Fitness & Nutrition: How important nutrition is

I took a long time to prepare this post because I have been contemplating posting this as it'll be a societal shock to our modern lifestyle and diet, and to many of you out there. The other reason for the delay was to carefully put all the technical terms into a simpler version so it'll be easier for everyone to understand.

Do bear with me on this post as I'll be stressing a lot on the most challenging part of your fitness journey AGAIN. I need to keep emphasising on the fact that nutrition should be the root and the foundation to your journey to perfecting health and fitness, well, not just that, but going slightly ahead, especially if you are a competitive athlete or sportsperson.

There is an apparent reason, to me, why the sports industry is not blooming and moving forward in Singapore. Yes, as you can guess right now, the reason is NUTRITION.

As you can see from the triangle above, this is the Crossfit Dietary Prescription (CDP). I guess some of you may have seen this, may have understood this, and some of you may think this is irrelevant because you don't crossfit. But hey, take a minute (or few) to read what I have to say because if you are disciplined enough to give it a try and spread the good news, maybe the sports industry, and even the SAF (Singapore Armed Force) in Singapore will see the enlightenment and improve the current sports and fitness education.

Today, I'll be attempting to simplify this prescription so this can apply to everyone and instill into your lifestyle.

Ever heard of 'You are what you eat!'? This is the summary of CDP. Your nutrition is the foundation and will break or make you in your fitness journey. A good and well-balanced diet will ensure increment in health, energy and sense of well-being; it is also the deciding factor  of whether your body is reducing fats, building quality muscles and optimising performance in and out of the gym.

Sport - performance

Strength training (aka weight-lifting) - control of external weight

Gymnastics - control of our body in space

Metabolic conditioning - cardio/respiratory

Nutrition - solid molecular foundation

I do not even have to elaborate and tell you more about the other 4 factors if you don't know how to keep your nutrition in check. SO here goes:

Macronutrients - what I have been referring to as macros, are your protein, carbohydrates and fats. Micronutrients, as you may guess, are then vitamins and minerals. Carbohydrates affects the production of hormone insulin, that derives energy from your bloodstream in your cells to be used as fuel. Though it is an essential in the body, too much of carbohydrates in your body will result in diabetes type II, coronary heart disease, depression, obesity, etc. Protein, goes the same way as carbs, will result in fat storage if consumed in excess, however if in deficiency, will break down muscles to make up for the necessary protein requirement. Fats are then your optimal energy source and it contains almost twice the amount of carbs and protein. Of course I'm referring to good fats such as nuts, seeds, fish and avocado.

So where am I deriving at exactly? 

I'm trying to encourage and promote a diet that is a combination of 2 individual popular diets and one that you can keep and instill into a lifestyle, that will ultimately increase your performance in your sport, in the army, or even, in your pursuit of health and fitness for life.

Diet 1: Paleo Diet

Paleolithic diet is all about meat, seeds, nuts, vegetables, very minimal starch and NO sugar. YES, you read me right, NO SUGAR! Alot of crossfit athletes don't consume sugar AT ALL, which means they even avoid fruits that are high in sugar. It's really up to you though, I personally feel that as long as you don't go overboard with the grapes, bananas, mangoes and cherries, a little won't kill but hey, #YOLO! You know what your body needs and wants.

Diet 2: Zone Diet

The Zone diet emphasises on both the quality and quantity of your macros - calorie counting, which everyone irks. 

To optimise performance, you will need a mixture of both diets (sounds complicated and difficult uh?).

Bottomline - your diet should consist of more lean meats, vegetables, seeds, nuts, some fruits, little starch and NO SUGAR. Also, you need to keep the intake of your macros to support your workout, not your body fat. WHICH MEANS, you don't eat less because you want to lose weight, you cut on what you eat for a purpose to maximise your performance in the gym, sport or even in the armed forces. The CDP recommends 30% of your diet to consist of lean protein, 40% low-glycemic carbs (low GI foods) and 30% of good/monosaturated fats.

