Extend your life span with these...

I am proud of my nation. Proud of the sports team that we have. And so when I read of the slackness in the National Team. I got mad. Overslept? Smoking in the locker room at half-time? Really mad. Put aside professionalism. I don't care if you don't have that. You are wearing my county's color. So please. Live up to it.
This is the picture of the jetty at Survivor Island Sabah. I loved to sit out on the hammock out on the jetty. It was so relaxing.

What you do has a great impact on who you are. But often times, people make choices out of ignorance. Out of a lack of information. They make choices for all the wrong reasons. Today I'm going to list out some choices and how they can influence your life. These tips can not only help you to loose weight, but be healthy overall, increasing your life span as a result.!

1) Becoming a vegetarian = I have great admiration for vegetarians. How they manage to abstain from meat I have no idea. (But yet again people wonder how I can abstain from coffee & alcohol etc. so may it isn't much of a surprise.) Being a vegan can help reduce your risk of having heart diseases. However, it does not mean you will become slimmer. On the contrary, many vegans tend to put on more weight (An interesting phenomenon, I'll be searching on why this is the case). Here is the thing I want to highlight. Being a vegan can increase your life span by about 1.5 years. Keep this number in mind as we compare other choices and how many years they increase your life span by.

2) Having a normal Body Mass Index (BMI) = Having a normal height to weight ratio would mean that you are keeping your fats under control! So you don't have to worry that you are fat. Achieve this? Add about 2 years to your life!

3) Having and following an exercise program = HAVE and FOLLOW an exercise program. Again~find something that you like to do. Remember. If you want to lose weight, each session must be 30mins long with your HR over 65%.
If you want to be healthy~15minutes, 3 times a week, at least 65% of your HR. Daily, you must walk AT LEAST 10,000 steps. This is the minimum requirement to BE healthy. Really. Minimum. So walk that extra step to the bus stop. Park a little farther from the entrance of the grocery store. Do this, and add 2.5 years to your life.

4) Eating Nuts = I honestly think this is fascinating. There are bad fats, and there are good fats. Nuts are packed with good fats that can stimulate brain activity among other things! Incorporate nuts into your diet. Eat nuts 5 times or more a week and you reduce your chance of getting a heart disease by about 60%. It is found that people who eat nuts tend to become thinner. Eat nuts regularly? Add 2.5 years to your life! AMAZING ain't it? But what then are the best nuts to eat. Research says that almonds are. Almonds are high in protein and heart friendly (: Try getting those natural ones. If you must, roast them. They taste good that way. Make sure your almonds have a low salt content. Why? Read on to find out.

5) Have a normal blood pressure = Maintain a normal blood pressure and add approximately 4 years to your life! How do you do that? Cut back on those salts. Want chips? Get it lightly salted. Cook with less salt. Once you consume salt your blood pressure takes a HUGE jump each time. A high blood pressure means that your heart has to, and is working harder than what it should and that is bad.

6) Do not smoke = Just to keep things even, I'm writing a number 6. If you are not a smoker, you add AT LEAST 2.5 years to your health. Hurray for us Mormons. heh

So it is interesting to note how being a vegan apparently has the least impact on your life. But so lets sum it up. 4 things (I'm not gonna add in being a vegan), and that would add on approx. 13.5years to your life. I hardly need to tell you that 13.5 years is a heck of a long time more that you will be breathing. So start changing your life today. Hope you follow these tips. And as a suggestion, start small. The easiest thing is to ADD things onto your diet so up that nuts intake as a start (: small steps! cheers!
In the next few sections I'll be jumping even deeper, giving more suggestions on nutrition.

p.s. A bodybuilding section is gonna be coming up soon!

you are what you eat...(broken my PR for push-ups and chin-ups)

I think this picture is epic. This is taken in Sabah, Malaysia. It is on an island where they filmed the very first Survivor series. So there is this mud volcano that we visited and the teacher threw out a dare. Who dares to submerge them-self fully in the mud. And so. hah. yar the picture speaks for itself.

So I am rather confused. Psychology ain't helping. I'm supposed to be able to read minds and behaviors but I can't read that person's. I learnt about how to analyze dreams but I REFUSE to accept what my dreams are telling me.

