Tragic Incident at Standard Chartered KL Marathon

A friend of mine took part in the Standard Chartered KL Marathon yesterday and she sent me this email about one of the runners who collapsed and passed away on the way to the hospital. I am truly shocked with this story and my condolences goes out to the family of Lim. What i cannot believe is how lightly some of the authorities took this. Below is the email that was sent to me. Please read and share your comments.


I would like to share a tragic incident that happened at Standard Chartered KL Marathon today… When i was running my final 2 km on the 10km… as i was running along the road in front of Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur, i saw a guy was sitting on the road side then soon enough he collapsed… this incident attracted my attention as a guy(a training doctor, named Irkhan) that was trying to help him was shouting for medic.. as i was a trained EFR, i ran over to see what is happening.. (it was around 1 hour into the race for 10km runners)i got to know that the guy (named Lim) has collapsed and was having seizure.. we tried to place him in recovery position… he was breathing very heavily and shortly and he was also biting his teeth very very hard… i was afraid that he will hurt himself (with either biting his own tongue or he closed up his airway).. so i tried to open up his jaw and tried to communicate wif him to have him relax and breath easily.. he then slowed down his breathing and taking deeper breath…another lady (Pei Kheng) came to help and constantly monitor on his pulse… and Dr. Visva (was another participant in the run) came over to help…Then suddenly, his pulse was gone… then we lied him flat and started on CPR procedures… we constantly check on his pulse to check whether his pulse has come back.. we did chest compression and also mouth-to-mouth breathing to Lim…as we were doing the CPR procedures, we did not sight medic anywhere.. and we tried to shout as loud as possible for medic… After awhile into the CPR procedures, "lady A" said that she could feel his pulse but was very weak.. then we stopped the CPR procedures to see whether he regain consciousness or not… After i stopped the chest compression on Lim, i started shouting for medic services again with the hope that a medic services is nearby and heard us.. but unfortunately not… we only sighted 3 DBKL Officers(with big motorcycles) just stood by the road side and just stare… the did not come over to help or to check out what happened… (it was around 10 minutes that Lim collapse and had seizure)…after a moment, Lim loose his pulse again.. we started CPR procedures again.. we still did not sight an ambulance or any EMS(Emergency Medical Services) around… after approximately 30 compression, Lim regained his pulse but was very very weak.. and yet.. there was still no ambulance or EMS sighted… and DBKL officers still stood there and did not came over to help… so I informed a passer by to run to the officers to tell them to call for an EMS soonest possible...after we performed CPR procedures on Lim for the the third time, finally a St. John ambulance came after around 15 - 20 minutes after Lim collapsed…we let the EMS officers to take over the CPR and First Aid… Dr. Visva asked whether do they have the AED(Automated External Defibrillator)… one of the person from the EMS said that they do not have it.. then I asked whether do they have a face mask with pump.. they also did not have it there… THEY PRACTICALLY HAVE NOTHING IN THE AMBULANCE!!!!!!!! -.-" EMS took him and speed their way to HKL…we were later informed that the Response time for EMS is 3 minutes but it took them almost 20 minutes to arrive… and later.. as I was reading through the Runners Guide that was provided in our running kit…There is a statement (at page 15) that states that "Medical Assistance - Medical Aid is available every 4km and at the Finish Area. Due to runner's physical condition, Medical Officials are authorized to stop runners and remove their timing chip"…every 4KM MY ROYAL ASS.. I did not see any first aider, ambulance or any sort of medical officials along my 10km route… and if 4km was true.. it definitely will not take them SO LONG to arrive...-----------------------------------------------------------------------I got a call from Dr. Visva a moment ago.. he went to HKL to check out the condition of Lim and he informed me that Lim have passed away on his arrival to the hospital…

Lim is only into his 20's and was running the 10KM distance…

Working Out in the Morning - FAQ

Here i am sitting in Singapore once again and typing out a post. i am back here in Singapore for work for one whole week. It seems like just not too long ago i was doing this. Anyway i am staying in the Concorde and i went to check out their gym earlier tpday. Pretty good. They actually have a squat rack, bench press & even a chin up bar. Yes, i should be able to get in all my usual exercises. But 1 thing that did piss me off was that their sign says the operating hours are 7am to 8pm. So i decided to ask the front desk if they could open at 6:30 for me as i need to head off for my training. When i called, they said their operating hours are 6am to 10pm. WTF? So i marched down there just now just to check and sure enough... the sign says 7am to 8pm... and typical of hotels, there was no one at the front desk. So i asked one guy who was working out and he told me it opens at 6am. so which one is which? well i guess we will see tomorrow.

