Let's lose the weight, and not lose the plot.

My Facebook account has been bombarded by many slimming promotions that are both sponsored and by individuals whose FB posts appear on my page when my FB friends 'like' or comment on their posts. Most of these slimming products and services offer one thing and one thing only - a promise that their products/services can help you lose weight in record time. One even claims to help the user lose up to 10kgs in a month with no need for exercise or watch one's diet. Just drink the pre-prepared shake/juice or apply slimming creams and potions, and voila! Problem solved! Hundreds of people have shown interest by 'liking' and 'commenting' on these posts, all asking for the price of this miracle products, which, by the way, is not cheap.

While I do understand the desperation that drive this belief in such promises of quick fixes, I can't help but feel sad that so many people have fallen for these slimming products/services hook, line and sinker. 

I find this kind of slimming promotions highly misleading because if there is one thing I know...it is that there is NO shortcuts to losing weight and being healthy.   Our body is a sophisticated machine whose sole occupation is to ensure its survival. Losing weight by any means other than exercising and healthy eating could disrupt the body's natural physiological processes and possibly do more harm than good to the body. Any method that promotes losing weight by just drinking pre-prepared shakes/juices alone will make you lose weight fast, but most of the time this is just water weight. What we should strive for is fat-burning, which these products cannot really do. These products work by curbing your appetite so you would eat less, and yes, you will lose the weight, and fast too. However, the body is such that when it senses the reduction of calories, i.e. less food intake, its survival mode will kick in to protect us from what the body perceives to be - thanks to our cavemen ancestors-  a ' famine'! When this happens, all the body will do is to minimise the use of calories in order to keep the body's vital organs functioning.   The first thing to go will be our muscles, because it takes a lot of calories to maintain our muscles ( that is why famine victims are always skin-and-bones because the body eats away at the muscles). So, we will lose our muscles, which are efficient calorie-burning machines and retain all our fat! Ironic, isn't it? That's why when we get off these 'diets' or stop using these products, the weight will come back...and with a vengeance, because now we don't even have muscles to keep burning the calories for us! All we have is fat. 

The key to losing weight healthily depends on how many calories we take in and how many we burn on a daily basis. Everything we eat will eventually be stored as fat, so if we led a sedentary lifestyle, we are definitely going to pile on the weight. That means, the only way we can lose weight is by , yes, you guessed it, exercising and eating healthy. Exercise and healthy diet are also prescribed by medical doctors as a way to prevent illnesses. Got diabetes? Exercise and diet. Got heart problems? Exercise and diet. Stress? Hyper-tension? Yes, the doctors will also ask us to exercise and watch our diet. So, why should it be any different when it comes to losing weight?

We do not put on all the weight in one day. It is a gradual process perpetuated by continuous lack of exercise and poor food choices. If we didn't put it all in one day, then why are we expecting all the weight to go away in one day?

Stop wasting our money on these quick fixes that do not work in the long run, and which could possibly pose serious health problems to us. 

We have to understand our body and the mechanics of losing weight. Exercise and diet are the way to go - no buts about it. Be more active. Walk more. Move more. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Pick up a sport. Make time to exercise. Eat more fruits, vegetables and salads. In this age of internet, we have the information at our finger tips. There are so many health and medical articles out there on how to lose weight the healthy way. Pick and choose what might work for us and our lifestyle.

Let's lose weight the healthy way through exercise and diet, and stop paying hundreds of dollars for a miracle in a box that does not offer us a permanent solution. Respect our body. After all, we only have just the one to last us our lifetime.

Alone, but not Lonely.

Hello all!

It's been a while, and I apologise for my tardiness, and it's best if you didn't know the reasons for my long absence from blogging. I apologise again, and the only consolation I have right now is that my blog has had more than 2500 views! Thank you so much for checking me out. 😘😘

I have always been an independent person, always off doing things on my own. I have no reservations about going through my daily life by my lonesome...from doing mundane things like grocery-shopping, up to enjoying the fun things like...well, shopping! 😁 And for the most parts of the last two and a half years, I have tackled most of my daily activities on my own. I of course enjoy catching up with my girlfriends for coffee and cake, and the odd juicy gossip ( or three!), but as we are all very busy people, the chance of regular coffees with good friends is in reality few and far between. I, for once, always try to make time to meet up with my good friends, because, like a marriage, we also have to put in the effort to keep our friendships strong. Women, especially, need friends to keep us sane. 

Of late, my fortune seems to have changed, and I have had the opportunity to meet many new people where I am currently residing, people who are almost in the same situation I am, so we connected well. Since I have been pretty much on my own, the change was much welcome. I now have a few friends to go shopping with, or have lunch, or just chill poolside on a sunny afternoon. And this is where the shocker comes in. Much as I love meeting new people and socialising, I have come to a realisation that I am actually quite happy to be left alone to my own devices. I am just as happy to be a loner, with my own thoughts and self-reflections, to do things that needed doing alone, just me, myself and I. While I do well on a one-to-one basis, when placed in a group, especially in a trio, I notice that I tend to withdraw into myself, and I very much prefer to sit back and observe the other two people. (There goes the threesome fantasy out the window! Hahaha) In group situations, I tend to talk to the person directly next to me, and should somebody else address me, I will have to 'abandon' the person I have been talking to! Most times I would draw the other person into the conversation, and can you imagine how awkward it is when these two people are talking to each other and I am seated right in the middle, quietly tucking into my soup, or dessert, half regretting my ill-advised decision to introduce these two, half wishing the party is over so I could go home! It is always a relief when, after excusing myself from the table to go hide in the bathroom for a looooong time, I came back to the table to find them now seated next to each other. How cosy! Now I can just observe without having to actually participate in the tête-à - tête, I just need to smile or nod my head ( or grunt, whichever is the perceived appropriate response). Given the fact that I am a teacher by training and profession, I find this awfully baffling. I am used to commanding the attention of 20-odd students in any given class, but I don't seem to fare so well in a social setting. I don't know why this is so, considering I am a Leo, and by definition, I should be the life of the party, so I apologize for disappointing my fellow Leos out there, but you know, maybe I am THE one exception to the rule. 

So, after the euphoria of being able to do things with other people is over ( and that took me all of 3 weeks!), I go back to being boring old me - cooped up in my room with my book ( that is a lie - on FB, Twitter or IG,more like! Hahaha) or pushing another KM on the treadmill in the gym ( and no, don't you dare talk to me and break my concentration while I'm running my ass off on the machine!). I much prefer traipsing around all the shops on my own, either spending one minute or one hour in one particular shop, and happy to enjoy a cup of coffee at a street cafe, just watching the world go by.

Maybe my barrier is back up. Maybe I am not ready to make new friends, or maybe it's because I know I'm gonna leave this place soon that I do not have high hopes of forming deep, lasting friendship with anybody at this point in my life. Maybe I miss my good friends back home, and I certainly have a couple of friends who know me inside out, that two good friends who know me and care about me are definitely better than being surrounded by a hundred people who do not know me and do not care much about me. 

I know I sound like a jaded old woman, but I have experienced a bit of life to know which friend uses me, which friend has her/his own agenda, and more importantly, which friend cares about me much more than the whole world put together. 

The point is, just do the thing that makes you happy, and if you're happy doing it with friends, by all means, please do. Me? I am happy to hang out with you, but there will also be times when I am happy to just be on my own, with the 'Do Not Disturb' sign hung outside my door. And if you came bearing pineapple tarts, well, I might just open the door for you. 

Enjoy your weekend. ❤