As I said, I will blog a little about weight loss via watching one's diet. I'll go one step further and talk about healthy eating as a whole.
So I think we know by now that the thing that girls do~not eating lunch or wtvr~they call that dieting, I call that starvation~that is really unhealthy and doesnt really do much to help you lose weight. To be healthy, and to lose weight, small, regular balanced meals are the best. Why?

Say you ate dinner, but skipped breakfast the next morning. Do that a few more times and this is what would happen. Your body recognizes that it would not get food in the morning. Thus after dinner, the body automatically moves into "starvation mode". What happens then is that your dinner would not be digested entirely. Instead, the body stores the food as fats so that it can be used the next day when you skip breakfast. So REGULAR MEALS important. This ensures a regular and constant metabolism that will effectively digest the food so that you get enough energy, and the food does not get stored as fats.

So thats a little about healthy eating, much more will be coming up. Tips on HOW to eat, WHAT to eat, and the BENEFITS that you would enjoy.

Changed

Anyong! THis is a picture of my schoolmates and I at Marina bay. Somewhere near the Merlion. heh. My teacher is at the top of the pyramid. A tiny funny korean (thus the anyong!) who was bred in America. And as you can see, shes a great person. Shes wearing pink! hahaha. (self-praise lots)

Depressing the life of a modern day kid. Did a little survey in fitness class today. Split the class into 4 groups. Those who sleep at 10pm, 11pm, 12pm, and later than 12pm. Then asked them to regroup according to what time they wake up and how many hours of sleep they get. Adults require around 8 hours of sleep and teens require about 10hours. Guess how many met that requirement...I sound like an old nag but sleep is really important. If you doubt me, and if you know Brother Peterson, I suggest you ask him to tell you his first hand experience about how important sleep is.

Anyway! I am really happy with how my blog is turning out. No more melancholic posts. No more complaining bout this or that. No more muttering about how much I have going on in my life. heh.

Anyway, just to keep things straight, this isn't a pure fitness blog. it is STILL a random blog of mine. Fitness posts will come as and when I feel like it~heh. I mean as and when I receive any inspiration.
Right now I am doing a little section of weight loosing techniques. Touched a little on what exercise must be done~Will give some training plans possibly some time on. What would come on next however would be a section on what you consume, aka your diet. What and how much should you eat if you want to lose weight.

Oh yes, same goes to the philosophical posts and the psychology posts that's coming up. They will be given as and when inspiration comes.

In the mean time, my thoughts go out to y'all. Stay fit, stay happy (: smile more often and you will become happier. Its not just some myth, its part of what we psychologists call "Facial Feedback Theory". According to this theory, your brain interprets feedback from movement of your facial muscles as different emotions. For example, you see a dark shadow in the corner of your room at night. You react by raising your eyebrows and widening your eyes. Your brain then interprets these facial expressions as those associated with fear, and you then feel fear. So likewise, when we smile, our brain interprets the facial expression as those associated with happiness and thus we will become happier! (: so smile!

Yumm yumm CNY...

This is the picture of the campfire in Sabah during class trips. was kinda hot. heh.

so after toying around with various blogskins and messing it up multiple times, I am back to a custom template. BORING! But at least it works. heh.
Went back to Singapore last week and met up with quite a few friends. that was superb. haha. havent seen them all in AGES. haha.
Now CNY is over, I'm back in China, we are all fed to the brim with goodies, time to get the body workin it off. heheh. My next few posts will be targeted specifically at weight lost. Well, briefly at least...I'll target weight lost via exercise first before talking about weight lost via your diet in future posts (:

So I have introduced one workout, push-ups. And honestly, again I stress, it is an awesome exercise. Works a lot of different muscles, gives you a strength and yet a cardiovascular workout, and easy to do anywhere. But this exercise is more of a toning exercise. Won't burn much fat. Why?
When you do push-ups, its a form of resistance exercise (weights etc). Any resistance exercise would naturally work the heart as must pump more blood to those muscles thus increasing the heart-rate. However the burning of fat requires something more.

First condition: The heart must be working at at least 60% of your Resting Heart Rate. Again as a recap, your RHR is number of beats that your heart is Beating Per Minute immediately once you wake up.
Second condition:Your heart must be working at this 60% for at least 30minutes. Any less than that, you are just sweating and not burning fat.

