your medicine and recovered? This is because antibiotics not only kill the germs that cause you to be sick, the medicine also destroys the naturally present friendly and beneficial bacteria in your intestines. This give a chance to other bad bacteria to grow in population and cause diarrhoea.

If you’re generally healthy, then there’s nothing much to worry about. The diarrhoea effects will eventually subside. But if you take yogurt or drink cultured milk while you’re on antibiotic, you may reduce the severity and duration of, if not prevent, diarrhoea.

Some people would take probiotic pills because they frequently experience digestive problems. If you’re also considering taking probiotic pills, then it would be wise to first do a research on or check out reviews for the probiotics you intend to consume. (Just like women who want to lose weight would check out weight loss product reviews, and men who need some sexual enhancement help would check out review on extenz.)

Nevertheless, at the end of the day, the best way and most natural way to take probiotics are through foods you eat everyday. Fermented milk products (yogurt and cultured milk) or fermented soy products,  or even kimchi, carry a good load of probiotics.

To all girls out there, if you have a boyfriend or husband who smokes and you want him to quit smoking but he keeps postponing it or failed to quit many times, this cool e-cigarettes (electronic cigarettes) thing might offer some help.

Not that I’m promoting smoking or what, I don’t smoke, I don’t like people who smoke, and I absolutely HATE people smoking and puffing and standing next to me! The smell is awful, the smoke is choking, and the ash is dirty. Not to mention that people who smoke have yellow teeth. I can’t imagine how it’s like to live with a person who smokes.

So these e-cigarettes are made to serve different purposes. First of all, if the smoker is considerate enough not to harm the people around him and pollute the environment, an e-cigarette doesn’t produce ashes or real smoke. So whoever standing next to him won’t become a second-hand smoker. The floor and the air will be so much more cleaner. There’s no tar in e-cigarettes, so your teeth won’t turn yellow any further than they are right now. There won’t be lingering smell too.

For people who are trying to quit smoking, e-cigarettes come in different strength. So it makes smoking abstention relatively ‘painless’ because the smoker can gradually reduce the nicotine content of the e-cigarettes he ’smokes’.

Let me emphasize again - I don’t encourage smoking. But if you want to smoke, at least make a choice that will not cause a hazard to the health of the people around you as well as the environment.

In the Western medicine, a woman’s ovulation can be affected - be it irregular ovulation or lack of ovulation - if she has hormonal imbalance problem. But if you ask a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner, he or she will add on that even how fast your heart beats (pulse rate) can have an effect on the production and release of your ovum.

I didn’t make this up, that’s what my TCM doctor told me. He said my heart beats faster than normal, and slightly irregular. That, will not promote the healthiest egg production and normal ovulation. Eeeks!

Luckily I didn’t have any tight chest symptom, otherwise it might indicative of a heart problem! I hope the next time he won’t tell me that I didn’t have adequate oxygen in my blood, otherwise I would have to buy a pulse oximeter to check my own blood saturation level.

(A pulse oximeter is a medical device that indirectly measures the oxygen saturation of a person’s blood without having to take blood sample.)

You see, there are so many things that a TCM practitioner can tell you by examining your pulse rate - bad blood circulation, heavy or lack of vaginal secretion, inflammation at the hip, etc - without running the typical physical examination or blood tests like what the Western medicine doctors do. And they will tell you to adjust your diet in a way that is not likely to be advised by your typical nutritionist or family doctor.

It may sound unconventional, but TCM is actually treating a person holistically by finding out what the root problem is, and not just trying to eliminate the symptoms. If you have been suffering from some illness and haven’t got any better from your medications, may be you can try TCM to see if it could benefit you somehow.

Are you on a weight loss plan using diet pills? If yes, then there are some important steps that you need to follow to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the weight loss pill. For example:

• Don’t crush your diet pill and mix it in drinks or soups. Just take it in whole with a full glass of water.
• Take only the recommended dosage. Taking more may not necessarily help you to lose weight faster or more. In fact, it increase the risk of side effects.
• Diet pills have diuretic effect, i.e. you’ll urinate more frequently. So make sure you drink at least 8 glasses of water everyday when you’re on diet pills to prevent dehydration.
• Follow the diet plan your dietitian’s formulated for you, because diet pills will only work if you’re eating the right way.

If you decide to take over-the-counter diet pills (i.e. not prescribed by your doctor or dietitian), make sure you do a thorough research about the product before you start taking it. For instance, if you wonder what are the active ingredients contained in phosphacore, and what are the consumer ratings of this weight loss product, you can always look for the information you want by searching the internet.

It’s the 5th day of CNY, and it’s a quiet one. Was hanging around at home, watching the newly installed ASTRO channels, hehe.

We signed up for ASTRO, just the basic channels in the family package, through the internet few days before CNY, and the installer came and install the system for us on the third day of CNY! Fast!

Normally Chinese don’t like to drill or bang at home during CNY, but we couldn’t stand watching blur TV screens any longer (coz we didn’t have an aerial installed), haha!

And while watching TV, I was munching away on cookies and candies from bottles placed on the coffee table. Imagine all the sugars running in my body now…And tonight, we’ll be having dinner with both our parents.

This means that, I’ll have to workout on the elliptical machine for at least 20 minutes after this. Burn off some calories first before I take in more tonight, haha! I don’t intend to resort to weight loss products like slimquick or QuickTrim to get rid of fat, so I have to work the difficult way.