I have a feeling that this is going to be the start of a rapid physical regression. It's been three days of good food and I don't think my body has had time to respond just yet, but I'm sure the waistline is planning to advance pretty soon.
Weight is holding steady, but this is with a different set of scales so there might have been some undetected change there. The rest of the measurements are pretty favourable I'd say. Particularly chuffed about the decrease in the midsection. All those sit-ups must finally be paying off.
Gave my planned exercise routine a miss this morning, but I'm blaming that on a lack of available gym wear. Will try to make up for it tomorrow before complacency settles in.
Hit the ground running on our first day in Singapore and met Jason and HuaQi for a packed day of food and culture. Still running on Brisbane time so languid, equatorial morning pace took some getting used to, as we quickly discovered that most shops and stalls were still closed at 9:30 in the morning. Lazy bums. Still managed to find a cute little shop to have some bean curd and fried bread for breakfast which was super yum.
Our first cultural experience was to check out the national museum to learn a little more about the lion city. I think the huge chamber with an enveloping audio-visual onslaught of Singaporean life (accompanied by an orchestral soundtrack) was a little freaky, but the other exhibits were fascinating. I especially liked the room of paper bags from years gone by. Alison and I already have a paper bag from a restaurant framed at home so maybe we should extend the collection.
Next on the list was a bus ride to Qun Zhong Eating House, reported to have the best dumplings in Singapore. I'm inclined to agree, the Xiao Long Bao was probably the best I've ever had. The skin was so soft that it took a bit of practice to just pick them up without spilling the warm soup inside. Top it off with some vinegar and sliced ginger and it's just an explosion of flavour in your mouth. Could eat these forever.
Combining a food and cultural experience (the best kind), we were whisked down the road to the Tea Chapter, a tea house that can claim to have served Queen Elizabeth the Second. In fact, they charged a premium to sit at her very table (how could you refuse?). To keep with the theme we ordered the same tea she was served, a blend labelled Imperial Golden Cassia.
We were fascinated by the process of serving, smelling and drinking tea. After brewing the tea is poured into the white jug looking thing called a "fairness cup", to ensure that everyone has a properly mixed cup of tea. Then this is poured into the long thin cup which is the "scenting cup". This is smelled to appreciate the first of three scents, the "hot scent", before pouring the tea into the drinking cup. The now empty scenting cup is then rolled between the hands until warm, and smelled again to experience the "warm scent", which in this case seemed sweeter. The tea can now be drunk, in exactly three sips; the first to cleanse the mouth, the second to clear the throat and the third to enjoy the flavour. After drinking the tea, the scenting cup can be smelled once more for the "cool scent".
It took a while to go through the process but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Very nice tea too, full of flavour and depth. We all got a chance to serve tea at the table and I documented Alison's go. After saying bye to Jason and HuaQi we decided to check out a fish foot spa to treat our tired feet.
I've got terribly ticklish feet so I never expected to last through the 30 minutes of fish nibbling away dead skin. It took a while and some mental conditioning but I managed to stay the course. It felt a little like a jet stream from of a jacuzzi with the smaller fish. The larger ones were rather disturbing but I think I'd gotten used to it by then. Not sure if the treatment was especially effective but we both agreed that our feet felt a little softer afterwards.
Our short stay in Singapore is now over and we flew in to KL last night at 10. We actually feel like we've already had a holiday, which is exciting as it's just beginning. I believe WonTon noodles are on the menu for lunch and there's a long list of restaurants that Mum and Uncle Wing have lined up for us to try. Expect more photos of food to come.
The holiday begins! We trundled down the hill to the train station, bags full of electronics and light clothing in tow, to catch the train to the airport at about ten in the morning. I must confess that I took some pleasure in counting the number of people in our carriage that appeared to be heading to work... sucks to be them.
On getting to the airport Alison prepped her latest aviatory conditioning measures, critical on this flight as she's been fighting a bout of the sniffles. This involved a cocktail of pseudoephedrine, nasal spray decongestant, a large packet of tissues and two rubberised plugs charmingly labelled Earplanes. We were told they would help equalise the cabin pressure and reduce headaches during descent.
Our plane wasn't especially big and we were right at the back on account of a large batch of returning school children, but the flight itself was fairly pleasant. I loaded up my old iPod with a heap of podcasts to keep me entertained as I'm not usually fond of inflight entertainment. As an aside, I've recently been introduced to a podcast for short fiction called the Drabblecast which is great to listen to. Fantastic production values and very well read I think.
Earplanes actually turned out to be a success and Alsie wasn't quite up to her usual level of post-flight grouchiness. We touched down in Changi Airport at about 7:30, and after a reasonable cab ride we arrived at James and Dora's Singaporean abode. A lovely place, though we're a little intimidated by their taste in gargantuan furniture.
