Fitness Fii... ...better than Wii

How Quickly Time Flies

2011-02-03T20:47:00.004+11:00

REALLY? It's been almost 7 months since my last post (and first post in ages)?

How time flies.

And with that, I think it's time to close this one off and start afresh.

So head to http://healthymumma.wordpress.com ... see you over there! :)

P.S. Thank you to the Anonymous person who commented on my one lonely post 7 months ago. I would wave back at you, but I still have no idea who you are!

Is There Anybody Out There?

2010-06-08T11:12:00.004+10:00

The title of this post reminds me of one of the interval training songs I like to use in my indoor cycling classes.

Anyway, wish I'd gotten back into this stuff sooner... but hey, maybe it's never too late. I'll just write this for me, and if there's anyone reading, well bonus for them!

Gonna post pics of my bump shortly.

Freestyle Aerobics in Hong Kong

2008-11-13T12:56:00.003+11:00

I've been searching all over the internet for freestyle classes in Hong Kong. There seem to be plenty over there. What intrigues me is the names they give their classes.

Here in Melbourne, we're simply happy to call our Step Aerobics classes by one of several, fairly straightforward and self-explanatory names - Step (intermediate), Step Basic, and for the more advanced or those who like more full on choreography, Step Moves. Every now and then you might even still see Step Athletic which is like Step Basic, but traditionally guarantees lots of high intensity, high impact-style moves for those really focussed on high-caloric expenditure.

As for the names they use in Hong Kong...

not Step Basic, but Step 101
not Step, but 1 Step Up
not Step Moves, but Steptacular
and finally, the fourth level, super-choreographed is Freaky Step
oh, they also have Duo Step

The names for hilo classes are just as outrageous, being, from beginners' to advanced - Aerobics 101, In Between Hi & Lo (or as James put it... does that mean medium??), Sweat Shop, Cardio Groove...

Whilst, yes, granted, the class names are highly creative, I wonder how effective that is in getting people in to the classes themselves? If it weren't for me looking up the list of names online I would not have realised that they classify everything into one of four levels of difficulty, and really they are all just the same class type but at differing levels.

The thing that annoys me most though is not the variety of un-exaplainable names, but that they appear to boast such a HUGE variety of classes and yet don't offer everything on their list on the timetable.

Clever marketing or just someone with too much time on their hands? I dunno, maybe it's some sort of cultural thing - let people THINK they're able to do many different types of classes cos each one has a different name, let them FEEL they're really smart and capable and all that, and they'll keep coming back.

Me... I think I still prefer the K.I.S.S. principle.

Bodypump release 68 is on it's way!

2008-11-09T08:35:00.006+11:00

This time next week is the final quarterly Les Mills superworkshop day for 2008.
I'm looking forward to my first ever superworkshop! Yay, yay, yay!

On the menu for me next Sunday:-

09:30-10:30
Teaching a Hilo class (covering for another instructor)

11:00 - 12:00
Attending Joyce's freestyle Step class at Monash Uni Sports, Clayton

12:00 - 14:00
Hanging out and lunching with some awesome Pumpers!

14:00 - 15:30
Bodypump masterclass and technique workshop!!

15:45 - 17:15
Bodystep masterclass ... I'm not a Bstep instructor but they let Les Mills instructors attend any other workshops they want to provided there are places available after preference has been given to actual instructors of the program

17:30 - 19:00
Still undecided as to whether I'll stick around for the Bodybalance masterclass too.

What a massive day. It's gonna be a blast! Woo hoo.

Gym Funky

2008-11-08T15:19:00.003+11:00

Facebook's advertising scheme is clever. Clearly their filters or whatever technology they use have determined I'm some sort of gym freak, hence I came across a website for a cool company that sells funky gym clothes.

Gym Funky - www.gymfunky.com.au

They're based in QLD. The only downside for me is, well, I like to actually try on clothes to see how they look and fit before buying.

If you get any cool gym clothing from them, let me know!

Group Fitness is my life?

2008-11-04T19:17:00.003+11:00

Exactly one month ago, I ended this post wondering how other instructors taught over 20 classes per week. Well, I think I have my answer... she probably didn't do it for long.

Since that last post, I've averaged out at over 14 classes per week. I can in fact list the number of classes I've taught each week since 4 September until today: 15, 16, 16, 13, 17, 16, 17, 18.

Wow... when you put it in that context it looks like a lot, huh?

So anyway I've discovered a few key secrets to personal health management - in this case, the health factor being NOT overtraining or subjecting one's body to overuse injury. Newer instructors, or those looking to increase your current weekly teaching schedule, take heed. More experienced instructors, if you've anything to add please do so!

**Vary your class types - try to avoid doing more than maybe 4 or 5 of one particular class type. In fact, for certain class types, less than this even - e.g. no more than 3 Bodypump classes per week was highly recommended to my classmates and I by our trainer, who has been an instructor for over 8 years. Wise words from someone who's been there, done that!

**Whilst we're on the topic of class choices, if you can get some classes that require a little less exertion on your part, even better! Good examples include circuit classes and fit ball classes.

**Another veteran instructor I met a few months ago advised me against taking triples on a regular basis (non-instructors, this simply means 3x back-to-back classes). He has stopped teaching due to major issues with his feet. He learnt his lesson the hard way and has kindly tried to pass this on to me.

**If you're feeling sick or rundown, don't keep going, get a cover and give your body a break!

**Plan your breaks in advance, organise your covers early, take some time out every now and again to recuperate. Not just physically but mentally too! It will prevent you from getting into a "rut" and you'll find you'll still be able to give your participants the best of yourself.

**Today, an instructor who has been teaching for 20 years told me something very profound (in relation to Bodypump but it applies across the board too) - your class numbers/sizes are not determined by the amount of weight you lift, it's the energy and quality with which you deliver the class. By all means, set the example and be inspiring, but don't pressure yourself to perform beyond your means. Remember - it's THEIR workout, not yours!

**Practise what you preach to your own participants. I tell my participants all the time - if it's GOOD pain, keep pushing through, but if it's BAD pain then please, please stop! I need to remember this for myself too! (So do you!)

**It is okay to say no to cover requests. Let me repeat: IT IS OKAY TO SAY NO TO COVER REQUESTS! Looking after yourself is not selfish. Your first responsibility is to your permanent classes before any covers you do, so by looking after yourself you are ensuring you can deliver your best to your regulars.

PUMPers - something for you to have a chuckle at

2008-11-04T18:43:00.003+11:00

Heya Bodypumpers,

I've been Googling around online at all things Bodypump, in an effort to learn about past releases so I can figure out where to get started learning more chorey to add to my limited repertoire of ONE release (haha) and came across some very funny blog posts, thought I'd share the love around.

http://rickinoz.com/2008/07/06/you-know-you-do-bodypump-too-much-when
http://www.dietgirl.org/dietgirl/2005/05/diy_body_pump.html

For you non-pumpers out there who might be interested in some great reading that is diet and weight loss-related, here's a good one for you:

http://www.dietgirl.org/dietgirl/about-shauna-reid.html

I've seen this girl's book in the bookstores recently, haven't picked up a copy to read for myself yet but after reading the above post I think I just might have a browse.

Eating Well May Require Moral Support

2008-09-27T13:30:00.000+10:00

"Discover Oprah's top-rated diet that celebrities use to get thin. I'm no celebrity, but it worked for me."

I found this line on an advertisement on Facebook. Celebrities are just people like us. They work hard to get the bodies they have. They don't just sit around and any eating or exercise regime they follow is not more magical than yours.

But there is one other tip you can learn from celebrities. If you want to become a certain way, you need to surround yourself with people who live in that way. They are all (seemingly) slim, trim and gorgeous. They are surrounded by people who are slim, trim and gorgeous... so if one day they walked out amongst their other slim, trim, gorgeous friends with frizzy hair, out-of-date clothing and a few extra kilos, well they would probably stand out a whole lot more than if they did the same thing amongst us.

If you want to eat healthily and exercise regularly, surrounding yourself with people who do the same will help you a lot. That doesn't mean you should just go out and ditch any friends who don't eat healthily, of course not! But if you regularly interact with people who live in the way you want to live, then they will become your benchmark. They will become your "norm" and not only will you find it easier to rise to the occasion to live the same, well, it will just become "normal" for you to live like that.

When I am out in the "normal" world, I sometime feel like a bit of a freak. I mean, I exercise more than 12 times a week (because it's my job not cos I'm a fanatic!) and my standard of what food is and isn't healthy are, well, a fair bit higher than most others. But when I hang out in "fitness instructors" world, it is normal to exercise as much as I do. In "fitness instructors" world my physique is also normal, whereas in "normal" world, to some I am skinny or petite.

Here's an example of how you can step out of the norm without ditching your friends:

Let's pretend you've decided for yourself that you're not going to eat pizza anymore, but there's been a long-standing tradition amongst you and your friends... a weekly movie & pizza. Instead of ditching your long-time friends for gym junkies, why not find a buddy amongst them who has also been thinking about eating healthier, and is willing to not eat pizza together with you? Rather than missing out on the weekly festivities, the two of you can still go to movie night. Instead of pizza, you could split a healthier option meal together - say, roast chicken and a gigantic, colourful garden salad.

Don't make a big fuss of it and certainly don't make an issue of the pizza. Just do what you feel is best for you whilst maintaining the fun and relationships. Everyone wins! And who knows, over time you might find yourself with a few additional converts to healthier eating... although there will always be that one person who likes to add a handful (or two) of chips to their meal, haha!

Weight Loss = What Are You Eating???

2008-09-14T12:13:00.000+10:00

If you want to lose weight... SERIOUSLY... then your success will largely depend on your diet. Not enough exercise in the world is going to help you if you can't master the principles of calories out vs calories in.

How do I know? Personal experience. I am an aerobics instructor. I teach at least 10 classes per week but currently average at about 13-14. And over the last 3 months I've put on about 3kgs.

Most people's first response is "well, that's because you're putting on muscle!". Trust me, honey... it ain't muscle! Muscle doesn't bulge at the tummy or under the arms or around the tights. Okay well maybe a tiny bit of it is, but if only you knew how difficult it is to gain muscle mass - especially for females - then you would understand.

So why did I put on weight? Same reason a lot of other people do - I thought I could get away with the bad eating. The yummy extras. I figured, hey, what the heck, I've done 16 classes this week, I can have that second piece of cake! Not only can I have it, I deserve it! Never mind that one piece of cake probably requires 1.5, maybe even 2 classes to burn off. I mean, the average gym-goer probably does 3 classes per week, maybe 4 or 5 if they're hardcore. At 16, I've got at least 10 classes worth of eating on them! Probably more than 10 classes, because I also work harder than most of them trying to set the example on that stage!

It is this sort of self-justification that will greatly slow down if not ruin your chances of success.

I didn't put the 3kg on overnight, it was a gradual process. Chances are your weight gain was also a gradual process. You didn't suddenly wake up one morning 3 dress sizes larger than you used to be and feeling overwhelmed, wondering how you're ever going to lose it all without the help of the people at the Fat-zap clinic.

Some tips? Little, baby steps. One decision at a time. One little 'no' here and there. Deciding before you head out to a social function what your limits are and stick to them. Don't treat every meal and every dessert and every opportunity to eat chocolate like it's the last opportunity you'll ever have, because it ISN'T. Allow every good decision, no matter how small or big, to empower you towards making the next good decision.

And if you stuff up, don't beat yourself over the head like I like to do to myself. Pick yourself up and try again.

More Exercise than I Need?

2008-09-04T13:51:00.005+10:00

I taught 5 aerobics classes on Tuesday. Before I became an instructor I was doing well if I could manage 5 classes in a week! Yes they were all classes I did myself too, i.e. no circuit classes or anything.

Some sort of cold or flu is going around hitting aerobics instructors thoughout Melbourne. Ok I am sure it's also hitting others too but you notice it when it's aerobics instructors. Most of you who have office/desk jobs can take a sickie or holiday without needing to find someone else to do your job for the day. Not us. So despite not being sick myself I felt the effects of that sickness.

Then somehow I caught it myself and was out on Wednesday! I was already feeling it coming on by mid-Tuesday, but it was too late to find someone else to cover my classes so I just went ahead, did them anyway but thankfully had enough time to cancel my commitments for Wednesday.

Thankfully it didn't end up being too bad.

Haha... I know, I haven't been bloggin much lately (I still don't have internet at home!) and now my entries are sounding like excerpts from a diary rather than fitness tips. I guess what I am trying to say, or what I'm really thinking, is that when you all tell me that I'm so lucky cos I have a job that keeps me fit, well, at times I look at you and feel you're luck for having a job that doesn't make your knees sore and creaky or threaten to give you plantar fasciitis.

