Hiking Trip. 28th December 2011.

There's this place near Taman TAR which has a great hiking track. There are two ways to go up one is the easy way using the Taman TAR route. Stairs have been made to make it easy for everyone to go up there. Another track is using the route from Emerald Condominium in Bukit Indah.

This is the track that I brought a bunch of my high school friends to try. They were so excited so yeah, we climbed up the track. It takes around 45 minutes if its your 1st time. If your fit enough, 20 minutes and you'll be able to reach up there in no time.

The road starts from a small temple in front of Emerald Condominium. There is a pit stop after about 5-15 minutes of hiking according to your fitness level. You are bound to sweat so remember to stay hydrated before you start the hike or bring a bottle of water just incase.

After the 1st pit stop, its about 10-20 minutes of up and down hiking until you reach a resting stop. Its a nice place and you can rest there and there is even a pull up bar for you if you want to do some exercise. c:

From, there, its all the way down for about 5-10 minutes until you reach a lake which is very very beautiful. I love the nature and once you reach there after the hike, you will feel awesome.

Here are a few pictures I took from Wanie's camera. Thanks for the photos Wanie! c:



On the way up. Let's go girls!


Reaching pit stop 1.

 
At the top of pit stop 2. This is the place where there is a pull up bar.

 
Them girls. Haha. Glad that they are enjoying so far.

 
Second round going to the lake.

 
The small waterfall while walking around the lake.

 
This is the lake I was talking about. Isn't it nice? c:

 
The girls resting at the small island after coming out from the hiking route.

 
Them girls enjoying the view. After that you can rest under the shade at the back of the picture.

I'm glad my friends enjoyed the hike and the place we ended up at. From there, you can walk around the lake  and then decide whether you want to walk back down using the Taman TAR route, or you can hike all the way up back using the Emerald route.

Thats all for now & A Happy New Year to everyone out there! Get yourself going for the coming 2012 year! Make the best out of 2012! c:

If you guys want to hike up using the Emerald route but don't know how, contact me and I'll be glad to lead you up. Nothing makes me happier than helping people participating in healthy activities. c:

Resting Heart Rate Chart

Got this chart from http://www.topendsports.com/testing/heart-rate-resting-chart.htm

Very interesting. Did you know a low resting heart rate indicates longevity, strong heart, energy level, better metabolic efficiency, better and athletic endurance fitness? c:


Don't know when to check your resting heart rate? Check your resting heart rate first thing when you wake up in the morning.

Men
Age	18-25	26-35	36-45	46-55	56-65	65+
Athlete	49-55	49-54	50-56	50-57	51-56	50-55
Excellent	56-61	55-61	57-62	58-63	57-61	56-61
Good	62-65	62-65	63-66	64-67	62-67	62-65
Above Average	66-69	66-70	67-70	68-71	68-71	66-69
Average	70-73	71-74	71-75	72-76	72-75	70-73
Below Average	74-81	75-81	76-82	77-83	76-81	74-79
Poor	82+	82+	83+	84+	82+	80+

Women
Age	18-25	26-35	36-45	46-55	56-65	65+
Athlete	54-60	54-59	54-59	54-60	54-59	54-59
Excellent	61-65	60-64	60-64	61-65	60-64	60-64
Good	66-69	65-68	65-69	66-69	65-68	65-68
Above Average	70-73	69-72	70-73	70-73	69-73	69-72
Average	74-78	73-76	74-78	74-77	74-77	73-76
Below Average	79-84	77-82	79-84	78-83	78-83	77-84
Poor	85+	83+	85+	84+	84+	84+

40 Years Old, Rich Man's Disease and Why You Should Start Exercise at a Young Age.

Hey there everyone. Do you know that when you are 40 your metabolic system is not as effective compared to your younger days. That is why when you turn 40 and you have not been exercising for the past 10 years, you better START OFF SLOWLY.

