Holiday and anniversary June 17, 2008

We are going back to Bangkok for a few days, manly for my father’s surprise 72nd birthday anniversary. It is not excatly on his birthday bcause his birthday was back in February. But this is the only time when all the immediate and extended family come to Thailand.  We will have it at the Oriental Hotel, in the Regency room.  I can not wait to see his face. The only hope is that my son won’t start screaming in the middle of the party.

We planed it as though it is a military service. We will have a nurse aid to look after him at the party while my sister and I taking care of the guests before my dad arrives.

It is important tha my son is there eventhough at the time of the party he will be in his sleep….

One problem, what will I wear? I still have not lost a lot of weight at all…..

I got bitten!! September 5, 2007

Something I don’t really need when I am pregnant….

We just moved to Discover Bay which is an island about 20 minutes by ferry from Hong Kong Island. Everything was great but one thing that we have to beware of, there are lots of mosquito and insects.

I got bitten alive without knowing when I went to sit by the sea and also when I left the windown opened  in the evening ( I love the view too much). They are really itchy and become red and a bit hard afterwards. I am 20 to 21 weeks pregnant and quite concern about using any medication that might harm my baby. But at the same time the itchyness is pretty strong and I can not help but to scratch away all day long.

I went on to Geoexpat website and got several advise as follows;

1. …..You were probably stung by midges, tiny small insects that are sometimes called sandflies but are not. Consult a doctor who will prescribe appropriate anti-histamine tablets and cream…..

2. I’ve been trying a vitamin B6 preventive treatment. It’s not been proven scientifically but I’ve been told if you take your vitamin B every day it changes the smell of your skin (for insects).

3….It sounds as though you have a lot of bites! Are you sure it is not a rash? … if it is, I would see the Dr immediately

4…..tried everything under the sun, the thing that really really works is tape. Just tape over the bite with Sellotape or duct tape. Apparently the tape attracts white blood cells which stop the itching and histamine release. Obviously it stops you scratching too. It sounds bizarre but try it and there are no side effects.

5….someone recommended that I eat an orange a day to counter it and to use Satsuma body butter from Body Shop. Best advice I’ve had coz I’ve not had a single bite since. I still eat an orange a day and use Satsuma body wash and butter.

6. Pure aloe Vera Gel is what we use and its completely natural. You can purchase it from Watsons and Mannings.

7. I was prgenant and in DB I used the citronella stickers from Watsons- I now use them with my ten month old too; they are deet free and natural.

Week 20. new place-new life September 5, 2007

We have now officially moved to Discovery Bay. We found a beautiful apartment with alomost 360 degrees view. It is a little bit stretch in terms of our budget so we decided that this year we will just forget saving money ( we still put aside a certain amount of money for our baby though) and cencentrate on enjoying our little life and our little baby without being a high flyer or eat out every single meal as before. We love this flat that much!

As soon as I moved in I was relax and happy. We have lived in Central Hong Kong last year- it’s time to have a calmer life.  I can eat now and begin to enjoy cooking as I did before I was pregnant.

I have no idea that one of my main reason that I couldn’t eat and not gaining weight during the past 5 months (even though the baby is big- God knows how) was due to the fact that I did not like the environment. We lived in a nice flat but the environment was bad, no view (or te estate agent calls it ‘building view’), bad cooking smell (no offense to our chinese friends).

With our current flat the back of our flat faces the mountain (nothing in between at all), front face the sea (with other buildings in front but we are on tope of the mountain, so nothing obstruct the view to the sea). During the day I can only hear the sound of the waterfall.  This is heaven.

The baby is still alive and kicking. I become less concern and begin to enjoy my pregnancy now. Today I even begin to practice lullaby lyrics and aiming to memorise the lyrics to welcome the birth of our baby. I feel for the first time as a mother when I sang the songs and can begin to imagine myself as a moher now.

But I still don’t want to start buying cot and all that to tempt faith……Old fashion I know.

Korea Trip and panic attack! September 5, 2007

We went to Korea at the beginning of week 19 to see my sister’s family, a short break from busy Hong Kong.  I asked my husband to come along with me on the last minute due to a sudden fear of the repeated experience like when we came back from Bangkok on our summer holiday. It was a big step for me when I went to the toilet after the plane has landed and found that it was no blood this time! None! Hooray!!!

I ate, drank ( non alcoholic drink – mainly water) and be married for 3 days.  We got an early flight back which meant that we had to get up around 6am after went to bed after midnight. I was pretty tired then.

I could not believe it! Our flight was cancled. But thank god they transfer us to Cathay Pacific flight with newer plane, same departure time. So I was alright but feel funny in my stomuch. I went to the toilet several times and began to panic if I was fit enough to fly. I was tired and worried which didn’t help.  It will be a 3 hour flight - didn’t sound too bad on paper.

I decided to go on as it will take as much time to go back in to Seoul.  We boarded the flight and the whole plane was packed.  I began to sweat but tried to calm down. As soon as the plane began to move, I felt like I was gonna faint. It was a tall order to be traped in the air for 3 hours. What do I do, what do I do?!!

My poor husband had to call the flight attendant and asked her if we can move to a better seat. I felt claustophobic and couldn’t breath. Unfortunately all the seats were full, every single one of them. She asked me to make a decision if I would like to go on or get off. But reassure me that as soon as the flight take off, the air condition will be cooler. So I tried to calm down and carried on. I must say they flight attendants were very nice, brought me water and hot towel and tried to calm me down.