We weren't feeling especially hungry after the flight, but somehow managed to pop out to the stores to get a late evening snack anyway. I couldn't resist the call of some authentic takoyaki, though I did give a cursory nod to my diet by only ordering three balls rather than my usual six.
To work of some of that guilt I tried to do a little body weight exercise this morning in the study. Might even drag myself down to the pool later on for a swim perhaps. Holiday food is coming and it'll be a task to remain vigilant.
Woohoo! Finally a bit more movement on the scales. I guess all that food from yesterday hasn't had a chance to pile on just yet. When I started the program I wrote down a goal to lose at least 10 kilos in twelve weeks. So far I've managed 3.7 in three weeks. Not too shabby!
Chest keeps getting smaller which suggests that my man-boobs are being reduced. My belly button has also finally moved under the centenary mark which is fab. Just so you know, I've been trying to keep things consistent by distending my belly as much as possible at each weekly measure.
Aside from the numbers I'm also feeling a lot brighter and energetic. Consuming less food as well and trying to pay attention to what I'm eating (and how much) rather than mindlessly wolfing it down. Who would have thought that eating healthily would be good for you.
Of course this is likely to turn a little sour come Friday when we take off for Singapore and Malaysia. I'll be packing my skip rope along with a print out of workouts without weights so I'll be fighting the flab off as hard as I can. Bring on the hawker food!
Tim and Christine were up this weekend from Melbourne for some psychiatry conference so we had a chance to catch up and show them around our little town of Brisbane. Armed with inside information of their recent efforts to find a reasonably priced unit to call home, a challenge in today's real estate climate in Victoria, we were focussed on convincing them to relocate up to Sunny Queensland with the promise cheaper listings and awesome company (that would be us). To kick things off we met up at the Belgian Beer Cafe for two kilo pots of mussels and beer battered chips. The mussels were supreme, but as I'm trying to be good I avoided the deep fried potato goodness, which was no easy task I assure you. Being self confessed seafood lovers, I think the guests were sufficiently impressed.
We picked the two of them up on Sunday to take them back to our place for morning tea and the obligatory tour of the house. All my self control must have been used up from the day before, as I couldn't resist a wagon wheel with my cuppa. That was the thin end of the wedge for what would become a pretty piggy day.
Bolstered by the reception of our previous culinary recommendation, we kept the theme consistent and booked a table at Cam Ranh for lunch. We've always been impressed by the seafood there, particularly the chilli crabs, so we ordered up a veritable feast of kangkung belachan, Cam Ranh tofu (a scallop and prawn infused slab of melt-in-your-mouth silken goodness), pipis in XO sauce and of course, two kilos of gorgeous chilli mud crab.
It took a while to finish all that, and my mild crustacean allergy resulted in slightly flared lips by the end of it, but I've got to say that we were very satisfied with the food. Got to love living near Darra.
After a long lunch we didn't have much time before taking Tim and Christine to the airport, so we opted for a quick visit to Cleveland to see the bay and hunt for a palette cleansing cup of gelati. Then we delivered them to the airport via the a scenic drive over the Gateway bridge and said our goodbyes. If we did our job right they'll be Brisbanites by the end of the year.
Driving back we decided to check out the new Clem7 tunnel which is still toll free for the next week. The lanes were pretty congested with other curious commuters but that meant we had more time to admire the current longest underground tunnel in Australia.
Not the best weekend for my diet. Hopefully it won't affect the weigh in and measure tomorrow too badly. Especially with only have four more gym days before our flight back to Malaysia. Yay for holidays!
Second real week of tracking my progress and it's another case of ups and downs. The weight loss seems to be plodding along slowly but I'm hoping that's purely due to the "muscle" I'm gaining. The rest of the measurements seem to be trending in the right direction at least, and I think I see a difference in the mirror. Clothes are starting to feel a little looser and more comfortable which is always a good sign.
Hit the gym three times last week and I'm going to try to at least match that again this week. What I really need to be doing of course is more cardio to burn off the fat, so I'll have to schedule in at least two decent runs this week as well.
Might be a little hard to manage as I've also gone and bought Final Fantasy XIII for the PS3 which is bound to be a distraction from the fitness routine. Must stay strong though... only two weeks before flying back to Malaysia.
First results are in and I think it's a mixed bag, which I'm a bit bummed by. I would have hoped to get better results after being "good" but I guess this should just spur me on to do better next week.
The weight lost is nice but I seem to have put on girth in some pretty odd spots. My neck? How is my middle abdomen increasing so much when my belly button went down? Not that I have a directed work out regime as yet, but I think I already have to start adding more cardio to my schedule. Went for one run on Sunday which obviously didn't cut mustard.