So unless you do push-ups for 30mins, it isn't going to help you burn much fat. An important exercise? YES! But not going to burn much fat.
So does that mean you have to jog/run for 30min to burn fat? Well, just running for that long can be rather dull maybe. So find something that you like to do! Play soccer, uh Ultimate frisbee! Dodgeball! haha. I love that game. Or just go for a cycle at the park. Find something fun but yet challenging for you.
Now there's some magic involved. You don't have to exercise 30min EVERY SINGLE DAY to burn calories. Say today is Monday and you play badminton for 45 minutes and you burned uh 800 calories during that time. The magic is that for the next 24 hours, you will continue burning another 800 calories! Thus from a 45 minutes workout, you burn 1600 calories in all!
Your effort carries forward. A teeeny bit of science now. When you exercise, your metabolism is sped up. It will continue working at that increased rate for the next 24hrs and thus you continue to burn calories. If you continue working out every alternate day, your metabolism would work consistently at that higher rate. If you don't however, your metabolism slows down and you will need to re-crank it up again. It is harder to re-crank it up than to maintain. Therefore, consistency is the best! So find that activity that you wanna do (:

Makes sense? If no, leave a tag or comment and I will get to it.
Don't lie to yourself. haha. laugh

The first 15min workout

Simplicity is the best. And that is exactly what we will do. We'll start off simple because really, the simpler the exercise the better. So what is on the menu? Push-ups. Simple, but effective. Push-ups works a whole range of muscles. Your biceps and triceps (thats your arms), your chest (thats your uh chest...hah), your back muscles, your whole abdominal (stomach area and sides) and your hamstrings. One workout, and more than 6 major muscles worked. Not a bad deal no? And honestly your work out would probably take less than 15mins. Lets run through the workout step-by-step.

1) Stretch
The first thing we need to do is warm up our muscles by stretching. 1 MAIN stretch we have to do.
Place your hand on a wall, straighten your arm, and push forward. This stretches your chest. Hold the position for 10x3 seconds and do for both arms.

2) The workout: Push-ups

As I said, this workout is easy but works a lot of muscles. So the basic push-up we all know.

Body straight, go down till your arms have bent at least 90 degrees. Now HOLD at the down position for 1 second, then come back up.
How many should you do?
For beginners:
Do 3 sets of push-ups. For each set, do till exhaustion (do it until you cant do anymore!) Now for the first set you might be able to do 13~the second set 7~and the third set just 2. Its perfectly fine. As you do this exercise daily, you will find that this number will increase.
For more advanced groups:
Set a target of how many push-ups you want to do per day. 100-300 push-ups is a good number to work with. Now split this number up into challenging but yet manageable sets. I currently do 20 per set.
Now if you are not able to do a regular push-up~or if you are on your 18th set of 20 push-ups but you are hurtingggg~Go into the knee position and continue on. DO NOT STOP EVEN IF IT HURTS.

When you are doing a knee push-up, you are still lifting about 50% of your body weight! It feels alot easier, but you are still getting an awesome workout (yes contrary to popular belief, it aint a sissy push-up). So if you are totally blown out on your last set, just go to this position. You are overloading your muscles (this is a good thing) and you are still getting a good workout.
For those who are not able to do a single regular push-up, do this knee variation. Instead, go down to the count of 10, and come up to the count of 10. Again, do 3 sets till exhaustion.
3) Do the same stretches as a cool down
your muscles only grow if they are stretched after they are worked! this is of vital importance.

Remember the key to anything is consistency. Keep up with this everyday and you will see spectacular results after awhile.
And so cheers! This is your first 15min (or less) workout.

What is meaningful is never easy. The first suggested training program will be given in the next post. stay tuned! [;

Sunday has been quite interesting. The past few Sundays actually. A culmination of spiritual experiences. So Kandace in her latest post was like, why do I seem to take more pictures of outdoors etc. Experiences over the past 2weeks and a nice interview with the District Presidency in Shenzhen has taught me that in Nature, God seems to speak more to Man. Moses and Mt Sinai, Joseph Smith and the Sacred Grove are just some examples.