Anyway enough about that. Just wanted to share that with someone and didn't know who i could share it with... so i thought this would be the best place. This week i am re-visiting the topic on working out in the morning which i wrote 2 weeks back, as I got many calls and sms-es about that post and lots of friends asking me how to go about it. wow... i didn't think that post would actually motivate a lot of people... but it did and i am happy. So i thought for the benefit of all, let me post up the questions i received and the answers i gave. Hope this helps all of you who are thinking about working out in the morning.

Should i eat anything before i work out?

Well i usually just gulp down a glass of soya and i am out the door. There was once when i forgot to drink my soya and felt lightheaded half way through my workout. The thing is you do want some sugar in your system but if you eat a proper meal, you have to wait an hour to an hour and a half before you work out. So unless you are prepared to wake up at 4:30am, i recommend just sticking to liquids. Something small like crackers or some cereal is OK... but avoid eating too much.

What should i eat after that?

well what do you normally consume after your workout? you can consume the same thing here. I am currently taking Nutrilite Protein mixed with V-Soy right after my workout. Before this i used to make Tuna sandwiches and take them with me. I still take the tuna sandwiches and eat it in between... remember, best nutrition plan to have is to eat every 3 hours... so i save my sandwiches for those odd moments when i cannot go out to get something to eat.

I feel really drowsy and sleepy after lunch.

Well to solve this, try sleeping earlier. i am usually in bed by 11pm most days and occasionally at 11:30pm. Plus you must understand that this gets some getting used to. The more you do it, the more your body will adapt...so the only way to overcome this is to sleep earlier and keep doing it till you get used to it. also try eating a lighter lunch. Sometimes mid day drowsiness is caused by a heavy meal.

I still feel sleepy when i reach the gym.

Try doing some cardio before your lift. Maybe a quick 10 or 15 minute jog. This helps to get blood pumping around. I usually do 3 to 4 warm up sets (start with lighter weights and gradually go up to your max) and that really helps to prep my body for the heavy lift. If you have consumed some sugar upon waking up, and do some light warm ups or cardio, i guarantee your body will be wide awake and ready to go.

How often should i do this?

Well how often do you workout? I do it 5 times a week and each time i go in, i train different muscle parts... enabling my body to recover. So it really depends on your routine

I don't have enough time in the gym coz my work starts early

Well there are 3 thinngs you can do.

1) split up your workout to more times a week, meaning doing less for each workout but more frequently over the week - so total work is the same, but you have to go more often to make up for the cut offs.

2) doing your exercises in super sets -this saves huge amount of time

3) lastly, maybe working out in the morning isn't going to work for you. So if you can't manage it, don't worry. This isn't for everyone.

OK. I hope i managed to get all the questions in here. If you do have any other questions, do post it up here and i will answer them. Till then good luck with the morning workouts. remember, it just gets some getting used to and it is not impossible. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments.

PS: The damn poll is working again. So please do take a moment to vote. Thanks guys

Have you "trained" yourself to eat more than you need?

I have been trying to gain mass & strength recently, so I have been chowing down extra food to achieve my goals. Before this, my goal was to lose fat, so I was careful with my food and only ate according to what I needed. It was pretty strict, but I lost weight pretty quickly. But now I am eating more carbs & proteins to allow me to lift heavier in the gym which ultimately translates to more muscle as well. So far so good in terms of achieving these goals. I am sure most of you will be going “Wow, eating more…that’s easy enough to do.” Well contrary to pupolar belief, I initially found it difficult to actually eat more food. I kept getting bloated and uncomfortable after my meals. The reason was, my body was used to a certain amount of food, and trying to push it above that took some getting used to. Perhaps I should have done it more gradually then I actually did. The other thing I am guessing is, my body is not used to the sudden increase in carbs and my already sensitive stomach took it pretty bad.

But now that I have been eating that way for awhile I am used to it. And then it got me thinking. For those who are overweight, you have actually trained yourself to eat that much food. So when it comes to cutting down that food, you are obviously going to feel it. It’s like trying to lift heavier weights in the gym for the first time. If you are used to benching 100 pounds, going up to 110 pounds will be difficult intially. But if you keep at it, you will be benching 110 pounds just like how you used to bench 100 pounds. Just like you trained yourself to eat so much food, now you have to train yourself to eat less food. It’s that simple.

Whenever I hear comments like “Oh, you don’t understand… I have a big appetite and its not easy”, I don’t buy it for one second. Sorry, your appetite is big, because you have trained it to be big, just like someone has big arms, because he trained his arms to be big. So, how do you train yourself to eat less? Well, here are some simple tips to help you train yourself to eat less.