But then I still love my job more than yours, which is why I am doing my job and not yours!

P.S. by the end of this week I'll have a tally of 14 classes. I know an instructor who taught 25 per week at her peak... HOW THE HECK DID SHE DO THAT? :o)

"Cheap" Petrol

2008-07-29T14:19:00.003+10:00

Haha I can't believe it. I am posting today because I am excited about petrol being under $1.50 per litre. "Cheap" by recent standards. So today if I fill up I spend a whopping $4 less (or thereabouts) than last week.

A Saturday in the life of an Aerobics Instructor

2008-07-26T14:23:00.002+10:00

It's Saturday morning. This weekend, a lot of other instructors are at the Mini Master Blaster. In laymen's terms, a conference full of workshops and therefore new ideas for us to subject our participants to. I'm not going this year. Just returned from a holiday in Sydney a couple of weeks ago so could do with the extra cash that I'll get this weekend doing a couple of extra classes by filling in for other instructors at the conference.

What a busy morning.

07:30 - Woke up, got ready for the day. Ate lots of breakfast, will be burning a lot of energy today.
08:20 - Hopped in the car, drove to my first class of the day.
09:00 - 60 minute Step & Body Strength class.
10:10 - Quickly hopped in to car, running a little late, rushing to the next class.
10:40 - Arrived barely in time for second class. 60 minute Hilo class.
11:40 - Chatted to a couple of participants after the class.
11:45 - Hopped into car to rush to next class.
12:00 - 60 minute Beginner Aerobics class. Third and final class of the day. Whew.

Calories burned for the three classes combined: 1600+

Life is not usually as hectic as that for me, but it was fun for today. Don't think I could do it every week though, that would drive me nutty.

New "Mum-Friendly" Checkout Lanes?

2008-07-25T13:36:00.002+10:00

I popped in to Coles today to pick up some grocery items and noticed a sign in the checkout lane, announcing two Mum-friendly checkout lanes. The lane I was lining up in happened to be one of them.

What's the difference? The contents of those shelves just above the conveyor belt. Typically stocked up with junk food goodies such as chocolate bars on special, lollipops and Kinder Surprise eggs, the two aisles claiming to be Mum-friendly have "healthier snack options" instead.

I must admit I didn't look at the items on offer any more than beyond a glance, but they seemed to be filled instead with things like granola/muesli bars, etc, with not a chocolate in sight. I'll have to have a proper look the next time I'm there.

What an interesting concept. It will be interesting to see if the alternative options really are healthy or not... my first instinct is to think that they might be healthier than chocolate bars, but not necessarily healthy. Most snack bars of any sort tend to be filled with sugars, possibly preservatives, and, well... maybe they could pop some fresh fruit, nuts and less processed items on those last minute shopping shelves instead of a "lesser of two evils".

Eat to Save Your Life

2008-07-18T15:39:00.003+10:00

I don't even have a decent excuse for not blogging for so long. Let's just say, Facebook has heaps of neat little applications and I've been hooked on The Hatchery during my free time.

The night before last, Jamie Oliver's "Eat to Save Your Life" aired on Channel Ten at 9:30pm. What an eye-opening show. For example, we all vaguely know that sausages aren't particularly healthy, but Jamie got a butcher on the show, who made typical sausages from scratch. He started by mincing leftover cuts of meat (they were more like fat and sinew lined with a touch of meat) into a bowl, then adding the preservatives (including copious amounts of salt, sugar and unidentifiable emulsifiers) usually added to give that nasty, cheap, tasteless stuff some flavour. UGH. I am NEVER eating a sausage again. I don't usually eat them anyway, but will at times have a bite of James'. Forget that.

True, I could make them myself or pay premium prices for good quality sausages that actually contain meat and natural flavours, but why bother? There's plenty of other stuff out there I'd rather eat.

Other interesting features in this 90 minute show were an interesting look at the cross-section of two people, one of a healthy weight and size and the other an obese size. Yes, literally a cross-section ~ they were two bodies that had been frozen and preserved and then slice taken from head to toe for our viewing and education. The freaky Dr Gunther also performed a dissection of a 25 stone man (that's over 150kg for the non-British out there). The amount of fat stored in his belly area was typical of males that overweight. What I NEVER knew was that the fat was so excessive, his lungs were tiny, only HALF the size of that of a normal man! Shocking. So a large part of the reason that people who are too overweight can't really do any cardiovascular activity without wheezing and half collapsing to death is because they don't even have the lunge size to take in enough oxygen to fuel their bodies.

If you didn't watch the show, it is certainly worth it. In our modern society many of us are eating ourselves to death, with NO IDEA of what we're doing to our bodies! I hope Jamie releases this show on DVD because I'll be buying myself a copy.

Next week, Wed 9:30pm on Channel Ten is another show by Jamie Oliver - "Jamie's Fowl Dinners", this time about the chicken and egg farming industries. I'm not looking forward to watching that one, but whilst I feel I want to avoid the discomfort of learning the truth, avoiding the truth never actually made the truth less true.

If you forgot to brush your teeth last night...

2008-05-16T11:55:00.009+10:00

I am a member of Spark People. It is a great resource for me to get ideas for how to motivate my clients as well as to get some personal inspiration of my own. Below is a bulletin board post from one of Spark People's members that was highlighted this week - it's a good one!

"If you forgot to brush your teeth last night, did you decide this morning to throw in the towel and never brush your teeth again? Since you're obviously a slob who doesn't have enough self- discipline to remember to brush your teeth, why bother brushing them at all if you forgot to last night?

Of course not.

So if you had ice cream for dinner last night, or didn't exercise yesterday, or gained a pound this week, don't throw in the towel! Make a healthier choice for dinner tonight by eating something lean. Go for a short walk. Weigh in again next week.

Just do NOT give up."

P.S. I forget to brush my teeth all the time! I know... that's yuck of me isn't it? Here's another bit of news for you: personal trainers and/or aerobics instructors sometimes put on weight too (shock, horror!).

International No Diet Day - Tuesday 6th May 2008

2008-05-05T17:36:00.003+10:00

So I just heard on the radio this afternoon that tomorrow is International No Diet Day. And to celebrate, you can head to The Butterfly Foundation at Federation Square tomorrow morning to receive your free inspirational postcard and sweet treat.

What is International No Diet Day supposed to represent? According to The Butterfly Foundation website, "This important day is designed to highlight the dangers of punitive & restrictive dieting & encourage people to accept their natural body shape."

Before today, I didn't know anything about The Butterfly Foundation. But having a browse through their website I like some of what I hear, e.g. promoting positive body image, teaching people to accept themselves, etc.

However, I do not think that giving out free sweets is the best way to protest going on a restrictive diet. By definition, a restrictive diet is one where you eat so little that your body is not getting the nutrients it requires to function at its best. Eating food that is otherwise typically known as junk food is going to provide energy, but is not going to provide much else in the way of nutrients.

It would seem to me that the wrong message is being sent - the message should be "Today is International Diet Day: we want to educate you so that you don't unnecessarily restrict your food intake in an attempt to get really thin."

Instead, the message that is being sent is, "Today is International Diet Day: so ditch the stupid diet! Here, let's have some free junk food."

Ironically enough, is it most likely that if anyone is going to be eating the "free sweet treats" tomorrow morning, it will not be those who are currently severely restricting their food intake (unless they plan to vomit it back up again).

The Biggest Loser Finale

2008-05-01T19:30:00.002+10:00

It's just about to start! How exciting. Two women in the final... my money is probably still on Sam but it would be nice to see Kirsten or Alison take out the title of the first ever female Biggest Loser... if Kirsten can't do it, not sure who else can, given her competitive nature.

They are all going to look so awesome! I hope they're doing that thing again where each contestant walks out alongside a life-size digital image of themselves at the start of the game!!!

Tips for a Successful Workout Program

2008-05-01T12:00:00.002+10:00

1. Exercise Daily.
3-4 times per week is fine if your goal is cardiovascular fitness, but weight loss is a different goal altogether. Research has shown that weight loss efforts are more successful if you exercise daily. Why? Read my previous post for one reason.

Make it a priority. The sooner you start building the habit, the better.

2. When you do cardiovascular exercise, make it brisk.
A leisurely stroll does burn energy (more so than sitting on the couch watching TV!) but if you are time-poor and need to make the most of your exercise minutes, aim for a slight amount of breathlessness. You should still be able to carry on a conversation but only between deeper-than-usual breaths. This breathlessness is an indicator that your heart rate is increased. The higher your heart rate, the harder your body is working and therefore the more calories you burn. As your fitness increases, you should find that you need to increase the pace/intensity of your exercise in order to achieve the same level of breathlessness.

3. Strength training 2-3 times per week.
This keeps your muscles stimulated and will encourage your body to maintain its muscle mass, and possibly even gain some. Remember - you want to lose fat, not muscle. Fat is dead weight - it is simply a form of energy storage utilised by your body. Muscle on the other hand is very much alive - the more muscle you have, the more energy you burn. And for the women out there who are worried they'll get bulky... you won't. I try to push myself hard in my strength sessions and have personal goals to increase my strength to lift heavier weights, and no one would ever describe me as bulky.

4. Change your program at least every 6 weeks.
Our bodies are amazing. They don't like to be stressed... so they adapt to cope with stresses better and more efficiently. So you need to keep changing your program in order to challenge your body to continue adapting. If you stick to the same routine for a long time, there will come a point where you hit a "plateau" which is another way of saying that your body has become efficient at doing whatever activities you are making it do, and so it doesn't need to adapt anymore.

5. Seek professional guidance.
You're probably thinking that now I'm just trying to make a sale. But that is far from the truth. One key element to a great training program is knowing how to do the exercises correctly and effectively. There is no point being able to do hundreds of chin ups, only to discover that this is because your arms are really strong and doing all the work and your back muscles are virtually doing nothing. Too often we focus on the end product (getting our chin up to the bar) rather than the process involved (activating the right muscles and getting them to work together as a team). Getting some sessions with a (good) personal trainer will set you up on the path to training success. And that trainer will also probably get a lot more effort out of you in a short session with him/her than you would get out of yourself in the same amount of time (which usually means more calories burnt during that time too!).

If finances are an issue, consider getting at least a few sessions to kickstart yourself, so that you can at least learn the correct technique and glean as much as you can from those session before you then try to go at it on your own. Or maybe request contributions towards sessions as birthday or Christmas gifts... after all, your personal health is one of the most valuable things your possess.

The same thing applies to group fitness classes, which are a service provided by most gyms at no additional cost. I know I work much harder during a Cycle class with an instructor urging me to push myself than just going for a cycle by myself in the cardio area of the gym (whilst watching a program on TV at the same time, which of course means I'm less focussed and don't work as hard).

6. Find something you enjoy!
If you hate running, then don't run. Simple as that. If you prefer the gym to the park, then by all means invest in a membership. In order to keep up an active lifestyle you need to find something you enjoy. Something that is able to get you up in the morning or out after a hard day's work (or during your lunch break). I don't try to cajole my husband into weekly aerobics classes, just like he'd never pressure me into joining him in a basketball game. Better yet, if you can find a friend or two that enjoy the same things you do, then you'll have a buddy to not only keep you accountable, but encourage you to keep going on days you feel like skipping a session.

It's Not Easy to Lose Fat ... Do the Math and See Why!

2008-04-26T13:47:00.005+10:00

I've been meaning to post this one for a little while, just never got around to it. But to mark the final week of the Biggest Loser contestants' residence in the White House, I thought now might be a good time to open some eyes.

I love watching The Biggest Loser. But one thing a lot of people just don't comprehend is how difficult it is to lose weight. So I thought a little math lesson in weight loss might help some of you to see what sort of effort is required to lose weight.

The generally recommended rate of weight loss amongst nutritionists and fitness professionals is between 0.5 to 1kg per week. This is considered to be both safe and maintainable in the long term. Does that rate sound too slow for you? Well then keep reading.

When I refer to "weight loss" I am specifically talking about FAT LOSS. Most of us are aware that if you drink 1L of water then you will weigh 1kg heavier... but losing water weight is not what ultimately will change your body shape.

For the purposes of this math lessons, let's be conversative and aim for a weekly loss of 0.5kg (500g) of fat. To lose weight, you essentially have to spend more energy than what you eat. So, how much energy is in 500g of fat?

1g fat = 9 calories
Therefore, 500g fat = 500 x 9 = 4500 calories

So in one week, you need to use 4500 calories more than you eat! Bet you didn't realise just how massive that number would be!

Let's break that down into a more manageable figure:

4500 calories per week = 4500 calories in 7 days.
Therefore 1 day = 4500/7 = 643 calories per day.