So then, how do you know much much to eat for each meal? Remember I mentioned before, that your different body type will determine how you should be eating? There you go..

The CDP has defined that:

1 block of protein = 7 grams of protein (cooked)

1 block of carbs = 9 grams of carbs

1 block of fats = 1.5 grams of fats

Now look at the table below and you will be able to find out how many blocks are recommended for you on the different meals. 

Give it a try if you are game for it, and have the plans to optimize your performance in the gym, as a professional athlete or sportsperson. I hope I managed to deliver my message well. Do come back to me if you have burning questions about CDP. Start cutting out SUAGRS from your diet everyone!

To those who have emailed me and waiting for my reply, kindly be patient with me, I'll definitely get back to you ASAP! Keep those emails coming in! (=

One of the nights while I was marinating my food for easy cooking - used cajun & ginger ground

Yay, finally got a photo taken with Zheng ge ping!

Saturdays with LOVE

Have a great week ahead everyone! I'll be back with the recipe I promised to share! (=

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Health & Nutrition - The reality of food

I hate to break this news but since I started calorie-counting and looking up what I really eat and their nutritional value, I was appalled with the facts about the foods that I have been feeding myself and how ignorant we have all been regarding the foods we have been eating.

Here are some very good examples which I wanna share. I have always thought that eggs are good because of the protein content and that everyone else who are building muscles and eating clean are adding a lot of eggs in their diets. So as I was doing the math and finding out more about eggs, I found that eggs have very high fat content. While you can get a good 6g of protein from eggs and it tastes yummy (at least to me and my gym buddies), there is actually about 4-4.5g of fats in each egg you consume. It all comes from the yolk, of course but having said that, you will be getting only half the amount of protein if you were to remove the yolk. SAD TRUTH I know.

Credits to nutritiondata.self.com

Another fact that I will wanna share is about Avocados. Avocados are highly beneficial in boosting good cholesterol in your body, they provide all 18 essential amino acids necessary for the body to form a complete protein, help prevent or mitigate against both osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis, offer powerful anti-inflammatory benefits and lower risks of getting heart diseases. BUT, the matter of fact is that it is still high in fat and carb content. I was shocked after I made my morning avocado juice with a whole avocado because I exceeded my daily fat content in just one meal and it was the first meal of the day! Solution: eat 1/4 to 1/2 for breakfast ONLY - try to have foods that are high in fats and carbs as early in the day as possible.

Credits to nutritiondata.self.com

These are just 2 of the examples that I have found and I'll be updating if I find out more. Also, I'm doing this because I'm doing a caloric deficit to my diet right now so I need to know exactly what I put into my body. I'm not trying to encourage anybody to avoid taking eggs and/or avocados because they are very beneficial to your body. What I'm trying to emphases here is that, you will have to take every food in moderation, no matter how beneficial the food is to our body. This could be the reason why I don't see results having altered my diet so much previously, I was eating too much of the "good" food. Bottomline is, don't just take advises from people and take them for real, if you are really serious and passionate about something, go research and find out more yourself. Personally I do give a lot of advises, telling people I know to eat clean and healthy, etc. But PLEASE do not take my word for it. I'm still learning and exploring, though I love to share. (:

So, here's what I have been up to, in pictures. 

Rowed 45 mins, completed 6.234km on Friday

Having watermelon juice on my way home after training

Jason says this is the greatest fruit God created, I agreed!

Blueberries & banana smoothie for breakfast

Of course, not forgetting milk, plain yogurt and 1 scoop of protein

My current state - Week 0

What I do on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, honing my skills for the love of Netball

Today - having lunch after mass in the freaking weather

Mandatory ootd shot while waiting for the car engine to warm up

Well, my dinner has become more exotic - these are fruits that I never liked, besides the apple

What I took home after today's homily by Fr Derrick - very powerful, hitting me right at the spot. Love the part he talks about likening our lives to silver-refining.  There is a reason why God throws us in the fire and there are obstacles in our lives, it is like putting the silver in and out of the furnace countlessly, to get rid of the impurities. God will know when he takes the silver (us) out of the furnace and sees His own reflection in us, only then we will be perfect and flawless, rid of impurities. Such a beautiful homily!

