A fit and healthier me

One of this year resolution for myself was to be fit, and since I've pretty much retired from the Long Distance Running scene, I've set my goals for a time period of 1 month beginning from the month of April 2015.


From this 10th day onwards, I had 5 major key component I've learnt to be carried forward for my future mindset activities.

1. Eating

Getting to know a regular human being needs at least THREE meals a day. Never never skip breakfast. This is when your body break their fast during the mornings after a good long hour rest. Of course, a good wholesome breakfast to kick start ya day would be pretty much optimal, a poached egg on toast is a basic breakie for me. Sometimes a pair of banana would do. So long we feed our body with food after a long slumber, I must say it is utterly most importance!

Lunch is probably the most optional and feasible meal of the day to improvise on. At one point I was on Natto lunch diet for at least a week and the week previously was on fruit lunch diet. This week would be my Muesli lunch diet. Never go heavy on lunch time.

Alas the last meal of the day would be dinner, carefully changing food eating habits would definately helps in my progress of living healthy.

I love my greens very much..... so this wouldn't be a sweat for me ? right ?Well last time I did tried to work on myself out without this department .However, little that i know it was quite a major lacking on my strict diet. Oily, sugary, salty, and fried food was so much common to come by around my local eateries.

So to do my own grocery shopping to hunt out my greens and lean meats once every two weeks. But the major challenges was trying to resist on having all the local delicacies, like Nasi Lemak, Banana Leaf, Char Kuey Teow, Junk foods, Fast Food and etc. Well this was like pure torture even though giving a little space at one of the weekends to have my cheat day meal.

Having a strict diet and enforcing it each day, does pay out at the end results.

Greens:-
Broccoli, Capsicum, Celery, Mushrooms, Tomatoes, every types of lettuce, carrots, red cabbage, soy beans,

Meats:-
Fish fillets, & chicken



2. Drinking

A human body compose at least 60% of water. Therefore drink water!

Long gone my cravings for carbonated drinks, alcohols and cold drinks. My habits on coffee also had to be forcefully reduced. Even yesteryear of my nightlife where drinking responsibly was my weekly basis, I had to call it quits because of the utterly unhealthy lifestyle.

Exceptions of having my post-workout drink on a cup of chocolate milk, the rest of the day for me would be just water.

I cannot emphasize any other good alternatives than drinking pure goodness H2O. Below are some of the many reasons that may back me up from a health website .

1. If you don’t drink water, you will die.It's that important. Depending on our environment, we can live only a few days without water - maybe a week. We can live much longer without food. For most of us, we should prioritize the consumption of water far more than we currently do.
2. Prevent cancer. Yes, that’s right – various research says staying hydrated can reduce risk of colon cancer by 45%, bladder cancer by 50%, and possibly reduce breast cancer risk as well.
3. Be less cranky. Research says dehydration can affect your mood and make you grumpy and confused. Think clearer and be happier by drinking more water.
4. Perform better. Proper hydration contributes to increased athletic performance. Water composes 75% of our muscle tissue! Dehydration can lead to weakness, fatigue, dizziness, and electrolyte imbalance.
5. Lose weight. Sometimes we think we are hungry, when actually we are thirsty. Our body just starts turning on all the alarms when we ignore it. For those of you trying to drop some pounds, staying hydrated can serve as an appetite suppressant and help with weight loss.
6. Have less joint pain. Drinking water can reduce pain in your joints by keeping the cartilage soft and hydrated. This is actually how glucosamine helps reduce joint pain, by aiding in cartilage’s absorption of water.
7. Flush out waste and bacteria. Our digestive system needs water to function properly. Waste is flushed out in the form of urine and sweat. If we don't drink water, we don't flush out waste and it collects in our body causing a myriad of problems. Also combined with fiber, water can cure constipation.
8. Prevent headaches. Sometimes headaches can be caused by dehydration, so drinking water can prevent or alleviate that nasty head pain. Next time your head hurts, try drinking water.
9. Make your skin glow. Our skin is the largest organ in our body. Regular and plentiful water consumption can improve the color and texture of your skin by keeping it building new cells properly. Drinking water also helps the skin do it's job of regulating the body's temperature through sweating.
10. Feed your body. Water is essential for the proper circulation of nutrients in the body. Water serves at the body’s transportation system and when we are dehydrated things just can’t get around as well.

3. Workout

After setting up my diet plan, the next sane thing to do was to plan my workout. Normally timing was the key and the regularity of the sessions per week. For me, I tend to do thinks pretty much extreme where I keep myself on two with workout daily after working hours for approx. 30 minutes at bare minimal.

Like most of the other health websites would say, 70% diet and 30% workout to have a healthy lifestyle and also achieving ya goals.

We don't need to go to a posh gym to get our quick fix, but instead work what is at hand around you, in the house, the park or even at office! below are my workout equipment's :-

- Trusty pink skipping rope from Daiso (it does include a counter and cost only RM5),
- Yoga mat (to prevent me from wetting my floor)
- A pair of 10 KG dumbbells

That's all! the rest are mainly using my body weights!! yup that about it...

As for my workout routine, I would start up my workout with cardio by 1000 skipping rope and hop on to my yoga mat for 4 rounds of 3-4 20 sets of ab workouts (Crunches, Leg Raise, 30sec Planks). After burning through my belly fat, I will then use my dumbbells to work on my upper body together with my arms and other parts.

Lately I've been doing different variations of workouts on each day to keep it refreshing and challenging at the same time. Also to those that don't have any equipment, do not fret because recently found out about this cool movement called FREELETICS which provides you a full body workout using only ya body weights alone. Trust me I tried it for 3 days and totally destroyed my body in a good way.

Make sure you feel burn at the part you are working on and would like to leave you guys with this saying.... no pain no gain.

4. Rest/Sleep
With all the 3 listed before, I cannot emphasize how important rest is. It is required to recover soreness of the body and also allows new muscles tissues to be rebuild or replacing nasty fats.

8 hours at least it considered my sweet spot for recovery, and what more getting enough rest makes you able to be more productive when the sun rises the following day.

On my previous take on the rest department, this was one of my lacking areas due to the fact that I tend to do gaming session into the wee hours. Bad habits are hard to break but  with determination, I had to make my call and give chance to my body to recover over my sleeping times.

5. Discipline

Last but not least ,  proper discipline which holds up all the other 4 key components. Consider this the bread and butter, the foundation and the main core. Without this, bad habits will still leak through your body, mind and soul which counter-productive the whole program.

Guess that sums it up on my take on having my tummy flatted in this one month challenge I've set upon myself......ciaos...peeps.