Eat slowly
Most people tend to overeat because they eat way too fast. Your brain takes some time to notify you that it is full and tell you to stop eating. But if you eat quickly, by the time your brain sends the “stop I am full signal”, you have usually already surpassed your “actual” full limit. So learn to eat slowly. A few techniques come in handy. For one, put your cutlary down while you are chewing. Most of us are busy scooping up the next mouthful while we are chewing to create the continuous stream of food. Make it a point to put down your fork and spoon while you chew, and only pick it up again once you have swallowed. This slows down your eating process and you will find yourself almost automatically eating less, which will translate to weight loss. Another thing you can do is to chew slowly. This also helps to reduce your overall eating speed.

Eat till you are not hungry and stop
Most of us tend to eat till we are full or stuffed. Wrong technique. Eat slowly and pay attention to your hunger level. Once the sensation of hunger subsides, make it a point to stop. Don’t eat beyond that. You do not have to be full or stuffed to have enough food. Once your hunger disappears, stop eating. This only works if you follow the previous step. When you feel full, you have actually consumed more than you are used to. Eating till you are full all the time is essentially training your stomach and appetite to accept more food. So stop pushing your appetite to newer heights by being full all the time. Learn to train it for less.

Don’t skip meals
Here is what happens when you skip a meal. When its time to eat your next meal, you will tend to binge and overeat to compensate for what you missed out. Not to mention, skipping meals is not an effective strategy for weight loss, so there really isn’t any reason to do this. The best technique is to of course eat a small meal for every 3 hours that you are awake. This way, your body has a constant flow of nutrition so you can avoid binge eating and you will also eat less because you are not saving up your hunger and unleashing it after many many hours of starvation. So don’t skip meals and if you can, eat every 3 hours. Here is where its handy to have small things like muesli bars or fruits around so you can chew on that when its not convenient to break your 3 hour fast with a proper meal.

Do it gradually
Make it a point to reduce your food slowly. I have seen so many people get excited about losing weight, cut down their food by half, see amazing results for 2 weeks and then suddenly quit altogether. Why? Because it was too drastic and they just couldn’t sustain it. Just like how you can’t go to the gym and bench press 225 pounds on the first day, its not advisable to drastically drop your food intake overnight. Ever hear the saying" slow and steady wins the race"… yeah, because its 100% true. So be cautious / aware of how much you are eating and progressively reduce it from time to time. A good benchmark is to reduce it every week or every 2 weeks. So cut it down by about 10% and then a week or 2 later, cut it down by a further 10% and so on. But you have to be consistent for all your meals and not just cut down 10% from one meal a day.

So what is your excuse for eating more than you need now? We now know that its just a habitual thing that has been developed over years of training, and now its time to train it to accept new amounts and that is basically what you are doing here. Try it out for yourself and see. You will be amazed with the results you get. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments.

PS: Please take a moment to vote on the latest poll.

How do you keep yourself motivated?

I wake up at 5:30 every weekday morning, leave the house by 6:00am and I begin my workout by 6:30am. Have a quick yet intense work out, shower and then head off to work. As most of you might have guessed, lifting weights at 6:30 in the morning is not exactly the easiest thing to do. Whenever I tell people about my routine, they always ask me “How do you get motivation to do that every morning?” My answer is that I want to avoid the traffic jam, so that’s why I wake up and leave my house so early so that I get to avoid the jams.

Although a lot of you might say that “traffic jams” can’t really be categorized as motivation, I choose to view it differently and that is how I use it and turn it into motivation for me. That’s the thing about motivation. Motivation doesn’t necessarily have to be people cheering for you or people saying, “Hey you look like you have lost weight”. Of course motivation like that is great and who doesn’t love it. But the key to working out, is to take all the unexpected things around you and turn it into motivation and you will be surprised at how much more these small things will add up. So, here are some tips for you to derive motivation from just about anything.

Play out the “what if worst case scenario”
Just like my traffic jam example, every time I wake up in the morning and feel like I just can’t do this, I play out the worst case scenario. If I don’t go to gym, then I am going to get stuck in the jam. Not only do I have to deal with annoying drivers, I could be late and if that happens, I will never hear then end of my boss yelling and screaming. So with all that in contrast, a quick 1 hour lift doesn’t seem that hard to do. So weighing the consequences, I think I would rather just go for my workout than to skip it. Also, if you are a person who trains regularly, you know that if you skip this work out, you are going to feel guilty about it all day. So rather than feel crappy all day, I might as well get it over it.

Remember that after working out, you will always feel good
This has actually been scientifically proven. Working out actually triggers your body to produce adrenalin and endorphins, which are hormones that act as natural feel good drugs. So though it might be difficult to get out of bed or get off that sofa and start your workout, think about how good you are going to feel once you complete your workout. If you are feeling lazy and down, tell yourself that this will all change once you sweat it out and finish your work out.

