Keeping Fit and Healthy..

OK ladies.. here is the top three questions I get in my mailbox.. 1) What skincare do you use? 2) Is Secret Skin White Kawaii any good? 3) How do you lose weight after pregnancy? Haaa.. now this blog entry will answer question no 3!! Will get back to the rest of the question soon ;) How do I lose weight after pregnancy? Yes, I know I was super huge during pregnancy, I gained almost 30kg over 9 months of both pregnancy. Hahahaha.. MasyaAllah… Thanks to my husband who’s non-stop feeding me! I’m blessed. He kept telling me.. “It’s for the baby..” and I believed him.. Hnnshh… Alhamdullilah both my girls were born healthy. And now my issue is the post-baby weight.. Who doesn’t right?? Even Britney Spears and Cristina Aguilera had the same issue.. Hahaha.. *seriously I don’t understand how Gisele Bundchen and Miranda Kerr were able to get back to their pre-pregnancy figure in only 6 weeks after delivery!! That’s very inhumane!! Hahaha..* Anyway, I believe there are three ways to lose post-baby fat (or any kind of fat).. 1) Exercise 2) Exercise 3) Exercise Definitely no short cut.. Forget all those slimming tea or drink or pill or whatever. You have to exercise. Period. And do you know when you reach 30 years old, your metabolism rate reduces by 1% every year?!! *insert loud cry here* Here I want to show what motivates me.. I know finding time to exercise is… not easy. With work and house chores and spending quality time with family.. Exercising sometimes doesn’t really get the utmost priority. It always at the bottom of “to-do” list.. and somewhere in the middle of “to-do tomorrow” list. Haha… I found this iPhone app (yes, whatever works!!) called “Argus”

Here is the screen shot of my day, March 17. This app is amazing.. It can track your steps, like pedometer. It can also document your activities like playing badminton, tennis, cycling, basketball, treadmill and yada yada yada.. you get me, right? It calculates based on the average calories burned during certain activity.. And it also has reminder of your things that you do everyday that is important to your health like amount of “cup of coffee”, “glass of water”, your weight and lalala.. You really gotta check this out. It’s good to at least achieved 8000 steps of walking everyday. And the most important thing, it is free for iPhone user. Not sure about Android though.. Keeping fit is really important. Even you can’t make it to the gym everyday, knowing that you’ve walked at least 8000 steps everyday helps to keep yourself fit and healthy. If I have extra time, I make sure I go to the gym. Cardio and resistance workout is important in losing weight and building muscles. If I don’t have enough time to go to my power plate training at BodyTone, I’ll still make time to do some work out at my apartment’s gym. 30 to 45 minutes exercise is good enough to make me drench in sweat. For cardio training, running on the treadmill is my favourite (no not really, I’m just faking it! Haha..)

I usually do this 20 to 30 mins per session.. Now my aim is to run 3km in 30 minutes non-stop. I’m not there yet. A bit slow but surely, insyaAllah.. Hahaha.. By the way, my husband told me, his training in Russia before requires them to run 3km in 11 minutes. Homaigawdd.. that must be like Rocky style.. (you know, Rocky the boxer!!) I use this iPhone app (again!!) called C25K (i think it stands for Coach to 5K) which trains you (or me in this case) to be able to run 5K in certain amount of time..

Here’s the screenshot of the app. It makes you jog and walk alternately until you are able to run 5km non-stop. For me all these app helps to guide and push me to do better every time. The running time is longer every next session and the walking time is shorter.. Weight training / resistance is important in building muscles. No, my aim is not to have bulky muscles, I just want a lean muscles. But why having muscle is important? That is because, muscle works like the engine to our body. The bigger your muscle is, the higher your metabolic rate.. that means more calories your body will burn. Get it? Thats why having muscle is important.. I’m really not good in just carrying weight. It’s so boring and torturing for me. I like to combine weight / resistance training with cardio, also called total body workout. When I’m on my own, I love to follow the instructor video from YouTube. Yes, hahah.. Everything is available on YouTube nowadays.. My favourite training series are “Catching Fire 30 Days Challenge” It’s only a 12 minutes exercise but it will be an intense 12 minutes training if follow the workout properly (and that means no cheating!! Haha..) Go figure.. And last but not least, healthy diet!! As what they say… Abs is 30% made at the gym and 70% in the kitchen.. Or the other way round.. Can’t remember.. Whatever it is.. that saying means diet is as important as exercising..

Try to reduce on white rice / white bread cause the carbs in it are the killers. Take lots and lots of green vegetables, fruits and lean meat for protein supplement. And for me personally, support from your loved ones and friends are equally important as the exercise and dieting itself. I’m lucky to have healthy conscious people with me all the time. Someone to tell me to stop munching on junk food (it’s the hormones ok!).. to compete with me on Argus (the app, remember?).. who has the higher step count, burned more calories.. It’s all becomes a competition now!! Haha.. Trust me, exercise is addictive, once you’ve started.. You’ll really enjoy it because exercise releases endorphins and that is actually a hormones that makes you happy. “Exercise releases endorphin. Endorphin make you happy. So, happy people doesn’t kill their husband” - Elle Woods, Legally Blonde- Haha.. So, ladies, get your cute butt to the gym or park or anywhere and releases your endorphin. Stay healthy and keep fit. And have a happy day ahead :) XO

Filed under: Me Tagged: mommy stuff