If you decide to try to lose weight through diet alone, I can guarantee that not only will you find this difficult, you will be hungry all the time. You will probably also be likely to not just lose fat weight, but muscle weight too. This in itself could be another blog post, but for now, just take my word for it that you do not want to lose muscle weight. Trust me.

640 calories is not burnt in a mere 30min brisk walk. Nowhere close!

30min moderate walk (6km/h) = 130 calories
30min brisk walk/light jog (8km/h) = 260 calories
30min run (10km/h) = 340 calories

This morning, I taught an aerobics class which was a combination of Step and Hilo. My heart rate monitor informed me that I burned 510 calories in 47mins (the class was actually 90mins long, but I kept forgetting to turn the computer monitor on at the start of my classes, so I'm generally only recording half of my classes... ugh!).

This might sound great to you - do a 1hr aerobics class, and Bob's Your Uncle, you've clocked in your daily 643 calorie burn time. What most people forget to factor into the equation is how hard do they work during the class? Some of my participants certainly do work hard, but others do not. And let me tell you, when I teach an aerobics class, I probably work harder than when I simply participate in a class. Sure, I sweat when I participate, but when I teach, I don't just sweat... it actually drips off me! According to what I've read online, on average you can burn about 300 calories in a 1hr Step class... maybe more in a Hilo class (if you work hard enough in the Hilo class that your average heart rate is higher than in a Step class).

The purpose of this post is not to paint an impossible picture and make you feel like you can't ever lose the weight. It's to help you appreciate that losing weight IS hard work. There are no shortcuts (apart from liposuction I suppose, and even that requires lots of $$ and pain!). If there were shortcuts, then our nation would not be going through an Obesity Epidemic.

And as for those diets that promise you will lose 7kg in 14 days ... they work short term but won't sustain you for life. Plus, that 7kg is not predominantly fat.

Next time: Tips for a Successful Workout Program

Step Routines

2008-04-19T14:00:00.002+10:00

I know this will make no sense to anyone else except for me and possibly some other instructors who might be able to decipher my language, but I just absolutely love my new step routines and had to publicly declare them somewhere.

Both routines total 32 counts and change legs ready to repeat on the other leg for a second set of 32.

Routine #1:

Reverse Straddle = 4 counts
Switch Curl = 4 counts
Chasse (around the step) x 2 = 4 counts
Gallop Straddle = 4 counts
Stomp Chasse x 2 (stomp on step first time, stomp on floor second time) = 8 counts
Rock Back = 4 counts
Single Knee = 4 counts

Routine #2:

Stomp + Pivot turn = 4 counts
Leap (sideways across step) = 4 counts
Samba over Step = 6 counts (referred to by some as 2 x Quick Steps)
Pivot = 2 counts
Gallop Straddle = 4 counts
Single Kick = 4 counts
Side Tap Forwards = 4 counts
Hop over Step = 2 counts
Skip (like a Chasse on the Spot) = 2 counts

Instead of the Hop & Skip at the end you could choose instead just to do a normal "Over the Top" for 4 counts.

I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP!
I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP!
I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP!
I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP!
I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP!
I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP! I LOVE STEP!

What does this Aerobics Instructor do in her free time?

2008-04-18T11:37:00.003+10:00

She practises her routines for the next few classes she's teaching in her living room, wearing pyjamas and a pair of Crocs (because practising barefoot, even on carpet, hurts more than wearing some sort of footwear).

And she avoids Ab exercises at all costs.

Step Aerobics

2008-04-14T15:00:00.002+10:00

I'm very excited this afternoon. Tonight I'm teaching a Step Class for the first time in a little while. It's an intermediate to advance class, so I finally get to re-showcase some routines I wrote back in March when I covered another instructor's Step class on Easter Saturday. I haven't had the opportunity to do those routine since, because the only other time I teach Step is on a Thursday morning for 20 minutes - not really long enough for me to delve into my beloved routines.

I love Step aerobics. I love it way more than Hilo. I mean, I do really like Hilo... but I absolutely LOVE Step. I can't wait until I get to regularly teach a full Step class of my own every week.

You get such a great workout whilst minimising the impact on your joints. You work up a sweat easily because for the entire class you have to step on and off a Step. For Hilo, I find I have to consciously work harder to try and get the same level of sweat factor.

Step absolutely rocks! If you've never tried it before and are considering it, do give it a go! But make sure you go to a class with a good instructor - in the world of freestyle aerobics, this makes a HUGE difference between whether you enjoy a class or not, whether it be Step, Hilo, THT, or any combination of these and other styles of classes.

Super-Challenge Results

2008-04-14T14:49:00.003+10:00

Recap - my guesses were:

Cosi's 200g Nestle Diet yoghurt ~ under 100cal
Kirsten's can of baked beans ~ assuming it's a small can, maybe 150-180cal?
Garry's 60g of Carmen's fruit muesli ~ 250-300cal
Sam's 55g Cadbury milk chocolate ~ 250-300cal
Alison's 74g McDonalds french fries ~ no idea! I would hazard a guess at 250-300cal, but
I'm putting it as higher than the chocolate because it weighs more, and I'm not sure which of the two have the higher fat%. I know chocolate is typically quite high... french fries might have a lower fat % because despite being deep fried the fat is on the outside not mixed right through the middle like chocolate, but then french fries have a large surface area.*
Michelle's 600mL bottle of Fanta ~ at least 300cal

According to the show, the actual caloric figures were:

200g Diet Yoghurt ~ 80 cal
220g Baked Beans ~ 181 cal
74g French Fries ~ 250 cal
60g Carmen's Muesli ~ 277 cal
55g Cadbury Chocolate ~ 290 cal
600mL Fanta ~ 304 cal

So in summary, I had 3, 4 and 5 mixed up. Some additional lessons to take away from this exercise:

1. Whilst some might "shudder" at the muesli being a higher calorie content than the fries, don't forget that 60g muesli is a MEAL for many, whereas 74g frieds is a SIDE that many adults buy for their children whilst they consume a medium or large size of their own.

2. Beware soft drink! A 600mL bottle has close to the same calorie content as a meal should contain (bearing in mind, women who want to lose weight should aim for 1200-1500cal per day... so a soft drink would be one quarter to one fifth of a woman's daily allowance!). Aside from the high caloric content, that amount of sugar in one sitting is not good for ANYONE.

3. The chocolate and muesli are almost the same calories... again, however, you would eat a bowl of muesli for breakfast, but there is no way a 55g serving of chocolate would be as satisfying (or good for you).

The Biggest Loser Super-Challenge!

2008-04-12T09:05:00.003+10:00

This was on TV last night. If you're a fan - wasn't it awesome to see the six contestants achieving what they did during the race? a 500m uphill run, followed by 4km bike ride, 3km canoeing on the sea (which included turning around a small island so it wasn't just canoeing in a straight line).

But then the nastiest part of all - six food items to choose from. The person who arrived first got the first choice of course, and the person who arrived last didn't get a choice at all. And whoever ended up with the food with the highest caloric content would be eliminated immediately.

Here is the order in which contestants finished the race, plus their food choices:

Cosi - 200g tub Nestle Diet yoghurt
Sam - 55g Cadbury milk chocolate
Kirsten - a can of baked beans (I'm not sure of the size but it looked like a smaller rather than larger size)
Michelle - 600mL bottle of Fanta (I think the normal kind rather than a diet variety but again, not sure)
Alison - small McDonalds french fries (weighing 74g)
Garry - 60g of Carmen's fruit muesli

What a dilemma. I actually think it would be worse to come 2nd or 3rd last instead of last because you could potentially not be the last to finish the race and yet have a hard food choice to make. Last year Damien got knocked out ... even though his amazing effort got him in 2nd last place (remember the guy was still carrying close to 200kg of body weight at the time) he chose a healthy food - eggs - but there were six of them, something he forgot to take into account!

My main issue with this challenge is that some of food items are clearly unhealthier than others (e.g. McDonalds vs muesli) and yet might have a lower caloric content due to portion sizes. However, when I thought more about it, this issue does teach a few important lessons for anyone wanting to lose or control their weight:

Portion size matters! You can still eat too much of a healthy food item and not lose weight, or gain weight. An example of this is fruit - yes, fruit it healthy, but it is also filled with sugar. Now if you were to eat, say, more than 4 servings every day in addition to your normal meals, this could be a contributing fact to why you're not shedding those unwanted kilos. Or you could be eating muesli for breakfast every morning but having double or triple what you need to have.
Many of us are aware that one factor of weight loss or maintenance is allowing ourselves to have treats, as long as the portion size and how often we have them is under control. Chocolate is a good example - many people, if deprived of this simple pleasure for too long, are likely to get out of control and have a binge. Again, the principle of portion control needs to come into play. Have a piece of cake on your birthday if that's what you've been looking forward to in the weeks leading up to it... but decide in advance to have one slice, decide on the size of that slice, savour and enjoy that slice, and don't go back for seconds!

So... what's my personal verdict on the above food items and their caloric order? Well it's a very tough call for a number of them, I wouldn't be surprised if several of the items are less than 30 calories apart, but here's my guess, from lowest to highest, plus my estimate of calories they contain (I'm really testing my knowledge here!):

Cosi's 200g tub Nestle Diet yoghurt ~ under 100cal
Kirsten's can of baked beans ~ assuming it's a small can, maybe 150-180cal?
Garry's 60g of Carmen's fruit muesli ~ 250-300cal
Sam's 55g Cadbury milk chocolate ~ 250-300cal (would have more fat than muesli)
Alison's 74g McDonalds french fries ~ no idea! I would hazard a guess at 250-300cal, but
I'm putting it as higher than the chocolate because it weighs more, and I'm not sure which of the two have the higher fat%. I know chocolate is typically quite high... french fries might have a lower fat % because despite being deep fried the fat is on the outside not mixed right through the middle like chocolate, but then french fries have a large surface area.*
Michelle's 600mL bottle of Fanta ~ at least 300cal

What do you think? How would you order the foods? Most importantly, which food would you have chosen and would you have been eliminated as a result?

*side note - knowing the fat % of these foods is importance because, gram for gram, fat is double the calories compared to carbs and protein. Fat is about 9cal per gram, carbs and protein are 4cal per gram. Hence the McDonalds chips being heavier than the chocolate should not be the only factor to consider... if this doesn't make sense to you, pop me a question.

My First THT Class

2008-04-01T22:42:00.003+11:00

Just to explain up front - THT stands for Tummies, Hips and Thighs. A popular one amongst the ladies... but remember, girls, you can't spot reduce! If you have no idea what I'm talking about I'll explain that one in another post ~ just remind me!

Tonight was fun. It wasn't the most challenging class I've ever delivered, but that was to be expected, as I had already explain to my participants that it would take a few weeks for me to get to know them and cater the class more to them.

Half the class - basic Hilo stuff. Anyone out there wanting to learn how to do aerobics, this would be a good class to get you started as I'm sticking to pretty basic choreography for a few weeks to get the newbies into it.

The other half - lots of sweat, ab crunches, butt crunches, and more. Fun stuff. Love it. Didn't used to, but somewhere along the line I learnt to.

Anyway my reason for writing this has nothing to do with describing my class and everything to do with what happened after. I left my CDs in the studio! Anyone who is a fellow instructor knows what a disaster this is. And it wasn't just the typical, "oops, I left one CD in the CD player", I left my entire folder of 18 CDs, $350+ worth just sitting on top of the stereo! How silly of me. James told me tonight at least I'll never do that again... I have my doubts.

I discovered this about 10 minutes before the gym's closing time, frantically called them, threw on a jacket and raced out to get my precious CDs, arriving within minutes of closing time. Knowing they were closing soon I didn't even get changed so there I was, my first night on the job rocking up to reception in pyjamas, a jacket and crocs.

At least I happened to have my nice pyjama pants on tonight.

BodyBalance - A Review

2008-03-31T14:58:00.002+11:00

One of the great things about being a group fitness instructor is that you typically get to use the facilities of the gyms at which you teach. This, for me, has opened up a whole new world of classes to try out.

One of these such classes was BodyBalance. Trying it for the first time yesterday morning, I felt so good afterwards that I went back this morning for more.

BodyBalance is a combination of Tai Chi, Pilates and Yoga. I have done Pilates but not the other two so I have no idea how well BodyBalance has incorporate the various aspects of these different practices. What I do know is that yesterday morning, my hamstrings felt tight, and at the end they were looser than they had been in several days. I also know that one of the Ab exercises was very effective - in a nutshell, it HURT! A lot!

I think this is one class I could definitely start attending regularly. In particular, because of my recent increase in aerobics activities, in particular and all the leg curls, double leg curls and single single double curls (you have to be a participant to know what I'm talking about here) I've been doing, I could certainly use the added support of additional stretching.