Have a blessed week ahead everyone! Good night!

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Health & Nutrition - Intermittent Fasting

I'm very excited to be able to share something really good with all my readers because I have real-life testimony of Edric who has gone through 5 weeks of intermittent fasting, which I will be covering in details. First and foremost, let me introduce who Edric is. He is Jason's younger brother (who is taller than Jason, standing at 1.88m). His body is a combination of Mesomorph and Endomorph (aka meso-endo or endo-meso) and it was more difficult for him to lean down as compared to his elder brother. So seeing him lean down so much now with so much discipline in dieting and working out, makes me feel very proud of his current progress (do note the lighting may be different with photos taken at different places.

Week 0 - no abs

Week 1 - definition is showing but very flat

Week 2 - definition is out clearer  but still very flat
with bulge on lower abs

Week 3 - abs starting to thicken

Week 4 - abs have thicken, lower abs a lot flatter

Week 4 - A LOT thicker abs

Week 5 - proof that everybody's abs are different

Week 5 - proof that everybody's abs are different

Edric is undergoing a 12-weeks cycle of intermittent fasting and he has intentions to instill into his lifestyle because he feels this form of dieting suits his body type and compliments very well with his workout routine. I have to stress the point that not every diet suits everyone. It comes with experience and knowledge to know what diet suits you and not. Very often, with little or no experience and knowledge in dieting and working out, diets that are good turn into bad fad diets, thus implicating largely on your workout; strength and endurance, as well as your overall confidence. Edric did not chance upon this diet, he did his research, lots of reading up and after trying other ways and means to attempt to lean down, he finally found the right one.

Wanna be updated of Edric's progress? Follow him on Instagram @edrictimothy for more real-time updates! I'll be recording the remaining of his progress when he finishes the 12 weeks. 

SOOOOO, what is intermittent fasting (IF) then?

As the term intermittent fasting says, you basically take intermittent fasting (with no solid food at all) and try to fit it into your lifestyle, simple as that. You can do a long IF or a short IF. Long IF is fasting for 24 hours for 1-2 times a week and short IF works daily. Depending on what your body needs and working around it correctly, generally you start feeding your body the moment you are awake for 6-8 hours. After the 6-8 hours window, you stop having solid food or no food at all. Like I have not stressed enough, I do not want anyone to try this on their own and end up in starvation mode (especially if you are an ecto-combination body type), because your body will start using up your muscles for energy and sustenance, then you lose muscles, store fats (the vicious cycle). So please learn to know your body well and alter the diet according to what your body needs. For Edric's case, he stops eating 8 hours after he wakes up everyday (yes EVERY SINGLE DAY). This, I warn, requires awesome discipline and I salute him for this. It has changed him so much as a person too. He will still drink and sometimes have a small serving of salad during social gatherings (which he cuts out so much too) but during the 8 hours, he feeds himself quality food, very clean and healthy. He prepares his own meals and smoothies, still works out 1-2 times a day with a 5-day workout routine, he keeps his protein intake high and he eats a lot of fruits and veg.

How else besides aesthetical benefits will IF get you?

In the long run, instilling this diet into your lifestyle will help in reducing blood glucose and insulin levels, thus improving the state of the overall glucose metabolism. IF will also assist in increasing fatty acid oxidation with increased FFAs (through increasing lipolysis hormones GH, glucagon and adrenaline). Lastly, if done correctly and effectively, IF will increase various health factors (lower inflammation, lower blood pressure, reduced oxidative stress, increased protection against neuro-degenerative diseases, etc). 

