A break, a treat and now a feast!!

Whoa.. am feeling guilty today.

Yesterday's lunch was waaayyyy overboard. The usual lunch kakies went to an Indian restaurant along Coleman Street for a super-delicious, super-calorie naan and curry buffet! One word: I can see evolution kicking in the moment I started. The curries were rich- with heaps of cream, yogurt, and all sorts of other thickening and yummy spices. And the eyes and brain went: 'OMG.. I am going to load up on these super-caloric food, not sure when my next meal would come!' I think I had 4 pieces of naan to mop up all the curries- plus their meats, fish, vegetables.

I thought I heard my stomach cry: 'ENOUGH!' but the eye-brain tag team was too strong for the stomach's protests! The brain focussed the eye and the hand just reached out and grabbed! So the feast was paradoxically, enjoyable for the tastes but bad for guilt-ridden for the conscience. And you my blog has to bear witness to this.

In other, subsumed by the screaming headline, news, my ten minute stretches in the mornings are beginning to show results. The abdominals are stronger- doing the same sets of crunches doesn't seem to hurt so much now. Pushups are also similarly getting easier. Consistency, what I have been writing about, is really kicking in. AND the best part is that it doesn't really take that long, nor that much effort, nor even gear- heck I just exercise in my pyjamas.

The effects has taken about 3weeks to show but hey, come to think of it, the impact (stronger shoulder and arms, tighter abdominals butt) are with me for the rest of the day. And that for me is a good investment.

Break and Treat

This is a picture of a fat me! It is to remind myself of the time, not too long ago (6 months to be precise) where I looked, well, frankly, fat! Or to be more accurate, fatter than I was, and feeling lousy too.

Coming out from a weekend of gym and a long cool run on Tuesday, last night (Wed) was a day-off from the running.

Having breaks in-between is vital for 2 reasons. Physically, it allows the body and muscles to rest, recover from the strenuous activities and also build up muscles to help the body cope with the next round of activity. Mentally, it relieves the body of the 'boredom', we all are fully aware that we are creatures of variety and repeating everything for everyday is a sure-fire recipe for boredom and lack of motivation.

Hence giving myself a treat is a little incentive to keep motivated and on the virtuous path I have been striding so far. My treat for myself was ice-cream, which I shared with my significant other since we met up for lunch. It was yummy.

At the same time however, the consistency theme is ever-present. The 10 minute stretching exercises in the mornings is still present, now supplemented by evening sessions after I am home but before shower. Now, the upper chest muscles are sore, even the abdominals and butt muscles- partly because of the consistency and also I introduced variations into the routine.

This last point is crucial as our muscles becomes efficient at doing something repeatedly due to its evolutionary predilection to save energy. Remember that humans are extremely efficient at storing and minimizing caloric expenditure from our hunter-gatherer days.

So another day of work beckons (groan) while I allow the my consistent morning (and now evenings) exercises to recuperate from their new routine.

The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak

Was supposed to go running this morning. Set the alarm, put it beside my bed. Went to bed, thinking that when that alarm rings at 6.20am, I am going to go running...

Well... guess what... it did not happen! Sigh...

And to make matters worse, had a big fried seafood dinner with my family last night. One of those fast-food type of preparation. Fried sotong (calamari for all you who don't know what a sotong is!) fried prawns (tasted like tatters!), fried breaded fish.

It is not rocket-science to say that we humans love fried food! Why? Simple! Because frying has the highest caloric content of all the different types of food preparation. And we humans are calorie-storing machines! You see, we cannot deny our ancestry, human beings have developed some pretty seriously efficient way of storing energy for that 'proverbial rainy day'. Those days when food was not easy to hunt/ track/ gather, when our meat came on four feet, our fish from us jumping into the water and our grains from gathering it from fields.

So, in order to overcome the instability of food supply, our evolution has seen fit to bestow us with taste buds that crave high caloric food... fried foods, sweets, sugars- all which fit into that category. So you see, our destinies are written in the stars! (Hahaha).

Anyway back to my run- or lack of will to do so. Will have to find ways of coming around to pumping up the exercise now. Clothes are getting tighter, especially that pair of jeans bought last year! And people are now beginning to call me FAT again!

Really gotta go do something about it!