Thank god with Cathay Pacific they have good inflight program on personal tv which helped me kill time. I couldn’t be more glad if I tried when we landed. I was still tired though and went to be at 5pm.  That’s a record!

One thing that is hard for me at the moment but I need to try is to make myself accept that I am pregnant. And pregnant women has less energy than normal women. Things I could do easily before became more difficult. I couldn’t skip meal nor over eating and expect to feel alright. I need certain hours of sleep and rest (2 different things may I add).

I’m trying…hard. 

Weight control: where to go February 9, 2007

Once again, I’m back researching for a good website for keeping record of my food intake. I found a free website recommended in ehow.com (which by the way is my top 3 sites at the moment) called www.fitday.com

I can key in what I eat today, starting from breakfast and plan what I will eat at lunch time and what I will eat tonight when we are going out. So I know in advance how much cal.I ate and will be eating  and exercise accordingly. I aim to exercise in the gym to lose the approximately 290 – 350cal. and then the rest will be walking up hill or steps or any other daily activities which will burn some more, so in total I will lose approximately 500cal./day.

There’s a good website www.soyouwanna.com This website seems pretty realistic to me. I don’t like those websites which tell you it’s easy to lose weight because it’s not.

From the website:

A. My approximate energy needs / per day =Basal Metabolic Rate Body weight multiplied by 12 (for men) or 11 (for women) 158 x 11= 1738

B. Activity One third body weight multiplied by the number of hours you don’t sleep, typically 16 hours, mine is 14 158 x 1/3=  52 x 14 = 728

C. Required calories A + B = 1738 + 728 = 2466

The “Basal Metabolic Rate” is the number of calories a man of that weight would burn just to keep the heart beating, the lungs pumping. “Activity” is approximately the amount of calories a person would expend by spending his or her whole day sitting around.

If you want to lose two pounds (0.9 Kg) , simply take the daily caloric requirement you’ve already calculated and subtract 500 from it (mine is 2466 – 500 = 1966)

That means I can have three meals of 500 calories each and one snack of 200 calories or a couple of 100 calorie drinks throughout the day. Don’t forget to include drinks, by the way.  A calorie is a calorie, whether it came from a doughnut or a glass of organic prune juice.

One exception: you can eat as much celery as you want. Celery is composed almost entirely of water and fiber, and the few calories it contains are burned up in the process of chewing it. Celery is great to chew when you’re feeling hungry, which will happen. When you knock down your intake by 500 calories, your body notices and it lets you know by making you feel hungry. Ignore this. Eat lots of celery, eat low-fat, high-fiber meals, and drink lots of water.

Exercise

If you want to lose two pounds per week, we recommend that you do exercise that will burn 500 calories every day (in addition to reducing your caloric intake by 500 calories per day).

None of the activities is going to burn up 500 calories in 30 minutes, unless you’re much heavier than 150 pounds.  There are three ways to deal with this:

1) pick a strenuous exercise and do it for 45 minutes to an hour in one session;

2) do a half hour of strenuous exercise and burn the rest of the calories in a second session later (e.g., go for a run in the morning and take a walk at night); or

3) abandon your earlier ambition and just lose one pound a week (0.5kg) , which only requires you to burn 250 calories in a day.

Music to my ears January 23, 2007

I need good music.

I think I use up my gym songs too much too soon. You know what I mean?

As soon as I get a selection of new gym songs, I worn them all out by listen to them over and over again before I even leave the house. Is that normal?

Now I’m in need for the new selection, the hardcore upbeat ones. The one that makes me want to move, to dance to spin.

I love exercise, don’t get me wrong. But my motivation relies heavily on how good music is. I can run faster and time pass by quicker when I listen to a good song.

And I hate the music that no one sing in it. How do you call them?

It might be because I am a little bit of a control freak, but I need to know when the song begins and ends. Please don’t tell me that the rythm will tell me and all that crap. Because when I exercise, I don’t have enough energy to hear the music in the way that those ‘music lovers’ do. I need to hear something upbeat, someone sings and tell me a story to pass time and tell me that those 4 minutes has passed or about to pass. Then I can keep counting my exercise time by counting the number of songs instead. Very pleasent and not copyrighted, if you want to do the same.

But first, give me a few good gym songs, who ever you are out there?

Chestnut January 23, 2007

 

I love Chestnut!

I like to snack – who doesn’t – and I watch my calories and fat intake, that’s why I like chestnuts. They have only a fraction of the fat and calories of other nuts and I feel satisfied by a small bag of them!  and I don’t feel guilty eating them , that’s the most important point.

No other contries in the world roast chestnuts as well as they do in Hong Kong….and Thailand, I may add.  You can smell them long before you can see them.

But these days they don’t cook them in a big extra large wok and sand anymore.

I was so pleased to see the old style roasted chestnuts in Causeway Bay the other day, on the footpath somewhere. But then it was cooked by an old fragile man. I can’t imagine how heavy and tiring it must have been for him to stand there and keep tossing and turning the chestnuts.

May be I should set up a stall for roasted chestnuts and cook them in his way, earn money and skip the gym altogether.

First Post January 22, 2007

I have been wanting to have my own blog for a while.

Who would have thought that I will decide to set up my blog after a 45 minutes spinning class on late Monday night. 

It might worth noting that I burnt 380 cal. and 16% fat today. Not an impressive performance by my own personal record but I think that’s all I can manage on a cold winter’s night in Hong Kong.

Good Night.