Start with 10-20 min walking or if you think your body can take it, go for a jog. From there, increase the intensity when you think you push yourself harder. By the end of the week you can reach 30 or even 45 min of exercise in a day. Its all about motivation and your determination to be healthy. The main thing people who are 40 and above should focus more on are a few important things like CARDIOVASCULAR ENDURANCE, MUSCLE STRENGTH, MUSCLE ENDURANCE, FLEXIBILITY & BODY COMPOSITION.


There are 5 important factors that make up health related fitness which everyone from every age group should have and these 5 factors will determine your longevity. It is important that you have a strong heart (can be obtained through cardiovascular exercises like jogging or swimming) muscle strength and endurance (through weight training or body weight training) flexibility (through stretching and remember to hold 20-30 secs each stretch) and lastly body composition ( means you have a average body fat percentage and good amount of muscle mass in your body).

Doing exercise in a group gives you motivation and a chance to build new friendship!

Ok. Now to talk about rich man's disease. LET ME ASK YOU THIS, Do rich people invest enough time to exercise and be active? NO. These individuals are too focused on being successful until they forget about exercise and their body!

Study, Study, Study. What about exercise?

The importance of exercise should be implemented from a young age. This is to prevent our children to grow up thinking exercise is not important! When you start a habit like that during your younger days, you will definitely bring this BAD HABIT growing up and sooner or later when all you do is eat all the oily, fatty and high calorie food, you will grow up to be obese and the chances of you getting the Rich Man's Diseases like heart attack, gout and many more is higher. And then you inherit it in your DNA and then your child or grandchildren might inherit the Rich Man's disease from YOU.

Don't be like this! GET UP AND EXERCISE!

This applies to everyone from everywhere. Please don't be lazy and get up from that sofa and start practicing regular exercise! Don't be a person who just says "Oh I will start tomorrow" after reading this but seriously, please just do it! Remind yourself and find your motivation or drive to exercise and be a better you for YOU and for your FUTURE. Manage your time well and balance study, social life, and exercise when you are young and you will enjoy a better healthier life.

Have a nice day everyone!

You Might Mistake Thirst for Hunger!

Ok. Here's a interesting fact. Do you know that sometimes you are not hungry but actually THIRSTY?

Next time before you eat. Ask yourself. "Am I hungry, or thirsty?" Why does this happen? This is because the part of the brain which tells us whether we are thirsty or hungry is actually very near to each other. That is why our brain sometimes confuse hunger with thirst. Knowing this fact is also one way to lose weight properly for those of you who wants to lose weight. Water also keeps you hydrated and indirectly helps everything including your brain to work better.

Some extra info, a study has found that drinking water in the morning will increase your metabolism and thus increases weight loss. I personally practice drinking 2 glasses of water in the morning before breakfast. Helps me rehydrate and energetic after 6-8 hours of sleep. I actually felt my body system is much better when I drink water first thing in the morning. True story.

So remember guys, drink your glass of water 1st before you eat. It might save you the excess calories and help you loss weight. Why not drink water especially if you are staying in a hot country? Cool down and remain hydrated with a glass of cold water! Haha. c:

Food & Ways to Help Lose Weight

This is a request from my friend and so I shall see what I can do. c:

Firstly, if you want to lose weight. Just WATCH YOUR CALORIES. There is no point eating all the healthy food in the world if you do not control the portion you are eating. So, the first step is watch over your calories. Here is a simple calculator for you to check how much calories you need in a day. http://bit.ly/Gb5x8

Second, Eat small frequent meals every 3-4 hours. Let's say your first meal is at 7am, next should be 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm. So in total you'll eat 5 meals a day. ONE IMPORTANT NOTE. If you are hungry at night, you can eat but watch what you are eating because you do not want to eat over your daily calorie intake. Here is a link for the top 10 healthy late night snack by Mens Fitness. A spoiler, one of it is DARK CHOCOLATE. c: http://bit.ly/g9tnuQ

Another way to lose those weight is to WAKE UP AND EAT YOUR BREAKFAST! Losing weight is all about playing with your metabolic rate ( body engine). If you do not eat your breakfast, your "engine" would be work slowly but if you eat your breakfast, BOOM! It will turn into a Ferrari engine! Another important thing to keep in mind is SLEEP! Get enough sleep (6-8 hours) and try to sleep early. This is because our bodies growth hormone is released best from 11pm-2am when you sleep. True story.