Don’t think about it. Just do it
Working out for me, has become part of my routine. Just like you would brush your teeth every morning when you get up, working out at a particular time has become part of my routine. I have actually programmed myself in such a way that I just do it without thinking anymore. Sometimes when I look back, I can’t believe that I have stuck with this same routine for more than 8 years. That’s a long time.
So whenever you feel lazy or feel like you just want to skip it, re-program your mind immediately. Tell your self that you just have to do it. Every time a negative thought comes to your head, push it away and say “I just have to do this”. Don’t let these negative thoughts rule your mind and make decisions for you.

I am not like everyone else.
When you wake up at 5:30 every morning, it’s hard to tell yourself that you need to go the gym and start working out. All sorts of thoughts race through your mind. The one that always races through mine is “Why do I have to do this? Everyone else is still fast asleep.” Of course the answer to that question is always “I am not like everyone else and I don’t want to be like everyone else”. You will be surprised at how effective that is.

Get a gym buddy
This is actually one of the easiest and most fun way to stay motivated. Get a friend who shares your enthusiasm for working out and make it a point to work out together. Not only is working out together fun, it is also great for keeping each other motivated. You get to compare yourself with someone, and this creates a competitive spirit which all in all is a good thing for working out. Besides that, having a gym buddy also helps when you start slacking off. When you don’t feel like going or if your gym buddy doesn’t feel like going, you can push each other to go. Plus, if you cancel, you are not only canceling your own plans… there is someone else who is depending on your plans as well. So start persuading your work mates, family members, friends or college mates into getting fit. Having a gym buddy is always the best way to work out.

Take a break from time to time
This is an extremely important tip. Lot’s of people who start off as real enthusiasts suddenly quit after awhile because they don’t feel motivated anymore. Often times, when you do the same thing over and over again, you tend to get bored with the routine, hence making you feel unmotivated and the feeling of wanting to quit.
To avoid this, make it a point to take a one week break from your routine every 4 or 5 months. During the one week, take up other activities like swimming or playing football or any other kind of sport. Once the one week break is over, you will probably feel guilty that you haven’t worked out for awhile and this will give you more drive and motivation to work out again.

Keep Reading Fitness Malaysia's Blog

Yes, this is the best way to keep yourself continuously motivated. OK OK, jokes aside, but I really do mean this. Reading this blog will help you stay motivated because you are always learning new tips which you can’t wait to try at the gym. So make sure you check out this blog every week to keep yourself motivated all the time.

So now that you have an arsenal of motivation tips, make sure you put them to use. Don’t let yourself feel down and lazy resulting in you quitting. Working out takes time to see results and a lot of times people quit because they don’t see the results. Believe me, the results will come to all those who work for it. The only thing you need to do is to keep working at it without quitting. Easy isn’t it? As usual, look forward to reading your comments.

Trip to Krabi

I just came back from Krabi, Thailand about a week ago and this is definitely one holiday destination i intend to visit again in the near future. Krabi is pretty similar to Phuket except for one major difference... its not as commercialized as Phuket. The benefit of that is, people are nicer and you don't have to pay money to breathe air... ok i am exagerating, but when i went to phuket some years back, everything was about money.

We stayed in Aonang Villa Resort which is really all the shops & Restaurants. Just walk out of the hotel's compound and you are greeted with loads of stalls selling everything from souvenirs to clothes to food. There was even a 7-11 just outside our hotel, which was great just in case we needed to catch a mid-night snack.... hey its a holiday. all diet plans go out the window.

During our stay we visited Phi Phi island... where a boat takes you out for deep water snorkeling in about 2 different locations, 2 beaches (one of which was Maya beach, where the famed "The Beach" movie with Leornardo DeCaprio was shot) and lunch. Its a whole day event and the boat ride took about 40 minutes just to get to those places. Whole day of water activity and swimming sure burns you out... by the time we reached the last beach i felt totally drained and couldn't wait to get back to the hotel...so much for me being a beach bum... must be losing it. Below is a picture of some islands we passed during our 40 minute boat ride.

The place where we had lunch was this island called Phi Phi Don (i hope i got the name right) and just walking down the streets, it felt like you are in Hawaii or something. the music, the shops, the restaurants, the people... for a second, i forgot i was in Thailand. We decided that next time, we have to stay on that island, though i heard the rooms there are pretty pricey.

The following day we hired a taxi and went to this place called the Emerald Pool. Now when i first heard it, i was wondering what a weird name for a pool... when i got there, i realized why its called that. The water is literally green. Check out picture of wifey in the pool.



Why is the pool green? My guess is there some kind of algae growing at the bottom of the pool (you can feel it when your feet touches the bottom of the pond) which is really green and the water is crisp clear, hence you get a green pool. As we were heading out, we saw a sign that said Blue Pool... so we thought what the heck... lets check it out. So we hiked for about 1 km through the forest...

and voila, we came across the blue pool... the water is really blue. not your usual sea blue, but bright blue. Check out the picture. Creepy eh? No one is allowed to swim in it, and believe me, looking at it, for some some eerie reason, i didn't want to swim in it either.