I hope to let my readers bring back a very important point after this post, about dieting. Dieting will NOT work if done short-term. Instead, work it into your lifestyle so you will enjoy eating healthy and not binge-eat when you feel deprived during a dieting phase. Healthy eating is a form of enjoyment, not the other way round. So, remember not to overeat especially for my muslim friends during this festive season and enjoy cheating meals but train hard too! 

Selamat Hari Raya and Happy National Day! 

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Life & Love - My fruitful weekend

I hope you guys have had a great weekend because mine could not have been any better! The weekend officially started on Friday, which was dinner with the happy ladies, so we called ourselves, in an attempt to cheer everyone up during a rather difficult period 2 years ago (or 3?). We had dinner at Shirokane Tori-Tama and I thought they serve very good yakitori, though prices are a little steep (Sorry I did not take photos because we were too preoccupied chatting away and gobbling food down our throats, we are such hungry monsters). Celebrated Yannie's and my birthday together, like every year and Aimin bought this super yummy cake from Flor (Yes, I do eat cakes!).

My saturday started early with a quick 30-minutes on the step machine before going ahead to meet my loves of 11 years. We had brunch at Cafe Melba, our favourite hangout for now. We had a VIP that day, who is turning ONE next week! Houston is the first baby in our group and he's growing up tooooo fast! So much love for this cheeky little boy!

After a fulfilling brunch with the ladies, we had plans to do something out of the ordinary and so the 4 of us decided to take a quadcycle at ECP, without much expectations, only to find out that our quads were all burning after an hour of cycling (considering the total amount of body weight inclusive of the weight of the quadcycle that we had to carry). We stopped by at a fitness corner and did a quick wod (for those who do not know, wod = Workout Of the Day), which was when I got bruised trying to perform some stunts. Jason and I were inspired by a photo we saw on IG and decided to attempt some acrobatic moves (HURHUR). It was a fun-filled, though tiring day.

In case you are wondering how a quadcycle looks like. HAHA we definitely had fun!

 

Sunday was much simpler, church at noon followed by our metcon session after a short nap. Nic and Ashley joined us today and I think we killed the workout (LOL). I'm sure we had fun! We did 2 sets of 3 rounds each:

First set (for the ladies):

20 box jumps

20 bodyweight shoulder presses

10 hanging knee raises

20 single-arm db snatches

20 Inclined flex arm hang

First set (for the guys):

20 box jumps

20 bodyweight shoulder presses

10 toe-to-bar

20 single-arm db snatches

20 pushups

10 pullups

20 handstand pushups

Second set (improvised Naughty Nancy for both ladies & guys):

Sprint (not sure about the distance)

10 thrusters

25 vertical crunches

Us, after "killing the workout"!

We try to keep our rest days as fulfilling with workouts that are out of the ordinary, out of the gym so the body gets different variations of training. You can try to infuse this into your workout routine too, for more excitement and fun!

This coming week will be my birthday week and I'm expecting a lot of feasting and cakes, which I AM SO GOING TO STAY  STRONG! I will be working out doubly hard and will be gradually attempting a new diet recommended by Edric, who has been on the diet for 4 weeks. I will be writing about his diet and how it works, as well as sharing his current progress so stay tuned!

Time to crash so good night y'all! Have a productive week ahead!

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Health & Fitness - What is your body type?

I would love to start the post with my buy of today! If you think I'm just a gym-addict/every-day-at-the-gym-with-no-other-life kind of girl, let me prove you wrong because I not only have a soft spot for snacks, my soft spot is shopping (well, I suppose this is a soft spot for many other ladies out there, no surprise). I have not been shopping for a loooonnngg time (if you know me personally, this is an achievement!) and today I made an exception at the expense of making Jason angry of course, with a $19.90 buy from ZARA! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the $19.90 tag and checked the other sizes on display, still could not believe it and asked the staff. YES it was really $19.90, what a steal!