We spent almost an entire song ("Kissing You" from the Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo & Juliet movie) stretching our hammies. We also spent an entire song on balancing, first one foot then the other, and not just standing still on one leg but making all sorts of shapes and stuff using our arms. That's GOT to be good for me! I mean, I thought my balance was pretty good til then! Plus that'll help strengthen up my left ankle, which has been weaker than my right for months since I sprained it badly last year trying to hop in a 360 degree turn on my left leg.

I'm sure there are plenty of other benefits too - increase body and muscle awareness, relaxation... there are even strengthening components to the class. All I know is that I had fun and I'll be back for more.

A New Career for A New Year

2008-03-26T13:41:00.001+11:00

Thanks for those comments, Devi, Lowell, Athel, May and Chandre. Apologies if I missed anyone. I promise it wasn't just a cheap ploy to get comments, unlike my previous attempts. I forget though that sites like Multiply are good for letting people know you've actually written a post despite 6 months' silence.

Anyway I don't really know how to write this next post without it being really long so here it is in point form. If you have any further questions, you can comment, or message or email me, and we'll go from there. But who knows, a succinct series of bullet points may just about answer all your questions.

**I'm not longer working for Donna. I stopped about a month ago. I'm not exactly changing careers, in the sense that I'm still working in the fitness industry. But rather than being a personal trainer full time I want to split my working hours between personal training and aerobics instructing.

**I'm not currently working full time. In fact I seem to be playing a combination of house wife and aerobics instructor whilst I work on re-building a new client base on the personal training side of things.

**I've been teaching on average about 5 aerobics classes per week - which is more than enough for me right now. Mainly because my feet can't really take much more at this point ... I'm waiting for the blisters on the balls of my feet to turn into calluses. That's when I'll truly know that I have tough (and slightly ugly) feet. haha.

**For anyone who might be interested in coming along to one of my classes, my weekly regular classes are:

Tri 20, 10am Thursdays at Bennettswood Fitness - a combination of hilo aerobics, step aerobics and upper body exercises using hand weights
THT (Tummies, Hips & Thighs), 7pm Tuesdays at Aqualink Nunawading
Coming soon... Aerobics, 6pm Wednesdays at Deakin Uni YMCA - for all students out there this is a 6 week class starting April 9th.

My days as a personal trainer are, however, far from over. More will be revealed. I must admit though that teaching aerobics is such a refreshing change.

A commonly believed myth by many is that it is easy for personal trainers to stay in shape because we are around exercise all the time. This is FALSE. Like any job it can be easy to get so busy working that you don't set aside time to look after your own health. In case you haven't noticed, most personal trainers spend their days prescribing exercise and then supervising their clients ~ we don't exercise all day long with them!

Aerobics instructor world is, however, a completely different ball game. A personal trainer can work for 40 hours per week and not necessarily do much exercise, albeit the job is more active than a typical desk job. However if an aerobics instructor works for 20 hours a week, you can safely bet that he or she exercises that many hours too!

So a combination of the two will work nicely for me. I will no longer have to go to the gym or for a run just for the sake of getting some exercise. In fact, I find I work harder in a class that I teach myself compared to one that I participate in, because I'm setting the example. Fun stuff! I know, for some of you readers it would probably be your idea of hell on earth.

Making a slow comeback to BlogWorld

2008-03-20T17:07:00.002+11:00

I know I've been AWOL for a while. I think I'm back. There's a lot to update you on (so much!) but given I've been away for so long, I have no idea if anyone out there even reads or checks in on this anymore - I wouldn't blame you if you don't, after all it's been so many months I can't even count.

According to my sitemeter there's still a lot of weekly hits, maybe everyone's finally got themselves a Google reader? Or you're just really persistent. Scarily persistent.

So give me a holler (drop me a comment?) if you're reading, so I know whether I should even be writing on this thing still or not.

Love you all, miss you more.

I'm (Not Quite) Famous... in the Sunday Herald Sun!

2007-09-24T16:49:00.000+10:00

I was greeted by my boss this morning with, "Did you see your picture in the paper yesterday?"

No... I hadn't!
Several of my clients greet me in a similar way... it felt strange that everyone had seen a photo that I had not yet seen myself. I am not in the habit of reading newspapers - largely because I don't have time, but also because I don't like the smell or the way the ink gets all over my fingers. James thinks this is really weird, but I have real trouble eating when there is a newspaper within smelling distance of me, it's just really off-putting.

Upon discovering the news via sms from me, James - wonderful husband that he is - headed straight to his parents' house to see if they had a copy of yesterday's Sunday Herald Sun, and then when they didn't he went to the newsagent and got a copy. Speaking of which, I never knew that newsagents kept copies of previous days' newspapers for sale. But I'm thankful that they do.
So here's to my first ever photo in a newspaper. Mind you, I am most definitely the least famous person in the section, but it was still nice to have my photo in there. And my name, too. :) I've scanned the newspaper clipping - below - found in the "Snaparazzi" section of yesterday's Sunday Herald Sun, page 125.

P.S. I know I've been off the blog scene for a while now. Been working 6 days and attending a Group Fitness Instructor course on the 7th, which has left little room for much else, let alone surfing the net. But I'll be back and regular someday... I love it too much.

"I knew you were going to say that!"

2007-08-29T03:37:00.000+10:00

This is a phrase James and I often say to each other. Another common one is, "I was just thinking that too!"

I find it fascinating that after 3 years of marriage (we celebrate our 3rd anniversary a week from today) we often think the same thing at the same time. This phenomenon becomes particularly apparent when travelling in the car or during ad breaks on TV, when one of us will make a particular observation, to which the other will respond, "that's what I was just thinking!"

Even less coincidental is when an event or observation reminds both of us of the same thing that needed doing or discussing. The two may be mildly related but are unrelated enough to still generate surprise that the other was thinking the same thing.

And then there's that ability we seem to possess to accurately predict the other person's reaction to an event, comment or joke.

Is it just us or does it happen to you too?

You MUST check out this site!

2007-08-27T15:34:00.000+10:00

http://www.ropeartist.com/

My boss showed it to me at work today. The amount of control Aaron has over his body is amazing - in his own words, he "performs ballet on a rope".

My boss is having an official launch party for our new studio and this guy will be performing at it. Cool!

Another thing - I now feel like an official part of the team. My profile is on the website and everything! If you want to check it out, send me a message or email and I'll email you the link. I just don't want to put it here for the world to see cos it's got my work address and everything on it.

Been Offline A While... here's why

2007-08-20T14:21:00.000+10:00

Sorry, friends. I know I've barely been around in Multiply/BlogSpot/Facebook world. I've been at work. As of late my average waking time is 4:30am (for a 6am start at work). I've transformed from "I'm not a morning person" to "7am is a major sleep-in for me"!

... and I'm often in bed by 8:30pm.

Oh, and I now work 6 days a week.

Most other people would find this tiring. Apart from often being well and truly ready to go to bed by dinnertime, I am loving my current situation.

At one point in my life, I wanted to study to become a doctor. But now I'm glad I didn't. I wanted to do it to "help people". But what I'm doing now helps people too! I believe that what I am doing is saving lives... Sure, I'm no heart surgeon. But I'm playing my part in helping to reduce the number of people who need a heart surgeon - one life at a time.

And this is what wakes me up and pulls me out of bed on a cold, frosty Saturday morning at 4:30am (that and my husband, who is so dedicated to supporting me that he also gets up with me!)

What does it take to get YOU out of bed?

Something to Do

2007-07-30T10:33:00.000+10:00

It's 2:30 in the afternoon and I am stuck with a problem so extraordinary that I don't remember the last time I encountered it.

I have nothing to do.

It feels weird. And yet, I feel like there should be heaps to do - only a month ago I felt like 24 hours was not enough in a day and yet I am sitting here, blogging, for lack of something to do. Usually I blog when I should be doing something else (probably sleeping, studying or reading a book).

And I haven't been lazy. Really! I mean, I was up this morning, bright and early (okay, more like DARK and early cos it was 4:30am). Did my first shift at the new studio - as of today my boss opened a second studio which is now my new workplace... more on that in the future. Finished work at 1pm, came home, lunched, and now here I am.

I acutally did have all these grand plans to work on our home budget but the laptop is nowhere to be found - I think James has nicked off with it. So I'm sitting here blogging. And probably boring you to bits.

I supposed some of you have read this far and are still stuck on learning that new fact about me getting up at 4:30am on an average morning. Well, it's not every morning - on Saturdays I don't have to be up til 5:30am (yes, to answer your question this will probably kill off what little Friday night social life I once had), and Wednesdays may become a sleep in day because I work evenings. And who knows? If I am somehow able to acquire that elusive skill of being able to put an entire face of makeup on in 10 minutes like some people claim they can (how the HECK do you do it? and it always looks so great. *sigh*) I may be able to push all these wake up times forward by 10-15 minutes.

Now I've just got to think hard - what was on that seemingly endless list of tasks that I had to do?

Oh yes... I could clean out my closet. You know, finally sort through and chuck out those clothes that I haven't worn for almost 2 years because they're two sizes too big (yay) for me. Except that I actually really like some of them... and given that an average healthy weight gain for pregnancy is about 10-12 kgs... I could find those clothes useful. Only, will they be out of fashion by the time I even think about having babies?

Gosh, I CANNOT believe that I am planning ahead for pregnancy. What is wrong with me? I really do have nothing to do.

I think I'll just go now and clean out that closet.

Super-Sized Ambulances for Super-Sized People?

2007-07-27T13:23:00.000+10:00

I can't believe it.

On my way to work this morning one of the news reports on the radio was that of customised extra-large ambulances being built. There is a growing need for these as the percentage of morbidly obese people in our population rises.

These ambulances will be able to transport people to a maximum weight of over 400kg. This includes the installation of a custom-made lift on the side of the ambulance to help paramedics get patients into the ambulance.

The cost of one of these babies is estimated at about 200, 000 per contraption - and that's just the lift, not the entire ambulance!

I wish someone out there would take that same amount of money and put it into the health and fitness industry so we could better equip Personal Trainers, Fitness Instructors, Life Coaches and others to do their job properly.

There are too many radio ads stating "become a Personal Trainer in 8 weeks and be your own boss." Stupid ads! They attract people who do it for the money, or for themselves. Where are the people who are doing it for their clients?

Balut - Delicious Delicacy or Disgusting Duck?

2007-07-26T16:53:00.000+10:00

Responses to some of the comments on my Balut photo album:

*****

Brave? I wish I had a video - James ate his with ease, instantly recognising that this was "simply" a test of mental strength. It took me 5-10 minutes of staring at mine and making funny noises before I could bring myself to eat it. The funny thing is, I've eaten this stuff once before so I already knew how it tasted... but the little baby ducky looked so sad, so forlorn, so... dead.

*****

It tasted quite nice - like the yolk part of a hard boiled egg, only softer and creamier. I know... just the word "creamy" in relation to an embryo is making some of you grimace. In fact, it even tasted healthy, especially after having eaten out so much and feeling like I've had at least 2 years' worth of my fried food allowance in the space of 2 weeks!

*****

But... who came up with the idea in the first place? Does anyone know? Did someone hard boil an egg only to crack it open to discover it had an embryo in it, but then being Asian didn't want to waste good food so they ate it anyway? This question shall be added to my list of food questions (e.g. who thought of putting chicken together with avocado?) until I find an answer.

*****

Regarding the Fear Factor comment - somehow I don't think Balut is anywhere near as bad as drinking an entire raw Ostrich egg (or some other large bird - it looked like about 2 litres of the stuff!). Did you happen to see that episode? I also think I'd much rather eat Balut than live worms... or coackroches. Ugh.

*****

Filipinos - you will be pleased to know that your national delicacy does have international fame. Balut-eating was featured as a challenge in one season of Survivor, although I forget which one. And they didn't just eat one, they ate up to four or more... the person who ate the most won.

*****

Stay tuned for a Balut-eating tutorial video... coming soon to a Multiply site near you!

My Dad & Mum - random thoughts

2007-07-14T10:45:00.000+10:00

My Mum is working in a kindergarten teaching cute little kiddies. I never knew my Mum was so great with kids. On Saturday mornings she gives small group private tuition to three of the kids in her class. Can you believe that kindergarten aged kids in Malaysia need tuition? That's how early Asians instill the "workaholic" mindset into their children. And by kindergarten I mean 2 to 4 year olds!

According to my Dad, within weeks of my Mum tutoring these three girls, their performance in school improved dramatically. So much so that there are other kindergarten parents who want my Mum to tutor their kids! However she wants to maintain a high level of service to her students so she refuses to take more than the three she currently has. My Mum, in high demand! Wow - I'm so proud of her.