This week I'll be trying to hit the gym a few times at work. Already went today so at least that should get the ball rolling. Here's hoping for better results next week.
Well there goes one working week of trying to be healthy and it's been pretty good so far. Feeling like I have more energy in the mornings and generally more upbeat, which is saying a lot because work wise the past five days have been absolute $H!T. As a condolence, I was cheered up that my peers nominated me for an award at the Buzz Night on Thursday so there's a silver lining in my rumbling storm cloud of work issues.
I've managed to avoid eating anything fried and abstained from the booze for five days, but the next two will be a real challenge. Alison and I have decided to go on a 48 hour detox, which involves drinking the contents of these two boxes as our only means of sustenance (yikes!). I have actually been on a liquid diet before but at least I allowed myself to have glasses of milk to keep the hunger pangs away. These Goji berries had better pack some staying power.
This morning I woke up to receive some rather disappointing news when I checked my daily feeds. It seems that Apple have finally made an announcement regarding the availability of the iPad, which unfortunately spells out that they won't be released outside the States before late April. Not great news given my plans to pick one up on our trip back to Malaysia. The plus side is that when they do get released in Australia they'll be coming out with the 3G version at the same time, so I can at least resist the urge to pick up the first WIFI one I find before checking out what the carriers plan on doing (not that I have high hopes for Australian telcos). I guess this also means that I'll be able to read a few reviews before dropping cash on the counter so I'll know if it's a huge bomb.
Perhaps to console myself after reading the bad news, we somehow got into a TV buying mood. John's recent upgrade meant that Alison's parents had a bigger TV than we did, an intolerable travesty I'm sure you'd agree. We hadn't planned on getting one this soon, but on an unrelated trip to JB Hifi to pick up "This is it" on Bluray (we enjoyed the movie and love extra features), the call of the Sales tag was too much to resist.
In saying that I think we exercised some restraint here and only matched the parents in panel size (46" if you must know). We ended up getting the Samsung L46B650 for a decent price, and even convinced the sales guy to chuck in the Bluray disc and a wireless dongle for free. For a moment we were considering spending the same amount for a larger albeit inferior panel (a Hisense) but deferred to the wisdom of crowds after reading some opinions on forums.
Really happy with our choice from what I've seen so far. The contrast ratio is amazing compared to our old Hitachi and I'm still getting over how smooth the video is at 100Hz. We were watching an episode of Bones on the Apple TV and I thought the picture was bordering on freaky, which is pretty good considering the source media is just a compressed TV Rip. Must have some pretty good upscaling. The extra HDMI ports also mean that I can finally move the Wii off composite input.
As for the old TV, that's going to be heading to the new office/store room. I have plans on using it as a gaming TV (so that I don't bother Alison when I get in a PS3/Xbox mood) and perhaps even as a monitor for the MacBook. I'll need to pick up a Mini-DVI to HDMI converter as the Hitachi doesn't support VGA input but the cables seem pretty cheap these days.
It's no secret that I'm particularly fond of my food. As a result I've fought a helpless battle to control my weight most of my life, which results in a lot of yo-yo dieting. The latest upswing in fitness has now come out of a need to counteract the upcoming binge-fest that will take place on our trip back to Malaysia, which happily coincides with an opportunity at work to do something about my expanding belly.
Flight Centre, well Healthwise specifically, are holding their annual 12 Week Challenge which has officially started today. It's a bit of a poor man's Biggest Loser, where we submit our measurements and photos before and after the period for a panel to judge who made the most progress. There's also supposed to be a written component but we all know that's a wank really. It's all going to be down to hard numbers... and hard abs... grrr.
There are a heap of travel related prizes to be won, but I'm sure the real goal is to get people to take better care of themselves. Of course, if I were the cynical sort then I'd say the main goal would be to drum up more gullible people to sign on for personal training sessions... oh wait, I am the cynical sort.
Because working as a team is so much more fun, I'll be entering with a group of four including ChrisP (my boss), so there's some motivation to get results. Just because I'm a masochist at heart, I'm also upping the ante by publishing my weekly progress here for public scrutiny. Hopefully the threat of embarrassing ridicule will be enough to keep me away from the naughty food. So without further ado, here's Week 1.
I have a feeling that Weeks 5 through to 7 will be particularly challenging as we'll be back in the land of cheap and tasty food by then. Expect to see a little bump there.
Alison helped me take my "before" photo and we both agree that it turned out to be sufficiently disgusting. I think I'll assess my actual progress by the end of the program before putting the shots up for comparison. It's also particularly... fleshy... so I'll have to think long and hard before subjecting the Internet to that.
Day 1 and so far I've survived without eating anything I shouldn't have. Came home in the rain and managed to muster up the energy to do half an hour of Zumba in front of the TV with Alison. Now I feel fat and I have no rhythm...