On the way back i had a nasty slip and fell into the stream... and the damn camera which was with me and went for a plunge too. I quickly jumped out, but the camera was soaked. Luckily i had the sense not to turn it on, took it back to the hotel, opened it up, removed the batteries and let it dry over night... the next morning when i turned it on... it worked... just like it never got wet. So here is a tip... if you drop anything electronic into water... don't turn it on till its fully dry... if its on when it drops in (like your phone), then it may be sayunara...but otherwise, this tip will help you save your beloved electronic device.

Anyway after the emerald pool, we went to the hot water springs... where the water was about 45 to 50 degrees celcius... it felt hot enough to cook a packet of maggi. Boiled "nuts" anyone. hehehehehee. Anyway, no pics since at that point my camera was still wet, and i didn't dare to on it. We spent some time there and then we headed back.

The next day we were leaving, so we just lazed around in the hotel room till it was time to check out and head home. All in all, it was a great trip and like i said... definitely worth a visit again for sure. Anyone else visited Krabi before and care to share their tale? As usual, look forward to hearing your comments.

Poll Results - What is the biggest obstacle you face when it comes to working out

OK, its time once again to review our poll results and this time the question asked was “What is the biggest obstacle you face when it comes to working out”. There were a myriad of options to choose from, and I hope I managed to cover the most common answers people were looking for. I really couldn’t think of any others when I did this, so I hope the answer you were looking for was available.
So lets do a quick review of each answer.

1) No time, too busy
Now I honestly thought this answer would win hands down but I was wrong. After all, I keep hearing this all the time how people never have time for anything in their lives. Well only 20% of the respondents felt that way. To me, time management comes down to prioritizing whats important to you. If something is important to you, believe me, you will find time to do it. Taking a shower is important, so no matter how late you finish work or how busy you are, I am sure you would still take a shower before heading to bed right? Well the same thing goes for working out as well. If you place enough importance on it, then you will find a way to do it.

2) No money for gym membership
About 14% of respondents chose this. I understand that gym memberships can be expensive, but there are always options like Gym Rakyat which is a government sponsored gym. I am not sure how much they charge now, but when I first started working out, I paid RM 2 per entry. If you just want to stay healthy, you can always do running outside or just do calisthenic exercises – which are exercises that use your body weight as resistance. Eg. Push ups, Chin ups, dips etc.

3) I don’t have a clue on where to start
OK, not many people chose this. Only 5 %. The thing is, we live in the information age and its so easy to get information. Just search the web and voila, you should be able to easily get a full workout for yourself. Try it, and if you don’t like it, look for something else. You can also make friends with other fitness buffs and share tips and ideas with each other. There are just so many ways to get information easily these days, so if you felt this was a real obstacle, here is how you can overcome it.

4) None of my friends are into fitness
1 person chose this and I know this can sometimes be the biggest obstacle. Here is what you can do. Be the motivator and motivate your friends to become fitness buffs as well. Don’t wait for others to change before you approach them or worse still, wait for people to approach you. In fact, its always more fun doing stuff when you have friends who are doing it with you. Alternatively, again, you can look for some new friends who are into fitness and then work out with them. So, don’t let this be an obstacle for you.

5) I can’t be that consistent all the time
And the number 1 winner with over 55% of people choosing it is - being consistent. Unfortunately, being consistent is also one of the most important factors to have when workign out, so it does count a lot. When you are not consistent, you won’t see your desired results. When you don’t see your desired results, you get fed up of working out and you will drag your feet every time you have to workout, which probably is also another reason why it becomes more and more inconsistent. Like I mentioned earlier, if you place enough importance on it, then you will find away to be consistent. Do you go in to work everyday consistently? Because its important to you, you make it a point to be consistent… so again, why not do the same for your workouts? Its just a matter of how much importance you choose to place on it.

I’m too old & I hate dealing with post workout pain received no votes at all. So I will not get into that as its obviously not a concern for most people. What was your vote and your reason for choosing it. I hope I gave you some suggestions on how to overcome it and hopefully, this won’t be an obstacle anymore for you. Me? Actually this time I stayed away from the votes as none of the answers seemed to suit me properly, so I thought I better stay out and see what happens. As usual, look forward to hearing your conmments on this.

Jogging 101

Hi guys, firstly, let me apologize for not having a post last week. I was caught up with some things last week and didn’t get a chance to sit down and write anything. But I am back, and I intend to stick with to our weekly posts routine.

OK, now that the apologies are out of the way, let’s get down to business. This week I want to talk about jogging and a few discoveries that I made. For the record, I really hate running, jogging and other endurance related activities, which is probably the reason why I was never into sports when I was in school. Since I hate it so much, I have not done much to become better at these activities. I just do the bare minimum to achieve my goals and that’s about it. The rest of my time is spent on strength training.