***

Every time we go back to Malaysia there is always that inevitable list of items we are requested to bring over from Australia. Things that either cannot be purchased in Malaysia or are of a much better quality in Australia. Without fail, on that list is a 500g bag of jelly beans - the kind that can only be found at your local Amcal pharmacy. My Mum uses these to "bribe" some of her children to behave. I shudder to think that one day my children's grandmother could be bribing them with jelly beans... or that they would prefer to stay at my parents' house because they get access to junk food there that their Mum wouldn't allow them to have at home. Haha. Perhaps that will be a funny story for a day in the future.

***

For the last 4 years or so, my Dad has put his heart and soul into working to turn around the family business in Malaysia. Just like any other type of change, it has involved a lot of negotiating, conflict, and heartache. All this time, I thought my Dad was doing it mainly as a service to my grandmother. As a part-owner, it forms a large part of her livelihood and therefore essential to a comfortable living particularly as she gets older.

It never occurred to me that the business also employs dozens of locals, therefore in turning the business around my Dad is not only trying to do what he considers his duty as the oldest son to look after my grandma, he also recognizes that if the business closes down, literally hundreds - all the employees plus their families - could be left with nowhere to turn. Some of the employees have worked for the business for 25-30 years, ever since their teenage hood. They would definitely have nowhere else to go for employment! This has given me an even more profound respect for my Dad.

My Dad hopes that when the employees realize how much he cares for them and how willing he is to be loyal to them, this will generate loyalty amongst them. He's the sort of person, however, who will never tell them that a large part of the reason he's making some of the changes is to keep the business going and therefore to benefit them in proving them jobs. I hope, for his sake, and for theirs, that they do find out one day. If I could speak the language, I'd tell them myself.

***

No one is perfect. Sure, I have my disagreements with my parents. But my love, admiration and respect for them reaches far beyond any irks I might have with them. Compared to how much they have given and sacrificed for me, my brother and my sister, compared to how much they clearly love me, compared to what a wonderful example they have set for me with their lives... the rest is most definitely inconsequential. I hope one days my kids will say the same things about James and me.

Filipino Food Adventures

2007-07-09T19:05:00.000+10:00

I must admit, I had a challenging time finding food that I was willing to eat for lunch and dinner in Manila. I suppose I could have just made life easier and settled for fast food, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Thankfully, from 15 July we will be staying with some Filipino friends so will have the advantage of insiders' advice on food, but in the meantime I am left subject to the food on offer at the malls.

My first dinner experience was at Megamall food court: I ordered a pork steak grilled on a hot plate and an additional plate of vegetables. They were my favourite veggies - “tung choi”, also known as “morning glory”. However, they arrived swimming - no, drowning - in oyster sauce. The pork steak was also drenched, covered by some sort of gravy thickened up with a mound of corn flour. Nothing like what the picture displayed - a nice, clean pork steak - no sauce - sitting next to very neat pile of rice. I did manage to rescue my dinner out of their sauces as much as possible… the sauce on the pork was so thick that I could just scrape it off with a fork.

For lunch the next day, we found a lovely Asian store where I ordered a delicious piece of steamed fish fillet, complete with an Asian-style dressing of coriander, soy sauce, ginger and probably fish sauce. Ordered my favourite tung choi again. This time it had soy sauce instead of oyster, a much preferred option to the previous evening.

For dinner that evening, I discovered a Mongolian store in my search for fabulous food. I purchased a bowl which I then filled with whatever I wanted. This gave me complete control over exactly what and how much veggies, meat and sauce went into my meal. A fabulous feed for a fabulous fee.

So concludes part 1 of my Filipino Food adventures. Now it's on to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia - home of my parents, sister, grandma and other extended family. I'm looking forward to some good, familir home-cooked food after 3 days of eating out.

Filipinos seem to love their Fast Food

2007-07-09T18:36:00.000+10:00

I have never seen so many fast food outlets in one single place in my entire life. Megamall, one of many shopping centres, boasts a huge array of fast food outlets. Yes it certainly lives up to its name - it is massive - yet it can’t be more than about 2 ½ times the size of Chadstone shopping centre, and it definitely has more than 2½ times as many fast food outlets.

The following is but a small sample of what I saw at Megamall, and by no means extensive: McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Donut King, Krispy Kreme, Mrs Fields, Wendys, Jollibee, Greenwich, Gonuts Donuts, BreadTalk. I can’t keep going because I don’t even remember the names of half the stores.

Do humour me and allow me add to the picture being painted:

A number of stores had more than one outlet – I saw two outlets for McDonalds, KFC, Krispy Kreme, Pizza Hut, Donut King, a store that sells Brownies… and three Jollibees!! Jollibee seems to be the premier fast food joint in Manila, as opposed to the traditional McDonalds in most countries.

Not only were there multiple stores for many fast food outlets, the stores themselves boasted a floor space of double, sometimes triple that of the average clothing store. And they were always filled with people.

It seemed to me that 50% of Megamall's occupancy was food stores, of which 50% or more were fast food.

There was a vast array of non-franchise fast food stores too, including at least half a dozen different donut stores, multiple bakeries (Asian bakeries often stock a lot of sweet breads and are more like fast food than what you might find at a bakery in Australia), brownie shops, ice cream vendours, bubble milk tea, “fruit juice” stores, fried chicken, all-you-can-eat buffets, Mexican food, pizza stores… the list just goes on.

Even James thought there was a huge amount of fast food on offer - if that isn't telling you something, then I don't know what will!

There seemed to be deep fried versions of just about any food you could possibly name.

The thingis - they're all so little.... where does all that food go?

Kids

2007-07-03T12:31:00.000+10:00

I'm not clucky. Never have been. I can appreciate a cute baby but I have never, and will never, use the phrase "you're so cute I want to eat you!". I enjoy holding the odd baby here and there but will never join the crowd surrounding one for hours on end cooing at him/her.

I think I prefer kids when they're just a bit older, starting to learn a bit of independence, and can communicate with me using words.

Why am I sharing this? It was really just an excuse to send you to a link - click here for a video of Nathan Staggers displaying his newfound reading skills. The conversation he has with his Dad before and after the reading portion of the video is a demonstration of his intelligence. Enjoy!

Gyms in Manila?

2007-06-25T20:50:00.000+10:00

James and I depart for Manila on Saturday 7 July. My first ever visit... finally! I've been wanting to go there since I was 17. It only took me 8 years to finally get around to it.

We'll be there until 24 July. Which means that if you are reading this and you know your way around Manila, you can help me. Is there a local gym you can recommend I check out whilst I'm there? I'd just love to see how another country does stuff and how it differs from Australia.

Gosh... if I have to, I might even pop into a Fitness First. But what I'd really prefer is a true blue Filipino-branded gym, if indeed this does exist.

If you currently live in Manila, any chance you can find out whether your local gym accepts day visits or guest passes (e.g. do they sell a one or two week guest pass)?

Get it right... please!

2007-06-21T20:09:00.000+10:00

I have been spending every spare moment of my time studying, studying, studying to get this Certificate III & IV done once and for all. My final exam is booked for Tuesday 26 June ~ I can't wait til it's all over and I can be let loose to blast the fat of Australia out of bodies and into oblivion.

Which leads me on to a minor... complaint, if that's what you want to call it.

There have been errors scattered throughout some the text books I've been studying. Typos I can handle. Even the occasional incorrectly spelled word that is clearly not a typo. The odd wrong formatting... pushing it, but still bearable.

But incorrect usage of words? Forget it. It peeves me that whoever wrote the texts cannot tell the difference between AFFECT and EFFECT.

A child's development is not effected by their participation in physical ability, it is AFFECTED!

Affect is a verb, effect is a noun. Learn the difference and get it right... please!

Once in a while I see this misuse and I can let it go, but it's been sprinkled so liberally throughout my texts that I just had to vent and let it out somewhere.

Am I the only person in the world who has issues with stuff like this?

Currently Loving...

2007-06-13T21:25:00.000+10:00

*Being a Personal Trainer!!!
*Smith machines, single leg dead lifts, swiss ball pikes and L sits
*Going to the gym on Tuesdays (props to Shane & Dave)
*Vanilla Creme Protein Supreme, flax seed oil, Donna's vanilla cherry power shakes, Emma's 'legal' muesli, raw nuts & winter-warming soups
*My new boots and my new pyjama pants (but not worn together!) and my new lip gloss (finally found the perfect colour!)
*Big Girls Don't Cry by Fergie (hear it on my MySpace profile) and Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely) by Pink
*The electric blanket on my bed

Always aim for the moon...

2007-06-13T21:07:00.000+10:00

...you may not make it, but you just might grab a star on the way by!

I love this quote. I love that recently, despite my own fears and self-doubts, I aimed for the moon. That I had friends and a husband who encouraged me to go for it, reminding me I had nothing to lose.

I am into week 3 of my job. I think it's my dream job, I really do. I wanted to work as a personal trainer, and I am being given the opportunity to. I wanted to be in a place where I could learn, learn, learn... this is the place for me.

I have learnt a lot in the short two and a half weeks that I've been at the studio, and what excites me is that I know there is so much more to learn!

New stuff that I am intrigued by:
- Single leg dead lifts using a Smith machine
- L sits
- Swiss ball pikes
- Swiss ball ab braces with the added challenge of touching my knees to the ball

Favourite Gym Equipment

2007-06-09T19:51:00.000+10:00

Currently, my favourite piece of equipment is the Smith Machine. It's so versatile! So much so that James and I have plans to purchase one. Admittedly, it's a cheap version from Kmart but we tested it out tonight and it does the job okay, i.e. it won't kill us by unexpectedly dropping a heavy weight on our necks.

Looks like the "Poker Room" might be transformed into a mini home gym before the month is out.

Now all I want to do is get my hands on a Gymstick!

Trapeze Workshop

2007-06-01T19:02:00.000+10:00

I'm a trapeze artist! Okay, not quite ~ I don't think professional trapeze artists actually squeal whilst they're swinging on the trapeze.

At my new job (which I love... lots!), every Friday afternoon we are invited to participate in something educational as part of an informal staff learning & development program. Today's activity ~ trapeze lessons! I asked if I could bring James along because there were extra spaces available in the class, which my boss kindly agreed to.

James pretty much nailed his challenges first time through everything, which makes for impressive but not necessarily funny videos. Mine are a bit funnier. Unfortunately we didn't catch some of our funniest moments on video, but here are a selection of some of our antics.

Video #1 - my first ever swing on a trapeze:

Video #2 - my first attempt at somersaulting off a trapeze:

Video #3 - a catch! Got it on my second attempt:
(James nailed it on his first attempt, of course)

For more videos, click here to go to my Trapeze playlist on YouTube. The above 3 videos are showcased there, as are 4 more, including several of James in action, and they are listed in chronological order.

P.S. James did so well that my workmates were asking me if by any chance I found him in a circus. I thought that was pretty funny.

P.P.S. Apologies to those of you with terrible bandwidth and can't watch the videos, we tried to take photos but they are all way too blurry to be worth posting!

Wrandom Writings

2007-05-29T15:10:00.000+10:00

My love and gratitude to you family and friends who have offered your congratulations and support to me regarding my recent career update announcement. I love you and wouldn't be where I am today without you!

***

James has been laughing at me for the last two weeks because it suddenly occurred to him that pursuing my new career path will require me to be out of bed every morning earlier than he! James has always been a morning person. When we first got married, I definitely was not a morning person! Now, by default, I am.

***

I have only been to work for one day (yesterday) and I love it already. I love the atmosphere, the work environment, the clients and most of all, the team that works there! Everyone has been so friendly and welcoming. Can I see myself in this place for years to come? Yes!

***

It is easier to get out of bed at 5am then at 8am. It was decidedly warmer at 5am yesterday morning than any other morning that I've woken up in winter! I know that sounds weird, but Matt, one of the trainers at the studio, confirmed it - he told me that it's usually warmer at 5am in the morning and then it cools down by 8am. That's a very comforting fact for me to hold on to.

***

Getting this new job has given me a new motivation to complete my studies and do them well. There came a point during the course when I had just had enough of assignments. The first few study topics were fantastic, but when I discovered that one of my most recent assignments was to write up a business plan, I felt this was a bit of a waste of my time, simply because at this point in my career I am not thinking about business, and whatever business plan I come up with now will probably have changed once I've gained some experience. Now, I have a new drive to complete the task at hand, even though, secretly, I would rather be reading more books on exercise and nutrition instead.

***

I unexpectedly ran into my new friends at the gym today. I met them about 3 weeks ago, and usually see them on Thursdays but discovered today that they also train on Tuesdays. This turned out to be a good thing because one of them spotted my bench presses for me. I haven't done bench presses for 2 weeks so I really needed that extra assurance. Thanks, Dave!

