GreySneakers Diaries

Syawal is not completely over yet in this country but I've declared end of celebration (for me) after the 5th of Syawal. I still visit friends and relatives but I kept on reminding myself that festive mood has been turned off, just to discourage me from eating too much at those houses. 'Open house' is a term used widely in Malaysia for the usually small feast organized by families/corporate organization/school/departments/ministries so that their friends/relatives/work colleagues/customers/vendors would come and celebrate Syawal. Since eating is the favorite past time in this country, Open Houses are very popular and people will try their best to attend each invitation. This year I decided to only attend a few Open Houses: my mom's, my customers' and my vendors'. It's a tough thing to do as I had to apologize profusely to those who invited me. Well, that's one of the sacrifices I had to do to make sure I don't spoil my calorie intake plan. If I...

.. and I don't have the energy to work out at the gym during Ramadhan. Fasting in this hot weather is very challenging for me. Although working in a fully air conditioned office, once I hit the road to travel to/from work the sun really drained my energy. The children's and my lips cracked and bleed yesterday. On some days, Shawqi looked rather dehydrated but continued fasting. He broke his fast at 6pm last week because he couldn't stand it. I'm not going to force him to complete his fast if his body cannot take it. He's only 8. However, something is quite different this Ramadhan. I managed to control my hunger. At a certain hour of the day I could still feel the pang of hunger but it's manageable. Usually, my lips would turn really pale at 5pm and I'd start suffering from gastritis after the 4th day. I think I have to thank BLA for this improvement. I never practiced portion control or monitored calorie intake before. Now that I've learned the tricks,...

Muslims are blessed with a very clear guideline on living a good and healthy life. Every year we have one month to give the digestion system a good rest during the day time. It’s the fasting month – our Ramadhan. Usually I didn’t go to gym during Ramadhan, I always made a point to go to the front desk and requested for my membership to be frozen for the whole month. However, this year I totally forgotten about it. So, in order to avoid feeling guilty for paying the gym for nothing this month, I’m going to try doing some light workout in the morning. This might sound quite ambitious, but I think I will have the energy in the morning to at least do brisk walking on the treadmill and then some cycling. One of my colleagues plans to workout right before the break fast time, so that she could replenish everything soon after. I might do that too if I don’t have to go back early and prepare (or buy) meals for break fast. The biggest culprit during Ramadhan is the bazaar. They can be found eve...

I should be feeling very guilty right now for I have been slacking in my diet and exercise program for the past 10 days. It started with a 4 days training where the organizer served us deliciously sinful food 5 times a days between 8.30am to 5.30pm. And then at night, I still cooked and had dinner with my family. I tried not to eat much during the day but with 5 meals during day time, I got too tired to count the calories so I just had whatever looked delicious enough. During the 4 days, I didn't go to gym as the training was held in KL. Driving back from KL was challenging enough so going to FF IOI Mall was out of question. By the time I reached home, I was too tired to move a muscle and it was drizzling most of the days. So, couldn't take the baby out for a stroll. I just had a short nap and woke up for bath, prayers and prepared dinner. I always felt exhausted during trainings. The same thing happened during my Uni days. I was always too tired, perhaps it was mental tire...

I received this from Srikandi egroup and loved it so much. This is good for all women's mental health. Girlie Wisdom!    1. A friend of mine confused her Valium with her birth control pills... she has 14 kids but she doesn't really care..    2. One of life's mysteries is how a 2-pound box of chocolates can make a woman gain 5 lbs.   3. My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely.   4 . The best way to forget your troubles is to wear tight shoes.    5. The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you are doing, someone else does.    6. The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat are really good friends..   7. Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today...    8. Sometimes I think I understand everything, and then I regain consciousness.   9. I gave up jogging for my health when my thighs kept rubbing together an...

I've sort of given up using the Biggest Loser club website as the access has been very poor for the last few months. Usually it took me about 10 minutes just to update what I've eaten for a day. I don't know why the website performance dropped so suddenly. Perhaps it's being hosted elsewhere, and the network infrastructure there sucks, well  I don't know. However, now that I've purchased the Nike + Sportband, I'm fully utilizing Nikeplus website to track my running. Although I'm not able to track the rest of the cardio and resistance training I' doing, I think this is good enough. I chose one program from the Nikeplus coach and try to follow as close as I can. Actually I haven't ran much. I tried my best to run at least twice a week, depending on my work schedule. Lately I've been having many late afternoon meetings that usually dragged until 6 or 6.30pm. So, there goes my workout time slot. I have to admit that I do envy people who can...

What does the instructor always tells you? Push your limit. Prevent injury. Those two are the often heard whenever you attend Group Classes (or if you watch too many Biggest Loser  episodes..) These days I try to push my limits. From running at 7.0 speed to 8.0 to 8.5 and sometimes 9.0. I also increased the weight for resistance training. For abdominal crunches I have also increased from 20 to 25kg. Everything was going okay. My body could keep up with the challenge. Although sometimes, more muscles became sore. Well these are the (muscles) that have turned into MUSCLES, I guess. Then suddenly on Tuesday, I decided it's about time to increase to 30kg (for abdominal crunches). I set the weight, set my position right. Towel checked. iPod checked. Favorite rock song checked. I was so ready, took a normal breath and pulled. Then I felt something snapped in my tummy. The left side of my C-sect incision. I exhaled, returned to sitting position and tried to relax. After a minute I tr...