However, off late, I have been trying hard to reduce my body fat %, so I changed my workout routine around and also started doing a lot more cardio than my usual. I do the treadmill during my normal gym days, but once a week, I head out to the park in Bukit Jalil with wifey and we both spend a good 40 minutes on cardio. We usually do the stairs for about 20 minutes and then do some jogging.

But when I first started, I could barely jog for 3 minutes before I ran out of breath and had to stop. It was pathetic and embarassing. So I would jog for 3 minutes, run out of breath and then walk for 3 to 5 minutes and then jog again. I would repeat this routine of jogging and walking until my full 20 or 30 minutes was up. After doing this for awhile, I realized I was not getting any better at all. I mean 4 weeks and I still can’t jog for more than 3 minutes.

So then I asked myself if maybe my technique of jogging was wrong. Of course when I first started jogging, I never thought about technique. After all its just jogging right– one foot in front of the other and repeat. How hard could that be? Then I noticed what all the other joggers in the park were doing and then I realized that there is a technique to jogging. So I adopted it and now I can jog non stop for about 30 minutes and the improvement was almost immediate. From 3 minutes to 30 minutes – big difference right?

So what is this technique? Well here it is.

Keep your feet light
Originally when I jogged, you could hear me a mile away. My feet were heavy and I would slam it into the ground really hard. Then I realized, other people jogging, and you could barely hear their footsteps. So think light and only lift your leg up slightly and put it down slowly. You don’t have to thump your feet into the pavement with every step. Think light all the way and your feet will follow as well.

Take small steps
The other mistake I made was, taking huge strides. When you take huge strides, your legs tend to move faster which makes you go faster and faster until its in between a slow jog and a sprint. No wonder I couldn’t jog for more than 3 minutes… its almost like I was running and not jogging. So make your steps small and that will automatically slow down your speed as well. If you keep your steps small, you will almost automatically keep your feet light as well. So it’s a 2 in 1 deal.

Breathing
Breathing properly is extremely important during your jog. As I was constantly running out of breath all the time, I asked for advice from many people who jog regularly and they all had different answers to give me. Some say take 2 breaths in, and 1 breath out. Others say breathe in through your nose and out of your mouth. Tried it all, but for me personally, the one that works the best is slow and heavy breaths. So I would take a slow but deep breath and then exhale slowly as well. Problem is, this breathing technique causes you to feel the stitch in your abdomen area. I don’t feel it while running, but if I stop jogging for awhile and then start jogging again, the stitch comes on almost immediately. So I am still trying to figure that part out.

So yeah, here are some tips I picked up to take you from a pathetic 3 minutes of jogging to a fantastic 30 minutes. Pretty impressive right? Honestly, I am more than happy with my 30 minute record although to my friends in endurance racing, 30 minutes jogging is peanuts. But yeah, I hope these tips helps everyone especially beginners or others who are just as pathetic as I “used” to be. Also, please note that running 30 minutes on the treadmill doesn’t mean you can do 30 minutes on the road as easily as well. It’s a world of difference – trust me. Anyway, as usual, look forward to hearing your comments on this.

Indulgence Plan

I've been helping a friend of mine to lose weight and so far she's been doing good. I put her on a cross training / turbulence training workout routine, and the results have been amazing. I also recommended her a diet program and told her that every 2 weeks, we would make it progressively more difficult. Now its been about 2 months, and she is finally starting to face some problems with keeping up with the diet plan as we have cut out lots of stuff. She is down to 2 sweet drinks a day, very little carbohydrates and lots of fruits & vegetables as well as lean meat.

She says she has strong urges to just indulge every once in awhile in something sinful, but she is afraid she will blow away all her hard work. So i came up with what i call an indulgence plan. This indulgence plan allows you to indulge in your favourite foods with the hopes of keeping the damage to a minimum. So here is how it works.

Tip# 1 - Only indulge 10% to 20% of the time.
Now it depends on how quickly you want to lose weight and also your own body. Some people can indulge more and get away with it, while others may not. Also, she wants to look her best for this reunion she is going for at the end of May. So i told her to keep it to about 10% of the time. So if you are eating about 35 meals a week (i got her to eat 5 times a day), then 3 of those meals can become your indulgent meals, while the rest have to follow the diet plan. Now the key here is to keep note of how many times you are indulging. Most people keep indulging, but comfort themselves by saying its only today and yesterday. Sure you can do that, but you have to ensure that its only today and yesterday and not for the past 3 years. So giving a measurable % lets you know just how much you are allowed to stray away from your plans.