***

If you're sick and tired of the same old push ups, try something new - put your feet on a Swiss ball and it won't be long before you notice the increase in difficulty. The closer you put your feet together, the more challenging the exercise. This is my new favourite exercise.

***

It just started raining like cats and dogs outside. Definitely heavier than I've seen in a while. This could be a fantastic opportunity to test out how well my spunky new Nike+ running jacket protects my iPod, but I just don't feel like getting wet right now. Plus, I have to go write up that business plan.

Reflections on a Sudden Career Move

2007-05-25T22:21:00.000+10:00

If you read my post on May 16, followed by the email I sent tonight, you may be wondering - what happened to the job at the gym? All this time, that's the job I've been talking about, so where did this seemingly out-of-the-blue change spring out from?

The studio where I start next week is indeed different to the gym. The opportunity had presented itself quite suddenly. It was announced in one of my lectures last week ~ my immediate reaction was that there was no way I would be considered for, let alone offered, the job that was being advertised. It just sounded too good for me. And yet there were butterflies in my stomach when I read the job description and requirements. It sounded like it was describing me!

My thoughts turned to the gym ~ wouldn't it be unfaithful to send in an application for a different job? Didn't Glen tell me several months ago that faithful staff were difficult to find?

I expressed my fears and doubts to James and Daniela ~ they both encouraged me to go for it. After all, what did I have to lose? So I decided to give it a go. But then, on May 16, I was given my gym uniform! Doubts re-presented themselves. But James and Dan's encouragements echoed in my head, along with that gut-wrenching feeling that this was just something I was supposed to do!

So, the same night that I received my gym uniform, I submitted my resume to the studio.

I felt a bit guilty, but then appeased myself with thoughts that nothing would probably come of my submission. How wrong was I!

The very next morning, I received a call from the studio - they wanted an interview with me. I accepted, still thinking that the competition for the job was probably quite high, and glad for at least the opportunity to meet and talk to an industry leader and expert in person.

Five days later, I went to the interview. I was invited back the following morning to observe what the work environment was like during one of their busiest operation times. At the end of that observation time, I was asked if I wanted the job. Was she serious? Was she REALLY offering me this job? Was I awake or dreaming? Of course I wanted it!

I was excited about this opportunity. But you know what blessed me so much? She and her team were excited to have me... wow!

In the five days between the phone call and the interview, I visited several libraries to try and borrow as many books as possible that had been written by the woman who owns the studio. I thought that I could gain some insight into how she thinks and what her values and philosophies are by reading some of her books.

The more I read, the more I liked. Every impression of her that her books were giving me was positive. She was someone I wanted to emulate, a role model I wanted to learn from.

At the gym, I knew that with time, I would settle into the job, even though my first impressions were a little uneasy (for no particular reason and at no personal reflection upon anyone who works there - maybe it was simply how my personality meshed with the work environment). However, in the studio, I just felt that the working environment would be one in which I would not just grow, but flourish. For me, the job at the gym was a good offer. But the studio offer was a great one.

At a personal level, the choice was easy. The logistics were not - yesterday I went to the gym and told the manager of the job I had been offered. He wasn't very happy. Who would be? I felt terrible. I felt that I had given him the impression I would be working there, and then didn't follow through. The truth was that my full intention had been to work there. I hadn't been looking elsewhere, I had never considered looking elsewhere and giving myself a list of options. But "elsewhere" literally placed itself in my lap.

So whilst there is a small ache in my heart because I feel that I have set up someone's expectations at the gym only to let him down, I know that the job at the studio is the path that I am meant to take. I just know it in my heart.

And if I am to follow my dreams and make them into reality, there is nothing more I can do at this point in time other than to follow my heart. Even though, sometimes, that can hurt in some places.

Instant Gratification

2007-05-25T21:50:00.000+10:00

I love the internet!

Where else can you instantly send an email to all your friends and family telling them about the great new job you just got? Where else can you do it faster, more efficiently, to as large an audience?

Where else can you receive multiple responses within minutes offering their love and congratulations?

And where else can you have your online guestbook signed by a friend a mere 12 minutes after sending your announcement email, because your email had your Multiply website listed in the signature, which, unbeknownst to you, your friend was also a member of, so now you are both connected through such a great site?

Announcement (Career Update)

2007-05-25T21:38:00.000+10:00

An email that I sent out to everyone in my address book tonight:

Dear Friends and Family,

Apologies for the impersonal nature of this mass email but I knew of no other way to spread my great news as quickly as effectively as this. Some of you may be receiving this "out of the blue" because we haven't been in touch for months or maybe years... if so, I miss you and hope you are doing well! You're on my email list because you're still important to me even though I've done a terrible job of keeping in touch.

Most of you will already know that early this year I commenced part-time study to become a qualified Fitness Instructor and Personal Trainer. Most of you will also be aware that I would be finishing the course around this time of year. In actual fact, I attended my final class just this past Monday! I still have a few assignments and exams to complete in order to receive my official qualification, but I'm almost there!

The purpose of this email is to let you know about my next career move. Early this week I was given the opportunity of attending an interview for a position as a Personal Trainer in a private studio based in Toorak. When I first heard that they were seeking a Trainer, my initial reaction was, "there's no way I would get a job like that!". I had in my heart settled for a "normal gym job" in one or maybe two different local gyms. However, I decided to give it a go - Thank you to the friends and family members who encouraged me to take a shot at it.

I am sure you can guess the outcome seeing as I am sending this email: I got the job! I will be working part-time to begin with for several months during which I will be a "trainee trainer" - i.e. I won't yet train clients but I will be trained in how the studio operates and their style of training people. If all goes well, after this training period I will be unleashed as a full-time trainer.

I am extremely excited about this opportunity that I have been given. My passion for promoting health and wellness in individual lifestyles has only grown with time. The woman who owns and operates the studio has at least 20 years' experience in the fitness industry and is widely known to many as a leader and expert in the field. What I am most excited about is the opportunity to learn anything and everything that I can from the wealth of knowledge that she and the rest of her training team are offering me as a new employee - I want to be great at what I do, so who better to learn from than other great people who have gone way before me.

Thank you for your love, encouragement and support. Without you backing me, I wouldn't have had this opportunity to step into doing something I am passionate about and will thoroughly enjoy.

much love,
Fiona

My First Half-Marathon (+2km) !

2007-05-23T16:43:00.000+10:00

After months of anticipation, the Great Ocean Road Marathon weekend came and went... just like that!

In the 4 weeks leading up to the big event, James and I faithfully trained every Saturday morning with a long run (with of course shorter runs in the days between each session). By the event day the furthest we'd run was 18km.

5:45am ~ pre-race preparations:

6:15am on Sunday 20 May found Daniela, Rehana, James and I standing at a petrol station in Apollo Bay, near the race finish line, with over 100 other competitors, waiting to catch a bus to the start line, a mere 23km away. Brett had already gone on ahead ~ he had further to travel to get to his start line 45km away.

When asked if I was nervous, I said I wasn't. Perhaps I was feeling too cold to be nervous. But as we boarded the bus and it drove us further and further away from the finish line, the butterflies in my stomach were awakened. 15 minutes later, we were still driving, and I began to wonder if we would ever stop ~ given that the bus was driving along the exact route we were about to run, I knew that the further the bus drove, the further we had to run.

"James... why on earth did you agree to do this with me, and why didn't you talk me out of it?"
He just laughed.

The starting area was filled with hundreds of people, all waiting to do the same thing as us. The pre-race lines to the toilets were devastatingly long... I was about to give up and head to the start line, but decided to give it one last try, and made it in with a mere 2-3 minutes to spare! Mind you, I did end up going in the mens' toilet, as the ladies' line was still at least double the mens'... you gotta do what you gotta do!

Despite fears of possible showers during the race, the weather was lovely - except for the odd strong, bitey "breeze" threatening to freeze my fingers off and blow me back up the hill that I'd just run down.

In the end, I completed the 23km in 2:21:36.2, placing me 672 overall. James placed in at 600 with a race time of 2:13:38.6 - good on you, James!

I am not sure how many people competed overall, but on the results page I am about halfway down page 4 out of 5, so I shall make it my goal to advance a page by next year, or something like that. :)

Immediately after the race, my legs were aching all over. You name it, it was hurting! My feet were complaining about being pounded against the road for so long. I have never felt that sort of pain in my quads before. My glutes were rejoicing because I had finally stopped working them into the ground.

James lovingly offered to stretch the hammies for me ~ what a wonderful guy!

One thing is for sure - if you have a certain base level of endurance fitness, the main thing you need to build is your mental strength, because for most of us average Aussie citizens, a race of this proportion is truly a case of mind over matter.

The victorious runners brandishing their "completion" medals:

"Graduation" - !!!

2007-05-16T22:41:00.000+10:00

Glen sat me down tonight and asked if I would be willing to do a permanent roster shift - every second Saturday morning, commencing two weekends from tonight. Of course I said yes! Minutes later, he declared that he was putting me through my graduation ceremony. He opened a cupboard which was filled with boxes...

I thought to myself, "Oh, right, he's inducting me in as a newbie by getting me to clean out and organize this cupboard."

But actually it was much nicer than that - I got to rummage through the boxes and pick out my uniform!

Wanna see pics? Here they are!

1. With my jacket on:

2. Without my jacket on:

3. James and I were so impressed with the apparent growth in size of my bicep since the last time I took bicep-flexing pics, that we had to take another, more revealing photo:

4. And finally, my favourite ~ the don't-I-look-cool-with-my-jacket-over-my-shoulder pose:

Bee Stings? Forget it!

2007-05-14T23:29:00.000+10:00

Did my First Aid course today which is a requirement to be registered as a Fitness Instructor. I guess they must automatically expect us to pass because I received my certificate, hand-delivered to me by my instructor, before I'd even packed my bag ready to leave at the end of the day.

The exam consisted of 50 multiple choice questions. I got 49 correct. So if you choke, or need CPR, or have an embedded object in your arm and lots of blood pouring out of the wound, according to my test results I should be competent enough to give you First Aid.

...but if you get stung by a bee, watch out! That was the question I got wrong.

My New Favourite Shopping Street

2007-05-13T16:37:00.000+10:00

Smith Street, Fitzroy.

Home of the sports outlet stores. James, Ash & I spent a couple of hours there yesterday. The Nike outlet store... I love it! I love Nike's running attire. I wanted a Nike running jacket. Not only did I find myself a spunky jacket but it is rain-proof and from the Nike+ range, which means it's got a cool hidden sleeve for my iPod and protects it from a downpour! It also has little elastic hooks that travel up one arm towards my ears, especially made for the headphones.

The jacket was outlet-priced AND had an additional 30% off because of a store-wide sale. I just love a bargain.

Work Experience

2007-05-02T21:02:00.000+10:00

I just got back from my first shift at the gym. You've been wondering when I was finally going to start, so there's your answer. I haven't finished my classes yet though - these next three weeks I will work a total of 6 shifts as a part of my training to complete my course.

The Group Fitness Instructor course didn't end up going ahead. Instead, I'll probably be signing up for a course that commences in September. Maybe it was a God-send, because I had a chat tonight with a fitness instructor ~ his opinion was that the September course is the best one around and he had very high recommendations for it.

Think... then Act

2007-05-02T20:53:00.000+10:00

Ever had one of those moments where you did something, and in a split second right after acting, you realized how stupid it was, but by then it was too late to do anything about it, so all you could do was stare in horror as the consequences of your actions unfolded before your very eyes?

On Monday night, we had to take turns leading our classmates in a short group fitness class. Somehow I ended up being the last one to have my turn. And for reasons beyond my control, my turn started at 10:15pm, 15 minutes past the end of class time.

Needless to say, I felt the urgency of the matter.

In trying to pass Swiss balls to people at the other end of the room, for some reason I decided to throw one in that general direction. Of course I didn't think to take note of the height of the ceiling. And of course it was too low. So of course it bounced straight back off the ceiling and hit the girl next to me in the head.

What was I thinking? Clearly, I wasn't. Thank God it wasn't a medicine ball!

Footy Tipping

2007-04-25T11:15:00.000+10:00

The last time I joined a footy tipping competition was at Whitley College, when I lived there. I was given two options:

Put in all my tips for the entire season
Tip each week, round-by-round

Knowing that I would probably forget to submit my tips each week, I chose option #1.

Having no knowledge whatsoever of which teams were good and which weren't, I asked a friend to tell me the top four teams and bottom four teams from the previous year's season ladder. I then created a "fool-proof" system for my tips choices - for each game, if one team was top four the previous year, I chose that team and if one team was bottom four, I chose the other team. If neither team was top or bottom, I guessed. Simple.

