A New Journey
Sunday, October 7, 2007
I'm a typical Singaporean.
That means overweight, more fat than fit, and severely out of shape. Like most other Singaporean males, I cringed at the 4 letters - "IPPT". I drink, eat junk food, play games into the wee hours of the night (well I don't do much of that anymore) and do all sorts of unhealthy stuff. Even gory pictures on cigarette boxes don't put me off.
Well, no more. I have committed myself to a slightly different lifestyle. I did it once before, back in 1998. If I can do it then, I can do it again, now.
Yeah, I went on a training regime back in 1998. I lost 10kg. When I met up with my reservist buddies, they commented on how slim I was. Alas, I still failed IPPT that year.
This is the beginning of a new journey for me.
Technically I started back around 20 Sept 2007. That was day 1 of my new journey - the journey to lose this accumulated weight I have been carrying since 1998 (when I stopped my old journey). That night, I went hunting for my old journal - the one I had written down all the healthy foods, exercise tips and so forth - but to no avail. It's lost. Gone.
Well I have to start over. I have to research all those stuff all over again. However now I have a head-start - I still remember alot of the do's and don'ts I had written down back then. For example, I remember that eating more times a day, but smaller portions each time, is actually good for me instead of the popular misconception that it's bad.
Yes, eating MORE OFTEN will skew your body's rhythm. It'll make your body say "Hmmm food is becoming abundant now, we don't have to scrimp and save and push everything into FATS to store for a rainy day". I'm not kidding. I did that in 1998 and it lost me 10kg.
Next step - to start cardiovascular exercises. I know I have to do this for at least 2 weeks for the body to start recognising that exercise is now regular, and that it's easier to burn stored fat than just the calories I ate that day. I did that on 20 Sept. And, I got a sore body the next WEEK after that.
Yeah, that happens when you don't exercise for years then you suddenly kick-start everything. Your body is suddenly shocked into working.
I only did a 20 min cardio workout and some pushups, bicep curls and some crunches that night. I was then punished the whole of next week with body aches. The week following that, since my body was aching to heck and back, I could only continue on cardio workouts and did almost ZERO muscle building/strength training.
Muscle building is yet another thing I remember from my 1998 journal. Muscles burn fat, even when you're slouched in front of the TV or sleeping. Losing weight too fast without building muscles will make you look fugly. Besides, losing weight without adding muscles won't make the weight-loss permanent. The moment you go off your diet, you start to put on weight again.
Yeah I know, cos I stopped my regime back in 1998 and it happened to me.
This is now 2 weeks since 20 Sept when I started on my journey. I had started out weighing 82kg. Now, at this writing, I've already lost 2kg, almost entirely only doing 20 to 25 mins of cardio workouts every 2nd day. It's considered pretty slow actually.
Now that my body has been conditioned, my muscles don't ache anymore. However I still need a fast way of putting on muscles to help with the fat burning, and doing push-ups, pull-ups, crunches seem like hard work.
Because, like most other Singaporeans, I'm lazy :) I don't want to buy a gym membership and then have to groan and moan about going to the gym. It will end up with me dreading to go, finding all sorts of excuses not to go etc.
So, I needed a home solution....
That means overweight, more fat than fit, and severely out of shape. Like most other Singaporean males, I cringed at the 4 letters - "IPPT". I drink, eat junk food, play games into the wee hours of the night (well I don't do much of that anymore) and do all sorts of unhealthy stuff. Even gory pictures on cigarette boxes don't put me off.
Well, no more. I have committed myself to a slightly different lifestyle. I did it once before, back in 1998. If I can do it then, I can do it again, now.
Yeah, I went on a training regime back in 1998. I lost 10kg. When I met up with my reservist buddies, they commented on how slim I was. Alas, I still failed IPPT that year.
This is the beginning of a new journey for me.
Technically I started back around 20 Sept 2007. That was day 1 of my new journey - the journey to lose this accumulated weight I have been carrying since 1998 (when I stopped my old journey). That night, I went hunting for my old journal - the one I had written down all the healthy foods, exercise tips and so forth - but to no avail. It's lost. Gone.
Well I have to start over. I have to research all those stuff all over again. However now I have a head-start - I still remember alot of the do's and don'ts I had written down back then. For example, I remember that eating more times a day, but smaller portions each time, is actually good for me instead of the popular misconception that it's bad.
Yes, eating MORE OFTEN will skew your body's rhythm. It'll make your body say "Hmmm food is becoming abundant now, we don't have to scrimp and save and push everything into FATS to store for a rainy day". I'm not kidding. I did that in 1998 and it lost me 10kg.
Next step - to start cardiovascular exercises. I know I have to do this for at least 2 weeks for the body to start recognising that exercise is now regular, and that it's easier to burn stored fat than just the calories I ate that day. I did that on 20 Sept. And, I got a sore body the next WEEK after that.
Yeah, that happens when you don't exercise for years then you suddenly kick-start everything. Your body is suddenly shocked into working.
I only did a 20 min cardio workout and some pushups, bicep curls and some crunches that night. I was then punished the whole of next week with body aches. The week following that, since my body was aching to heck and back, I could only continue on cardio workouts and did almost ZERO muscle building/strength training.
Muscle building is yet another thing I remember from my 1998 journal. Muscles burn fat, even when you're slouched in front of the TV or sleeping. Losing weight too fast without building muscles will make you look fugly. Besides, losing weight without adding muscles won't make the weight-loss permanent. The moment you go off your diet, you start to put on weight again.
Yeah I know, cos I stopped my regime back in 1998 and it happened to me.
This is now 2 weeks since 20 Sept when I started on my journey. I had started out weighing 82kg. Now, at this writing, I've already lost 2kg, almost entirely only doing 20 to 25 mins of cardio workouts every 2nd day. It's considered pretty slow actually.
Now that my body has been conditioned, my muscles don't ache anymore. However I still need a fast way of putting on muscles to help with the fat burning, and doing push-ups, pull-ups, crunches seem like hard work.
Because, like most other Singaporeans, I'm lazy :) I don't want to buy a gym membership and then have to groan and moan about going to the gym. It will end up with me dreading to go, finding all sorts of excuses not to go etc.
So, I needed a home solution....
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Labels: exercise, lose weight, weight loss, workout