2 weeks ago, there was a baptism in my Branch. That meant that immediately after Sacrament, I had to go out to the backyard of the villa (we meet in a house), and up the font, and then guard it. Yes. I am the guardian of the font that ensures no kid cannonballs into the font. And so I was sitting on a swing in the backyard, watching the font, when I looked up at just this random pine tree. Totally random the tree was. But the moment I looked upon the tree, I received what is probably the sweetest feeling i have ever felt. I have always been able to feel the Spirit when my life is in order. However these have always been impressions. This time, I actually heard a full sentence. Nature has a way of connecting us to God. If I may, it might even be magical.
Elder Richard G. Scott talked a little about how we can receive spiritual guidance in the last General Conference. Things we need to do to earn spiritual guidance.

"What is meaningful is never easy. If its easy, it would cease being meaningful. If its easy, we wouldn't learn as much."

Which brings me to my fitness tip. Consistency is the key. It won't be easy at first. But its worth it.

In whatever thing we are doing, we feel the results of what we are doing before we see it. When we study for an exam, the immediate result that we feel is fatigue. But we only see the results (literally in this case) after a period of time when we sit for that big test. Likewise, we feel the results of our workout immediately. Some people I know pumps off 30 push-ups at one go. Sayy OUCHHHH (feeling the result of their workout), then immediately head to the full-length mirror. They look in, flex, see that they haven't gained much muscle, then say heck, whatever, its not working. Now heres the thing. We feel the results immediately but we can only see them after a period of time remember? In fact, we can only see the results of our workout after at least 6 weeks. So for guys, while you feel good after that gym session, you'll only look buffer after 6 weeks. For girls, while the weighing scale shows you lost 700g from that weekend workout and you feel lighter, you will only look slimmer and more toned after at least 6 weeks.

Consistency is the key, what is meaningful, is never easy. Set a target. You don't have to workout for 2 hours every alternate day. I suggest that 15 minutes a day is more than sufficient.
Along this line, I will post up my first training suggestion for that 15min workout the next time I blog (:
Right now I am still touching the basics. Things that are good to know, good to do, and not exclusive to fitness. In the following posts, I would slowly get more specific in what you should do and whats happening to you when you workout.
For now, keep taking your heart rate. It is of UTMOST importance regardless of whether or not you are exercising. As said, it acts as an early warning system as to whether you are feeling well. So every morning, take that heart rate. Consistency is the key.

no I do not have a bedtime Melodyyyy. but!

finally the research presentation is over. and I must admit it went rather well. there were 17 people presenting, 10mins each, and I was number 14. that meant that by the time it got to me everyone was practically going zzz...still, managed to rouse the crowd, delivered the points I needed to, made the jokes I wanted to, got the response I wanted. hah. and so at the end of the presentation, I bumped into my teacher and he was going "fred...what are we going to do with you...you should go become charismatic preacher!" my reaction? o.O HAHA! again today when he gave me my grades for the presentation~"fred, you should become a charismatic preacher"Aites...sure I do have what it takes and they do earn huuuge bucks. but I'm Mormon so no thanks. which reminds me.
so there's this new kid in school. His name is Matt. Staunch Lutheran (no drugs, no alcohol, no swearing [;) and I was sitting with him at the back of the class and we overheard the rest of the guys in my class talking about how they're gonna try plant the marijuana seeds that they found -.- and so Matt asked me: "hey fred do you read the Bible?" and I was like "of course! I'm Mormon!" his reply? "Good to see that there's someone else in the school with morals." HAHA. yes. As Elder Cook said in in his article in the New Era. We are Saints. We truly, we truly should be.