And it took me less than 10 minutes to complete.

My system proved to be more fool-proof than I would every have imagine, because at the end of the season, they announced the winner... me!

So this year, when I was approached to join the footy tipping competition at my gym, I thought, why not? I have a little more of an idea of the teams' performance, and this time around I am actually committed to a team - Go Sainters!! Besides, James could always help me. So I entered.

My results so far (i.e. number of tips I got correct):

Round 1 - 4/8 - tipped with James' help
Round 2 - 2/8 - tipped without James' help so you can see how hopeless I am at it
Round 3 - 7/8 - tipped with James' help
Round 4 - 4/8 - forgot to submit tips, allocated "away" teams as my tips

Based on the above results and my past, I have made the following observations:

Ignorance isn't just bliss. It also helps me to tip better.
People who don't support a particular team will probably tip better - if James and I can't decide between our beloved Saints and the team they are playing, we tend to tip our team.
If James wasn't available to help me with this, I would probably get better results from not submitting any tips at all.

Deal or No Deal?

2007-04-21T16:05:00.000+10:00

James and I made a Deal today. It was actually a pretty important one, which will have a huge impact on our future together. What were we thinking?

Before I go on, let me give you the background on this one.

In our two and a half years of marriage so far, there are two major topics which have been points of disagreement between James and I. We haven't argued about these topics, we have simply had different life experiences which have contributed and influenced our differing opinions.

What are these topics and what are our views?

TOPIC #1: PETS
James has always grown up with dogs and cats as a part of his family. It therefore follows that James would love at the very minimum for us to get a dog one day. At least. Maybe two, and a cat too whilst we're at it.

I, on the other hand, never grew up with pets (except for the kind you keep contained such as goldfish, hamsters and birds). So I don't want a dog... or a cat. Dogs leave hair everywhere. Sometimes they chew or scratch important things or furniture. Dogs don't smell nice, especially when they're wet. You can't have a two-way conversation with a dog. Dogs are great to pet and to play with, as long as they belong to someone else, because then you reap the benefits without having to bear the burden. And when you go on vacation, you can't always bring your dog, so you have to find a pet-sitter or pay $$$ to put him in some form of doggy accommodation.

TOPIC #2: CHILDREN
I am happy with THREE. THREE children plus TWO parents equals FIVE people, which is the number of seats in a standard car. I have one sister and one brother, so three worked just fine in my family.

James wants FOUR - at least. More if possible. I think his absolute ideal would be FIVE, but he toned it down to four for my sake.

James believes that the more we are able to have, the better. I feel that less is more - with less children, I can devote more of myself to each one.

THE DEAL (you're gonna love this one)
James and I went for a run this week and the topic of pets came up... again. After our run, as I was getting ready for work I started thinking about having pets, or more precisely how much I didn't want to have them - ever. Just before leaving for work, I said to James - more jokingly than seriously - "James, I'll cut you a deal. If I agree to willingly and cheerfully have four kids, would you agree to willingly and cheerfully not have a dog or cat or any sort of pet that I am not okay with... ever?"

The response I got was more intense than I could have anticipated. James' eyes immediately lit up, he jumped out of his seat, came running over to me, hand outstretched, ready to shake on it. Just like that.

I was taken aback by how quickly and excitedly James responded. I told him I'd have to put some serious thought into this Deal before shaking on it, because I had meant it more as a joke than seriously.

Well, we went for another run today. We discussed the Deal, and we shook on it.

So, blogosphere, you are now witnesses to The Deal - ten years from now you will find James and Fiona with FOUR KIDS in tow, and NO DOGS.

Group Fitness Instruction

2007-04-11T13:06:00.000+10:00

Today, I faxed my enrollment for the Group Fitness Instructor part of my course, which is the final stage of my learning.

However I was disappointed to learn that there is a possibility the course will not go ahead because there are not enough people enrolled for the course at this point in time. There are still 3 weeks to go before the course is schedule to begin, so maybe there will be a bunch of last minute enrollments.

I really hope so!!!

I am just so disappointed. The reason for the growing lack of interest in this course is due to recent changes in the industry, in particular the growth in popularity of Les Mills classes. Les Mills is a company that pre-choreographs group fitness classes to pre-determined music tracks and sells the music with accompanying choreography to group fitness instructors. This means that in this day and age, the average group fitness instructor no longer needs to employ his/her personal skills and creativity to choreograph a unique class. Instead, ANYONE can teach the class if they buy the instruction manual and matching music tracks.

If you have been to any class labeled BODY-something (e.g. BODYpump or BODYstep) you have been to a Les Mills class. I have been to BODYpump classes and I do think they are great. But in the end, it is mass-produced fitness that does not involve individual and unique creativity.

Pros: an average or even not-very-good group fitness instructor can take one of these programs, teach a class and be great at it. I guess the level of choreography in every class becomes more standardized because someone else out there is doing all the choreography for everyone. You're much less likely to go to a "bad" class.

Cons: less individuality (e.g. I have favourite instructors who have their own style of choreography and teaching - if these instructors had limited themselves to Les Mills I would never have experienced their wonderful creativity in one of their classes).

I guess it's like the difference between James and I at a restaurant. James will try new things, but he is more likely to find his favourites on the menu and stick to them most visits. I, on the other hand, will always want to try new menu items. Sometimes I will get a complete dud of a meal, but when I stumble across that never-to-be-forgotten dish, it makes all the duds well worth finding that delectable gem.

In my opinion, pre-choreographed classes are mass-produced fitness. They are the convenience of this day and age - convenience for instructors who want great results (an excellently choreographed class) without putting in the study and preparation required to create their own classes.

It disappoints me, because I feel it makes it more difficult to distinguish truly excellent instructors from the "good" or the "average". Yes, at the end of the day, group fitness instruction is a job for many - a way to put food on the table. But it can also be so much more than that!

A Tribute to Damien

2007-04-08T22:58:00.000+10:00

Tonight on The Biggest Loser, Damien was eliminated.

Damien is easily everyone's favourite contestant on The Biggest Loser. Not just viewers and fans, but also the other contestants on the show.

Why? Because he is a natural leader amongst the contestants, leading not by force or manipulation, but rather through encouragement and by setting an example that inspired others to follow. Where other people would irritate one another due clashing personality types and character traits, Damien was loved by all. He always had an encouraging word - a genuine one too - for the black sheep in the house. He was always able to see things from other peoples' perspective.

And my favourite quote of his: "I am not saying I deserve to be in this house more than the others, but I do feel that I need to be here more" - in other words, Damien never once had an inflated view of himself. He recognized what an honour and privilege it was to have the opportunity to learn how to lose the weight he needed to lose.

Damien was not just the greatest guy on the show. He was also the biggest. He started the show weighing 216kg, which is the most anyone in the history of the entire show (all countries, not just Australia) has weighed. Up to this point he has lost over 68kg, which still puts him at 148kg. But his weight loss journey has been amazing. He was especially inspiring because typically in past seasons, the biggest contestant has often been the first one to be voted out of the show because he is the weakest player on the team, but Damien's determination allowed him to continue in the show well past any other over 200kg contestant.

Damien has been an inspiration to thousands of Australians - contestants, non-contestants, other people struggling with their weight, and even those who don't. James, Asher I absolutely love the guy and we were devastated to witness his elimination tonight.

I really hope Damien achieves his goal of a healthy weight, and that he goes on to live a long life so that he can continue to be an inspiration and hope to others who struggle to control their weight.

Half Marathon? Or 14km?

2007-04-07T15:55:00.000+10:00

All this week I was torn between whether to run the half marathon (actually 23km) or 14km event at the Great Ocean Road Marathon weekend.

I have finally made my decision - the half marathon it is.

Why?

1. This week I have been suffering from a mild case of post-race apathy, i.e. the attitude that says, "Fi, you just ran 15.2km! You can take it easy for a week... or two". I have learnt in my recent studies that for every week of training you miss, you need 2 weeks to get back to the same level as before. So in order to avoid this happening, I need that extra challenged to keep me training.

2. On Thursday I found a running partner for the event in Niro.

Running 15.2km for the Kids - report back

2007-04-06T11:00:00.000+10:00

9:00 - 10:30am, Sunday 1 April 2007
We had a blast! "We" being Daniela, Pete & Katie, Brett & Rehana and me! Devi ran it too, but unfortunately we did not see her all morning. I am hoping to get some piccys from Pete & Katie to post here... soon!

Run for the Kids is probably one of - if not THE - biggest running events in Victoria. This year, the event boasted an attendance of about 26000 people. Furthermore, $21 out of our $34 race entry free went to The Royal Childrens Hospital Good Friday Appeal. That is an impressive proportion - my commendations to all the race coordinators for managing funds so well to enable such a massive proportion to be given to charity!

For me, the race was yet another stepping-stone in an effort to continue to challenge myself onward and upward in my fitness levels. To achieve this was a milestone! Three years ago I couldn't even run 5 minutes without stopping, and on Sunday 1 April 2007 I ran for 90 minutes! 15.2km is now officially the furthest I have ever run without stopping.

Running with Katie was such a pleasure - Dan & Pete ran with us too, but they could easily have run faster and at different points in the race they were ahead but then would pull back to stay with us. Katie and I run at about the same pace - although I suspect she is faster than I - and we took it at a pretty easy pace, chatting about all sorts of things along the way. Our main goal was to complete the full course without walking; speed was not of concern that day.

This race was quite an amazing experience. The route was one which you would not normally be able to run because it included major roadways such as the Domain Tunnel, a portion of the Westgate Freeway and the Bolte Bridge. All these roads were closed down for several hours to allow us to run them. It was also an amazing sight at particular points along the way to look ahead of myself and see just thousands upon thousands of other people running in the same direction as me.

I will try to post some pictures soon, but they probably will not do justice to the atmosphere and feeling that accompanies those photos.

P.S. HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE

BOB AND JILLIAN ARE BACK!

2007-03-26T14:30:00.000+10:00

I just saw the ad on TV which confirmed my suspicions. YAYAYAYAYAY.

I do love Shannan and Michelle, they are great. But Bob and Jillian are the originals.

New Purchases

2007-03-24T21:41:00.000+11:00

I haven't been shopping in ages! But today I made a few purchases that I am particularly excited about:

My first pair of proper running leggings. I tested them out today too, because didn't want to wear them for the first time on race day next week. Went for a 12km run with Katie - you can read about it in TRAINING bLOG.

Two books entitled "Exercise Analysis Made Simple" and "The Exercise Guide to Resistance Training". One of my tasks before this coming Friday is to learn all the names, actions, origins and insertions of the muscles in the human body. These two books will prove not only helpful in my study, but useful in future as I begin learning to write programs for people.

Now on my wish list: a pair of Skins (size: XS, style: 3/4 length leggings). Skins are a brand of compression garment. In laymen's terms... they are really tight! I tried a pair on today - they felt really good. You would have laughed to see me testing them out by jogging on the spot in the change room.

According to scientific research, one of the benefits of compression garments is that the support reduces the amount of muscle movement (or "wobble") which therefore reduces muscle damage due to prolonged exercise.

So, yes, I would LOVE to have a pair of Skins! But not right now I guess... they're $140 a pair! Too much of a chunk out of my purse for now.

Some Fi-Nominal Websites

2007-03-17T22:48:00.000+11:00

If you want to see what I've been up to in my fitness course in the last week or so, check out getbodysmart.com. Choose "muscular system" and then any tutorial listed that tickles your fancy. That's what I have been memorising - every muscle's name, origin and insertion (i.e. where on the skeleton it joins to) and action. My next exam is two weeks from yesterday.

I haven't yet checked out the skeletal, physiology, circulatory or respiratory tutorials yet but this is also all a part of this module of my course... meaning I have to also know all that in two weeks' time. Thankfully I am already familiar with it from uni, I just have to re-learn the memory-related stuff.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hoctro's Place is an awesome blog I recently came across in my Google search for a unique Blogger template. I didn't end up finding one, however this awesome blog had tutorials which taught me to change The Snarchives into a 3-column layout, as well as put a photo collage banner across the top. Check out our spunky new layout if you haven't seen it already.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You will think I am an absolute doofus for recommending this website - but I will anyway: The Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology - in particular, the official Melbourne Weather Forecast. I hate that sometimes when I check the weather online that some forecasts can be off by several degrees (there's a big difference between 18 and 23!) or predict a fine, sunny day when it's really drizzly and overcast. The official site is way more reliable, for sure!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of these days James and I will finally get around to having our own website - at jamesandfi.com! For now, we simply own the domain license for the next 5 years, which my brother bought us for Christmas. What a clever gift!

For now... don't bother going there, you won't see anything of interest. In fact, right now i think it just redirects you to some sort of advertising site or credit card site or something that's not worth me looking into to find out what it is just so I can blog about what site it is.