Tip# 2 - Indulge on the days you are going to work out.
Now if she is going to indulge, it would be best to indulge on days where she is going to workout rather than on days when she is resting. On days of her workout, she is going to be more active and is going to use a lot more calories that day than on her normal rest day. She works out 4 times a week, so i told her to try and keep it on those days when she does work out. If its your rest day, make it a point to do some activity after that like a 30 minute walk or something. This helps to reduce the damage of the indulgence. Now that 30 minute walk would of course be an additional workout to the 4 times a week because it was done during her off day. I told her preferably, if she needs to indulge, try her best to do it before her workout (as close as possible) or right after her workout (within 1 hour of working out). This further reduces the impact the food will have on her.

Tip# 3 - Balance it out
Now if your are going to eat at TGIF or something, then go ahead and enjoy yourself. But you have to balance out your other meals to ensure that you don't totally burst your calorie consumption for the day. For example, if she is eating 2,000 calories a day, and her TGIF meal is 1,000 calories, then she needs to do her best and still keep to the remaining 1,000 calories for that day so it all still adds up to 2,000 calories. So it doesn't mean for that day, you consume your usual 2,000 calories and then 1,000 additional calories because today was TGIF day. Its OK to go above a little like 2,200 calories or so for that day, but where possible, cut back on the other meals and try to balance it out and still stay within your plan.

So there you have it. Some simple tips that will allow you to indulge while reducing the effects on your weight loss program. Now if anyone follows these simple tips, i guarantee you that you will see results while leading a pretty normal life. At the end of the day, its almost impossible for anyone to keep strict to their diet 24/7. I know some people have more discipline than others, but for the rest who have to indulge (like me), then these tips help to reduce the damage to your waistline. Remember, you can't indulge all the time and expect this to work. The only way you can indulge all day everyday and lose weight, is if you worked in a construction site where you have to do hard physical labour 8 hours a day. If you are just going to be sitting around the office and working out 1 hour a day (like most people reading this), then this plan comes in handy for you. So try it out and see. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments.

How Many Calories Do I Need In A Day?

Following up from last weeks post, I mentioned that just flashing the number 2,400 calories a day for a 30 year old doesn’t mean much. So this week, I decided, to share with you, a method on calculating how many calories you personally need each day. Now the reason I say personally you, is because this is based on you as an individual. So its not just 2,400 calories for you and everyone else who happens to share the same birth year as you.

Now if you surf the net, you will easily find loads of ways or methods to calculate how many calories you need in a day, and I have chosen to share one of it. So the one i am sharing is not the holy bible of calculating your calorie needs per day, just one of the recommended methods of doing so. Where did i get this formula? I got this from the Nutrition Science for Fitness manual and I find it easy to use and pretty straight forward.

So how do you calculate how many calories you need in a day? You can use the simple formula below:

For men:1 x B x 24 x L x A

For women:0.9 x B x 24 x L x A

Now at a glance, the formula might look like a formula for calculating rocket propulsion against vertical air resistance or some other gibberish like that. But it’s actually quite easy once you know what the B, L and A stands for.

B = body weight (in kilograms),
L = lean factor - or how much body fat you have
A = is activity level.

How do you find each of these values?

B = Body weight
B is pretty simple. You just have to stand on a weighing scale and voila, you have your weight. Now if by any chance, you are using an ancient scale which only shows pounds, you can find out your weight in KG by dividing your weight (in pounds) by 10, and then multiplying that number by 4.5.

L = Lean Factor
L is going to be a little tougher to find out. You can get your gym to a do a free check for you. Most gyms are pretty obliging as long as you are nice to the staff. If you are not a gym member, go to any of the big gyms near you, tell them you are thinking of joining and ask them if they can do a Body Fat Percentage test for you - which will subsequently help you to decide if you need to join the gym or not. They will do it for you for free, in hopes of you joining their gym. So this is one way to find out your body fat %. Now once you have done that, you need to use that information to find out your lean factor. To do that, refer to the table below:-

10 to 14% body fat (for men) or 14 to 18% body fat (for women) = 1
14 to 20% body fat (for men) or 18 to 28% body fat (for women) = .95
20 to 28% body fat (for men) or 28 to 38% body fat (for women) = .90
Over 28% body fat (for men) or over 38% body fat (for women) = .85

A = Activity Level
A, Activity Level can be found by referring to the set of descriptions below. You need to find the one that best describes your activity level on a daily basis.

Sitting, reading, talking, playing video games, or surfing the web throughout the day...
Then your activity level multiplier is 1.30

Lots of typing, teaching, lab works, cooking, and some walking throughout the day...
Then your activity level multiplier is 1.55

Dancing, jogging or lots of walking, tennis, landscaping, OR weight training 1 to 2 hours a day...
Then your activity level multiplier is 1.65

Heavy manual labor like digging, construction or military work along with rock climbing, cycling, OR weight training 2 to 4 hours a day (split into 2 or more workouts of course)...
Then your activity level multiplier is 1.80

Heavy manual labor for 8 hours a day, plus 2 to 4 hours of weight training (or if your name starts with "super" and ends with "man"...)
Then your activity level multiplier is 2.00

OK, now its time to put all that information together and make sense of it.