Now to talk about food. You must be wondering what type of food you should take to lose weight. Well, here is a list of 249 food which will help you lose weight. http://bit.ly/nre0eG

Here are a few things I know. I know Malaysians like to eat rice. Yes. Rice is a good source of carbs but the main problem is high GI food like white rice. Instead of eating white rice, try changing it with brown rice. Brown rice has a lower GI which will keep you full longer and is better compared to white rice. That goes for white bread as well. Change it with a healthier version which is whole-grain bread. Now talking about portion, for rice, just eat one fistful. That is the correct amount of rice you should eat per meal. Even if you eat white rice, just eat one fistful per meal and you will see the difference. c:

Eat more vegetable like broccoli (This is a super veg. Full with important vitamins!), spinach, bok choy and many more vegetables. It's full of important fibre and should be consumed 4-5 times a day.

Next is chicken. When you eat chicken, remove the skin and you will lose weight. The chicken skin consists of saturated fat which is bad for our body. Lose the skin and lose those weight!

Remember EVERYONE, even if you eat all the healthy food there is in world, if you overeat, you will still add weight! So remember to watch the portion of your meals and check how much calories you need in a day.

Cool Down After Exercise is Very Important!

So far I have been involved in sports since I was in high school, I noticed one thing everywhere I go. NOBODY DOES THEIR COOL DOWN.

Ok. I do see some individuals who does their warm up at my local gym, but I can honestly say I do not see anyone who does their cool down properly. Somehow this fact disappoints me. Knowing the benefits of a cool down session but never actually performing the cool down session.

Let me just share with you a few importance facts when it comes to warm up and cool down.

Warm up
1) Increase heart rate. Heart rate should be around 120 bpm for it to be counted as warmed up.
2) Increases muscle flexibility and elasticity. With this, your muscle will be able to perform better.
3) Prevent injuries. If you just go into your exercise without a proper warm up, you will pull or injure your working muscle. ( I experienced this before and it is NOT NICE)

Cool down
1) Helps reduce lactic acid. Lactic acid is produced at the joints and muscles after exercise and it will lead to muscle soreness. Some researches suggest that lactic acid is not the main cause of muscle soreness, it is the effect of various metabolites into the tissue surrounding the muscle cells which causes muscle soreness or better known as DOMS.
2) Reduces heart rate and stabilizes breathing. Cooling down will lower heart rate and relaxes breathing after a strenuous exercise session.
3) IMPORTANT. REDUCES INJURY. By cooling down, you increases your flexibility and reduces dizziness ( dizziness is proven to work anecdotally as my dad who was feeling dizzy after hiking felt better after I forced him to cool down). Suddenly stop to your exercise will cause blood rush to the legs and less to the brain thus causing dizziness.

Don't know how to cool down? Cool down can be done firstly by walk around 5-10 min until you are breathing and talking normally (due to a lowered heart rate), then perform static stretching from head to toe and hold each stretch for 20-30 seconds.

Hope these information will show you the importance of warming up and cooling down. I believe by doing all these simple but important procedures, it will make your exercise session more fun and injury free. c:

YOU CAN MAKE THE CHANGE! WARM UP AND COOL DOWN ALWAYS!

Health Benefits of Green Tea

Green tea helps in weight loss. Drinking 3-4 cups a day is more than enough. Besides that, green tea also slows aging and prevent wrinkles!

Read more at http://bit.ly/mOvYts

Yoga

10 reason why you should do yoga.

1) Social

2) Destress

3) Height

4) Flexibility

5) Immunity

6) Back relief

7) Easy

8) Better body

9) Pain threshold

10) Regularity

Read more at http://bit.ly/qr9Fem

How Fast can a Human Run?

This is a list of records which I got from elitefeet.com.