so onto my fitness tip. I'm gonna hop back to my tip on sleep first before continuing on what I planned to blog about all thanks to Melody xP haha. no I don't have a bedtime, but this is why I try to sleep early.
so here we have it! As I mentioned before, with sufficient sleep, we would have improved concentration, memory and our body would be better able to replenish dead cells. so yes we busy teens say that it is impossible! how are we supposed to have 9-10 hours of sleep per night. so here is the great part! there are different stages to sleep. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is the stage of sleep that we need and benefit from the most. wonderful thing is~we can make up sleep! and so if you miss out on sleep during the weekdays, make it up during the weekends. if you don't well, your body doesn't get to recover/heal etc. For guys, that means you won't grow stronger, for girls, that means you'll start looking older! and perhaps uglier...(saggy eyes etc.) not something you want right? now say you are real tired because you had to burn the midnight oil, take power naps! 20mins during lunch and wake up feeling SUPER. anymore than a 20min stretch isn't a power nap and you will wake up feeling even more tired. baseline, get your sleep! (:

know yourself

so i did a little google blogsearch, and my blog comes up earlier if i search random than if i search fitness... -.- despite this fact, i am rather determined to PRESS ON. (perhaps a reaally random soul will come across this and benefit from it! you'll never know)

so this would be the second and last tip under the "know yourself" category. Hope that you now know your RHR? another thing that is good to know is your weight.
Personally, I am not too hassled about the whole I gained 500g thing. Don't worry if you are not losing as many pounds as want. Health is all about how good you feel and how you really are. you might be heavier than your friends but dont worry. you might have heavier bones. if they still bug you, just tell them that muscles are heavier than fats (: dont worry too much about how heavy you are. your weight is important for another reason. take your weight before your workout, and your weight after your workout. you WILL be lighter after your workout. promise you that. its because you loose water as you exercise. therefore, take your weight before the workout, and minus off your weight after your workout, thats how much fluids you lost, and how much water you have to drink (: know yourself, be healthy

know yourself better

so Christmas is over but still, this is unbelievably hilarious! haha. so enjoy. (:
wellz. so people in singapore are starting to go back to school. good luck to y'all (: go own the exams and dont fall asleep in class. harhar. brings back memories of times in NJ. unbelievable times. spamming singlish 24/7, talking about crazy random stuff, watching pirates of the caribbean on zh's itouch at during physics, playing bridge before class etc. lol. totally spankin times. crazy people like cris and jingho who are frm vietnam and malaysia but learnt how to speak chinese cantonese and hokkien in the shortest amount of time. soccer games with the class and 04 and any1 else that we can grab. jac with her piglet~lawrence and his bird~justin and his canoe~the "twins" zh and ryan who have the same birthday but the similarities end there. haha. dang dont i miss those days. but oh well, good times dont always last. at least i get to visit occasionally~? MAN 0hthree ftw. hah.

so this is the first health and fitness tip that shall be posted. These are things I've learnt from my personal experience both from fitness and psychology, and also from other sporting professionals who have had and still have professional sporting careers of their own, have had and are still undergoing University education of fitness training, and are currently coaching me. These tips will generally be uh general guidelines and applicable to all. At times I shall dive into certain specifics. These first few tips that would be given would help you to know your own body better.

We all want to be healthy don't we? To improve your fitness, you must first know where are you at, and what your purpose is. Only then can you set goals, only then can you know how much you need to do. So first do that. Set a goal. Determine your purpose. I suggest that at the very basic level, we all set a target to maintain a basic level of health. Despite your purpose or your current level of fitness, it is a good idea to do the following. The first advice to help you know yourself?

1) Know what your Resting Heart Rate (RHR) is.

To find out what it is, simply take your pulse immediately once you wake up. This is the point of time where you are in the greatest state of rest as you just woke up and havent been walking around. You can take your heart rate for 10seconds and multiply that number by 6, or take it for 15 seconds and multiply it by 4. Take your RHR over a week and average the total. This is your BASE HEART RATE (measured in Beats Per Minute, BPM) that you would be working with and we will use this number more in the future. As a general rule however, you do not want your RHR to be high. That means that your heart is working hard to keep you alive. The lower that number the better so watch that number and take your heartrate everyday to measure where you are! Now even if you dont intend to be working out much, this number is still useful. If you wake up one morning with your heart-rate about 8BPM higher than your Base Heart Rate, your body is telling you that you are sick and in the process of recovering. Thus in this situation, rest would probably be a good idea.