For example, let’s take a 170 pound man who has 15% body fat and who does very little each day.

Change the pounds to kgs. 170 / 10 = 17 x 4.5 = 76.5 kg.

1 x 76.5kg x 24 x 0.95 x 1.30 = 2267 calories needed each day to maintain his body weight exactly as it is. To gain muscle, he should consume 500 calories more than that. To lose fat, he should consume 500 calories less than that.

So, to lose fat...
2267 - 500 = 1767 calories per day.

To gain muscle...
2267 + 500 = 2767 calories per day.

Now to gain muscle (and not fat), he will need to do weight training as well, and not merely consume 500 calories more a day. If he does not do any exercise and consumes 500 additional calories a day, those calories will get stored away as fat. Again, the 500 additional calories is just a recommendation and will vary from individual to individual.

So now you can pluck in the numbers that are unique to you as an individual and find out how many calories you need in a day and what you need to do to lose fat. So try it out and see. Once you know how much calories you need in a day, you can start deducing a plan to lose weight or gain muscle. In short, this gives you a target or goal to reach, rather than just shooting blindly in the dark. Hope this information is useful to all of you and as usual, look forward to hearing your comments.

Sunday Star: Food Fat-ish

Did any of you read the Star newspaper yesterday. The headlines read "Food Fat-ish" and it was basically about Malaysians and their unhealthy eating habits. When i first read the article, they were taking aim at the mamak stalls for being open 24 hours. In my mind i was thinking, Oh boy, here we go again... the same old argument...blame the mamak and McDonalds for people making the wrong choices in food. To me, if you are blaming the Mamak for being there 24 hours a day, then you are barking up the wrong tree. Well they didn't totally take the piss of the mamaks, but just highlighted some statistics about Malaysians being obese.

Then as i read further, i came across the nutrition table and my eyes almost popped out. This is a national news paper with a huge circulation and i can't believe what they were saying. There are 3 major points that i disgree with, so i will post them up here 1 by 1 for you guys.

1) Roti Canai is 301 kCal and Chapatti is 300 kCal
Now i don't know about you guys, but that number just seems wrong to me. Have you seen how they make Roti Canai? You make it with refined flour, margarine and loads of oil. While you are pressing it out, you bathe it with more oil. When you cook it, you flood it with even more oil. Now i have seen these stats before in other places, and i am still baffled with how a roti canai can only be a mere 1 calorie more than chapatti... i mean seriously. Even with white bread and whole meal bread, there is a difference of almost 20 calories... and the oil spilt roti canai vs the dry chapatti is only 1 calorie? Does anyone know the explanation for this?

2) Murtabak 231 kCal and roti canai 301 kCal
Wooohh.... have you seen how they make murtabak? They take your roti canai (whole thing), add in chicken pieces, egg and onions and then cook it. Now, how in the hell did adding more ingredients make the murtabak have less calories than the plain old roti canai? It's like a bowl of plain rice will have more calories than a bowl of fried rice with all the ingredients dumped in.
Come on guys, at least check your figures before you blast it out like that. Now i thought maybe they are refering to some small murtabak, but nope, the weight of an average roti canai is 95g while the murtabak is 146g. so the murtabak is heavier than your roti canai. So how the hell did it miraculously lose 70 calories after you added ingredients? Mind blowing. i need to learn this recipe.

3) They had a table that showed how many calories you should be consuming.
OK granted, it is just a recommendation, and it should not be caste in stone. But 1 major thing they failed to highlight (which is probably the most important) was the level of activity. Meaning, when you recommend 2,400kCal a day for an individual between the age of 30 to 50, what kind of activity level are we talking about? Sleeps all day, watch TV all day, or moderately active, or super workout junkie or construction worker. My point is, just flashing out the number 2400 is really quite pointless and has little meaning. Now if you are a pretty active individual and try to follow this recommendation, you could be starving yourself of nutrients. I know all of you will be saying, its meant for the average joe... but how much activity does an average joe do? well they could have easily added in a 1 liner that says moderately active, with abaout 20 minutes of physical activity a day or something. this would have helped to put things in perspective, rather than just flashing a number. Its like saying 85kg is overweight... not if you are 6'5" and a body builder with 8% body fat. See what i mean? Just flashing a number doesn't make sense.

Anyway, thats just some thoughts that i wanted to share with all of you. I don't have anything against the Star newspaper, but i just thought that somebody needs to put things in perspective. As usual, look forward to hearing your comments on this... especially on point number 1, coz i am curious as to how they got those figures.