Tadahhhhh!!!

Sorry for the initial digression, let me get back to the topic. Today, I'll be sharing some tips on how you can recognize your body type (usually a combination) and then attempt to customize your workouts and diets accordingly, especially for the ladies, as a beginner.

First and foremost, we need to understand that there are 3 major body types; Endomorph, Mesomorph and Ectomorph, which I had covered in a post on one of my long-lost blog (of course, I'm going further in details this time). Knowing your body type is important because you will require different sets of workouts and different kinds of diet plans accordingly. If you are reading about this for the first time, you are in for a treat! I did not start my fitness journey recognizing my body type, I tried different ways and means, trials and errors to finally realise what combination of body type I am. Sit upright, hang in there and read on!

From the image above, you can see that there are rather drastic differences in the different body types, kindly note that everyone is unique and different and we are all created in the likeness of God. So, no matter which body type you are, don't be discouraged and I'm not here to judge too. I just believe everyone can look their best, with knowledge, initiative, determination, enthusiasm (I can go on and on) and love for your own body and health.

Endomorphs:

The endomorph body type is solid and generally soft. People who fall in this body type gain fats very easily and are usually of a shorter build with thick arms and legs. Muscles are strong, especially the upper legs. Endomorphs may find that they are naturally strong in leg exercises like the squats. Endomorphs are encouraged to combine cardio with resistance (weights) training. Adele is a good example of this body type. If you tilt more towards an Endomorph body type, that is not the end of the world! You will just need to alter your diet to something that is less heavy, have more vegetables, fruits instead of grains, keep your protein intake high and replace bad fats with good fats like avocado and nuts. Drink lots of water and avoid sodium as much as can because you will find yourself tending to retain water in the limbs.

Mesomorphs:
A mesomorph has a large bone structure, large muscles and a naturally athletic physique. Mesomorphs are the best body type for bodybuilding as it is relatively easier to gain and lose weight. They are naturally strong which is the perfect platform for building muscle. The mesomorph body type responds the best to weight training. Gains are usually seen very quickly, especially for beginners. The downside to mesomorphs is they gain fat more easily than ectomorphs. This means they must watch their calorie intake. A combination of weight training and cardio still works best for mesomorphs, coupled with a high level of protein intake. Pink is a very good example of a mesomorph body type. If you think this is the best body type when you are more on the mesomorph-spectrum, think again. Unless you control your diet with good discipline, you may end up looking like an athlete gone out-of-shape with those bulges that stick out of your muscles at the tummy area, hips (for ladies) and arms, making ladies look manly and bulky.

Ectomorphs:
Ectomorphs find it very hard to gain weight. They have a fast metabolism which burns up calories very quickly. Ecto’s need a huge amount of calories in order to gain weight. Workouts should be short and intense focusing on big muscle groups. Supplements are definitely recommended. Ectomorphs should eat before bed to prevent muscle catabolism during the night. Generally, ectomorphs can lose fat very easily which makes cutting back to lean muscle easy for them. This body type looks like the dream body of many of the girls all over the world, looking like a skinny supermodel. However, if not maintained with proper diet and workout (female ectomorphs tend to think they do not need to watch their diet and workout to look skinny), you will gain skinny fats, which will eventually turn to flab, droopy and soft especially as you age. You will then notice your limbs getting flabby (but they only gradually gain in size) and your tummy getting very round, looking like you are constantly bloated. You need to eat quality carbs in terms on grains as well as fruits and vegetables, still maintaining a high protein intake and good fats in your diet.

Nobody is 100% of only one body type so the above guide only refers to bodies that are more tilted to each type. Still not sure what body type you are? Feel free to bombard me with you pretty and handsome photos at limaran@gmail.com. I'll try my best to assist you to find out which body type you are more inclined to be under. Good night errrbardy and TGIF tomorrow! 

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