So yes thats the first thing. Know your RHR (: and you will know who you are. Give it a shot! Open up your new fitness log and plug in your goals and heart rate!

its the new year #2 and this blog has found a new life

so i'm studyin the Book of Mormon in seminary this year and we finished Mosiah before december ended. you know Mosiah? the whole the natural man is an enemy to God and all thing~and so that got me thinking a little.
Satan entices us to sin by decieving us to believe that sinning fulfills our natural desires and the natural man. While the natural man might be satisfied through sin, natural desires definitely are not. There is a stark difference between the idea of the "natural man" and the idea of "natural desires".
The state of the "natural man" only began when we came to earth and got a body. The natural man is considered carnal (which is a state whereby we only strive to fulfill temporal physical needs and satisfactions) due to the fall of Adam that allowed us to come to earth to get a body and grow (the 1st condition of us being considered Man), and also due to the veil of forgetfulness that erased all memory of our divine pre-existance (which places us in a carnal stage whereby we need to discover the light of Christ in us). This carnal natural man is satisfied when he commits sin as sins only satisfies temporaly. Unlike the "natural man" however, our "natural desires" can be traced back to the pre-existance. Every person on earth is inately good. Even terrible tyrants like Hitler. Reason, we all made at the very least 1 good choice in our lives. The choice to subscribe to the Plan of Happiness and follow God's will. This is our "natural desire". To obey God. A desire we had eons ago, a desire we have to rediscover, a desire we have to remember and keep burning. Do not let the adversary decieve us that sin satisfies our natural desires because we desire to be with God. That is our natural self. A child of God.
So these are more of my little thoughts of the new year. Personal opinions no more. Anyway, this is probably one of my favorite paintings. It is set during the time that Jesus cast the merchants out of the temple. This painting is painted by Carl Heinrich Bloch a long time ago and though he isn't a member, this painting reveals alot about who God is, and calls for contemplation as to who we are. I wont spoil it, look closely at the painting yourself. Feel free to leave comments as to what you feel/think about it! (yeh dun be selfishh sharre [; )

but anyway, about this blog's new life, i've decided to start a little health column on my blog, giving it a little more value than just random ramblings. got this idea when fred (like fred lee...i dont talk to myself no i dont) came to me asking for advice as to how to get in shape for NS and I came up with some sort of a training program for him. again disclaimer, i dont claim to be the fittest spunk (no but if u insist u can call me a fitness guru xD)but for those who know me, you would know that i have come really far. in the past i couldnt even run 400m but now triathlons are the love. So a tip per post hopefully. Follow these simple tips and I GUARANTEE you, you would feel healthier, look healthier, be healthier and happier! (: We all want to obey the word of wisdom right? Keeping in shape is part of the word of wisdom.
Some of these advice can be modified to suit an individual's personal fitness level and objective. There is no SET NUMBER of what to do. It all varies from person to person, whether you just want to be healthy and fit, or you want to push your limits and go competitive (me it midly competitive or all out). These tips would work for anyone and everyone. its that simple! That being said, if anybody would like some personal help/advice or whatever, i'm always open and glad to oblige. (:
thats all for today, i've always been one for surprises. the mysterious first fitness post would be revealed tmrw.

its the new year part 1!: peaas stay healtyyy

this is 1 of my favorite adverts of all time. even better when you see it being performed live. haha. vadi (that big indian dude) is friggin funny. haha. and besides this goes along with my post of staying healthy.
instead of writing 1 HUGE "this was my 2009" post, i shall write a few small ones with a few shoutouts and pleas.
so finally my research essay is over. 1week with 20min sleep per day killed me. you know that ctr ring i have? and every1 (other than jeremy) always go woah! u've got huuge fingers? after that 1 week, i couldnt keep the ring on my finger. just point my hand downwards and the ring would just slip off. i dont proclaim myself to be the biggest fitness junkie but lemme tell u this. from experience and from my AP psyche class (yes i do stay awake in sch). adolescents need at least 9hours of sleep. not 8 as per popular belief, but 9. (btw, referring to my previous post, the GA came up with that personal progress goal before the psychological studies showed that we need 9hrs) it is needed to repair our bodies and mental functions that includes sorting out our memories. a lack of sleep results in motor and speech problems, perceptual difficulties and personality changes. POINT IS, a lack of sleep is très mauvais, muy mal, 不好,아주 나쁜. imagine how much weight i lost in just that 1 week such that my ring fell out...it aint healthyy. PLEASE people, get enuff sleep.