This is quite some info if you want to check and compare your own personal best with the best in the world. Enjoy! c:

Men's World Records Translated Into Average Speeds

Event	Record	Athlete	mph	ft/s	km/h	m/s
60 m (indoor)	6.39 s	Maurice Green	21.00	30.81	33.80	9.39
100 m	9.58 s	Usain Bolt	23.35	34.25	37.58	10.44
200 m	19.19 s	Usain Bolt	23.31	34.19	37.52	10.42
400 m	43.18 s	Michael Johnson	20.71	30.38	33.34	9.26
800 m	1:41.11	Wilson Kipketer	17.69	25.95	28.48	7.91
1000 m	2:11.96	Noah Ngeny	16.96	24.87	27.29	7.58
1500 m	3:26.00	Hicham El Geerrouj	16.28	23.88	26.21	7.28
Mile	3:43.13	Hicham El Geerrouj	16.13	23.65	25.96	7.21
5000 m	12:37.35	Kenenisa Bekele	14.76	21.65	23.76	6.60
10000 m	26:17.53	Kenenisa Bekele	14.18	20.80	22.82	6.34
Half Marathon	58:23	Zersenay Tadese	13.47	19.76	21.68	6.02
Marathon	2:03:59	Haile Gebrselassie	12.69	18.61	20.42	5.67
110 m hurdles	12.87 s	Dayron Robles	19.10	28.02	30.74	8.54
400 m hurdles	46.78 s	Kevin Young	19.13	28.05	30.78	8.55
4x100 m relay	37.10 s	Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell	24.12	35.37	38.81	10.78
4x200 m relay	1:18.68	Michael Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Floyd Heard, Carl Lewis	22.75	33.37	36.61	10.17
4x400 m relay	2:54.29	Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Butch Reynolds, Michael Johnson	20.54	30.12	33.05	9.18
4x800 m relay	7:02.43	Joseph Mutua, William Yiampoy, Ismael Kombich, Wilfred Bungei	16.96	24.87	27.29	7.58

Womens's World Records Translated Into Average Speeds

Event	Record	Athlete	mph	ft/s	km/h	m/s
60 m (indoor)	6.92	Irina Privalova	19.39	28.44	31.21	8.67
100 m	10.49 s	Florence Griffith Joyner	21.32	31.27	34.31	9.53
200 m	21.34 s	Florence Griffith Joyner	20.96	30.74	33.73	9.37
400 m	47.60 s	Marita Koch	18.79	27.60	30.24	8.40
800 m	1:53.28	Jarmila Kratochvílová	15.79	23.16	25.42	7.06
1000 m	2:28.98	Svetlana Masterkova	15.01	22.01	24.16	6.71
1500 m	3:50.46	Qu Yunxia	14.56	21.36	23.44	6.51
Mile	4:12.56	Svetlana Masterkova	14.25	20.90	22.93	6.37
5000 m	14:11.15	Tirunesh Dibaba	13.13	19.26	21.13	5.87
10000 m	29:31.78	Wang Junxia	12.62	18.50	20.30	5.64
Half Marathon	1:06:25	Lornah Kiplagat	11.83	17.36	19.04	5.29
Marathon	2:15:25	Paula Radcliffe	11.61	17.03	18.68	5.19
100 m hurdles	12.21 s	Yordanka Donkova	18.32	26.87	29.48	8.19
400 m hurdles	52.34 s	Yuliya Pechonkina	17.09	25.07	27.50	7.64
4x100 m relay	41.37 s	Silke Gladisch, Sabine Rieger, Ingrid Auerswald, Marlies Göhr	21.63	31.73	34.81	9.67
4x200 m relay	1:27.46	LaTasha Jenkins, LaTasha Colander- Richardson, Nanceen Perry, Marion Jones	20.45	29.99	32.90	9.14
4x400 m relay	3:15.17	Tatyana Ledovskaya, Olga Nazarova, Mariya Pinigina, Olga Bryzgina	18.34	26.90	29.52	8.20
4x800 m relay	7:50.17	Nadezhda Olizarenko, Lyubov Gurina, Lyudmila Borisova, Irina Podyalovskaya	15.23	22.34	24.52	6.81