Don't Dehydrate. Rehydrate!

2007-03-16T14:20:00.000+11:00

Wonderful James came running with me yesterday. You can read about that run in my TRAINING bLOG if you're curious.

The day before yesterday I learnt about dehydration and heat stress. One of the things I learnt was that after exercise we should aim to replace our fluid loss through sweating by 150%.

Naturally, I was curious to see how much fluid James and I would sweat out during a 10km run. So we weighed ourselves before and after the run (note: 1L water weighs 1kg, hence weight loss is a good estimate of amount of fluid lost from the body during exercise).

I was so surprised to find out the results! I lost 0.9L of water, and James lost a whopping 1.2L. I was expecting much less - maybe, oh I don't know... 0.4L for me?

Therefore, to adequately rehydrate post-exercise, James and I needed to drink 1.8 and 1.4L of water respectively.

Now I know for a fact that I am a person who doesn't sweat very much - not only am I female, I also don't seem to work up much of a sweat, even compared to other females. So if not-very-sweaty me can sweat almost 1L of water during a 10km run in cool-to-warm conditions, you can see how easily many of us can become dehydrated due to prolonged exercise and not enough fluid intake during and after, especially in warmer conditions.

Dehydration is not good. You cannot train your body to tolerate dehydration better. With training, other aspects of your bodily functions will improve, e.g. your body might sweat less. But you will never tolerate dehydration better.

So be sure to adequately hydrate your body before, during and after exercise.

The Butcher, The Mousse and The Butterscotch Sauce

2007-03-15T23:30:00.000+11:00

I love working at Meal Magic. I just love it. I have learnt so many new things about food in the short weeks I have worked there. Here are some of them...

New butchering knowledge:

I now know how to take an entire beef rump (i.e. cow's bottom), cut off all the fat and sinew, and make it into steaks and/or diced bits. One month ago if you'd slapped a beef rump down on a kitchen bench in front of me, I would have had absolutely no idea where to begin, apart from pick up a knife and stare at the thing.
On a chicken breast there is a bit that tears off quite easily known as a chicken tender. When I excitedly told James about this new piece of knowledge as soon as I got home, he informed me he already knew this. I was crushed.
Cutting a hole in a chicken breast so it can be stuffed with filling... okay it's not a big deal to do this at all but I never would have known that if I hadn't tried doing it myself.
Chicken thighs are definitely my least favourite cut of chicken to work with. Yes they are nice and tender in stir-fries but they are so annoying to try and cut the fat out off and there are just so many tendons everywhere. Give me chicken breasts or tenders any day.
I can (sort of) tell the difference between lamb and beef mince. I can't do it with my eyes closed like Dan (j/k!) but if I stare at them long enough I think I can almost spot which one is redder (and therefore the lamb)

New dessert skills:

In the last two or three weeks, I have made litres (and litres!) of chocolate mousse, raspberry mousse and tiramisu. I was up to my elbows in the stuff... literally! I know they probably cost hundreds or maybe even thousands of $$$ but I would love to have one of those giant mixers in my kitchen that can whip up 5L of cream in minutes! For now I will just settle for wishing for one of my own home-sized cake mixers one day.
Butterscotch sauce! Yum, yum, yum!

Overall, I am way more confident in the kitchen. I used to think I didn't like cooking, but actually I tend to like things I think I'm good at or dislike things I think I'm not good at. And at this point in time, I think I could actually one day be good at cooking... all I need is practise and the opportunity to continue to pick Daniela's brain.

After all, I love eating... so why not learn to make all that yummy stuff too!

Precious, Precious Tickets

2007-03-09T22:56:00.001+11:00

I guess I'm just trying to make up for not blogging so regularly as of late. I am excited to announce that today James and I purchased tickets to see Miss Saigon.

I AM SO EXCITED, I have wanted to see this musical since I was 16! I used to know most of the words to all the songs despite never having seen the stage production.

I just wanted to announce my excitement to the entire world. Two weeks from now I will be walking out of Her Majesty's Theatre, with a sigh in my heart and a smile on my face.

Training bLog!

2007-03-09T20:43:00.000+11:00

I have started a new blog - my TRAINING bLOG. I don't really expect anyone to read it regularly because it's more for myself, but I just thought you might like to know.

The website is http://fitnessfi.blogspot.com.

The people I can think of who would want to read this blog are people who are curious about what I get up to on a daily or weekly basis, people who want to keep me accountable, or people who want to check out what I do and give me feedback.

Running to Race

2007-03-09T10:31:00.001+11:00

I subscribe to and love reading Ultra-FIT magazine.

My friend Daniela introduced me to it - she cleverly did it only a few weeks before my birthday party last year, which I later discovered was so she could suss out whether or not to get me a subscription for my birthday. Isn't she a star?

Better yet, a part of my personal trainer course is a compulsory membership to FitNation which includes a year subscription to Ultra-FIT, so I am pretty much set until mid-2008! Woo hoo!

Being me, of course I couldn't help but notice that every issue has a "letters" section, and they award a heart rate monitor to the "star letter". Well I have been contemplating what to write for my "star letter" for the last few months, and finally wrote and emailed it off today.

If this doesn't win me the much-desired award, I don't know what will! Save for the fact that this letter is possibly several months too late because I've just been too busy to write it (we're on issue $102 now).

Oh well... if it doesn't, I will just continue to save up for one.

Before I show you the letter I wrote, I also just want to thank Daniela: without you I would never have had the opportunity to read the below-mentioned article. It was also you who encouraged me to act upon my inspiration after I told you about the article, and you who came and ran the race with me (and made me run for my life for the entire last km!). So thank you!

Dear Ultra-FIT,

I want to thank and commend the entire team for the awesome work you do each and every issue. I have been a subscriber and avid reader since August 2006. In particular I want to thank you for your feature article "Running to Race" (issue #99).

As a teenager, I was not very active. I had definitely never run before, couldn't run, and wouldn't ever dream of running. In mid-2005 I decided to give running on the treadmill a go, simply because I'd tried every other cardio machine in the gym except for that dreaded treadmill! One year later, I was regularly running 2-3 times a week. Up to that point I had never run more than about 5km.

Then Issue #99 was released. Your article inspired me to give racing a try. Before reading it, I thought racing was only for professional or amateur athletes, and definitely not for people like me!

I ran - and completed! - my first race in Nov 2006... 8km long! I had never, EVER run that far before! In the short months leading up to that race I ran distances well past 5km, because I had to prepare for an 8km distance!

Since then, it's been nothing but onwards and upwards for me. Next month (April), I will run my second race, a whopping 15.2km long. I am even considering a half marathon in May!

When I first started in 2005, running for more than 5 minutes was a huge challenge! If you had told me back then that I would be contemplating a half-marathon in 2007, there is no way I would have believed you.

Thank you, Ultra-FIT, for the inspiration you gave me through "Running to Race". In it, you wrote that "racing is one of the best ways to help improve your running". I am living proof that you were right!

Running to Race,
Fiona

Pinch and a Punch ... and a 15.2km run

2007-03-01T17:13:00.000+11:00

Ah yes, the old "first day of the month" poem.

Well I can't write too much today. I am actually supposed to be finishing off my assignment for my first subject right now ~ Nutrition and Body Fat Management. Shh! Don't tell James ~ he's in the living room with me right now happily playing on his Nintendo Wii. We shall soon learn if he has been diligently reading my blog or not, depending on if he ever reads this. :)

I recently realized that I forgot to blog about something very important: in January I signed up for my second race. It is exactly a month away now ~ Run for the Kids on 1 April 2007. This one is a huge step up from my first ever 8km race. In fact, 8km seems like nothing compared to... wait for it... 15.2km! That's almost double!

Another cool thing about this race - I have at least 7 friends running it too. Half of us regularly train together once a week as a Running Group, and the others have all joined our Running Group at least once.

I am looking forward to this race with a little anticipation and a little more fear. It's kept me running regularly when probably nothing else could. However, I am probably not running enough, currently averaging approx. 3 times a week. The furthest I've run so far is about 9km, so I've got a little work to do to up my km in time for race day.

At least, thanks to what I have learnt on my course so far, I know what I'm supposed to be eating now! Speaking of which, I'd better get back to my assignment.

My FitNation Course... the saga begins!

2007-02-22T22:41:00.000+11:00

Ah, yes, the anticipated post that is going to tell you all about how my FitNation course is going. Well, I've had two lectures now. The course consists of 5 modules, and every module comprises 1 to 6 lectures. To complete every module I need to submit assignments and also sit exams.

My first module is already 2/3 of the way through, i.e. I've attended 2 of the 3 lectures. My first assignment deadline and exam is a week from tomorrow... can you believe it?!

So this is shaping up to be a pretty fast-paced 14 weeks, with lots of information to learn and process in my brain within a relatively short period of time. I'm only into my first week and already I'm quite tired between balancing course attendance, study (which I've not had a chance to do much of) and also part-time work at Meal Magic.

Thankfully, this first module is relatively easy for me because of my science background. The module topic: Nutrition and Body Fat Management. Most of the nutrition stuff I've either already learnt in high school and university biology classes, and anything additional I've probably already read around the place because it's a topic of interest to me.

My next module however will not be so easy - Anatomy!

*******

Here's a story from my first night's attendance which I know you will enjoy:

One of our classroom activities was to pair up and interview our partners regarding what we'd consumed in the past 24 hours. I interviewed my partner first, and was astounded by the amount of food he consumed!

As for me... well, it is here that I have a confession to make: I lied... just a little! But a lie, no matter how small, is still a lie. *sigh*

Let me explain myself...

After interviewing my partner and learning how much he'd eaten, I began to feel insecure about what I'd eaten, and worried that he would think I ate too little. You see, our lectures start at 6pm on Mondays, so to get there on time I had to leave home by 5pm, which meant a really early dinner at 4:40pm! Lectures don't end until 10pm which would be too late to eat dinner.

So at lunchtime that day, I didn't really eat much, just a hot cross bun. I wasn't really hungry and I knew I'd be eating again in only a few hours. So what did I lie about? Well, when I was interviewed I added an extra sandwich for good measure - a salmon sandwich with cream cheese, to be exact. I just felt I had to... I mean, my partner ate 3 ham sandwiches with salad plus a muesli bar and an apple! What was I to do?

Yes, yes, I know. I'm a bad person. What can I say? But I have now appeased my conscience a little by confessing this lie in public. Actually, I appeased it as soon as I confessed my sin to James the next morning.

Go ahead, have a laugh. James certainly did.

The Countdown is Over!

2007-02-19T11:37:00.000+11:00

It says zero! But there's still 6 1/2 hours to go before my course officially starts at 6pm. In the meantime I have a bunch of errands to run today so it should pass the time rather quickly.

ARGH!!! This is so exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meal Magic

2007-02-16T12:02:00.000+11:00

This week I started part-time work at Meal Magic. You may remember me blogging about it last October.

The main purposes of my getting a part-time job were:
a) generate a part-time income prior to attaining my fitness qualifications
b) prevent me from going crazy out of boredom and un-productivity during my non-study hours

What a bonus to get a job that isn't just for the sake of income and boredom-prevention, but allows me the privilege of working for and selling a product that I believe in ~ meals that are convenient and well-priced, yet healthy and delicious! It is important to me to believe in the product I sell, one of the many reasons why I want to join the fitness industry.

If you haven't visited Meal Magic yet, do stop by. I'm not just doing a sales job here... my October blog proves that I already loved what they do long before I became an employee there.

Meal Magic also has a strong emphasis on excellent customer service. As the daughter of a man who once worked as the Asian Director of Quality and Customer Service for Motorola, I grew up learning to notice all aspects of customer service at every restaurant and store in town, because on our visits Dad would provide a running commentary on what was excellent, what could be improved, and what was downright terrible.

So even if you stop by for a visit, and are not entirely sold on the concept (highly unlikely), you will definitely experience a pleasant visit. You will also be given the opportunity to try some of Daniela's delicious concoctions.

And if you want to see me in action, then Tuesdays and Saturdays are the days to come! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

2007-02-14T22:00:00.000+11:00

James was so sweet. He gave me 3 single roses, each one to represent a Valentine's Day that we have celebrated together since being married, each one accompanied by a card.

I especially loved the final card, which read:

For my wife on Valentine's Day
Whether we're home or out on the town
Fussing, discussing, or clowning around
Whether we're loafing or have lots to do
There's no one I want beside ME besides YOU
Happy Valentine's Day

We had a lovely Valentine's lunch together at Miss Marples Tearoom in Sassafras (Mount Dandenong). I highly recommend a visit to them for lunch or afternoon tea.

If you like scones, theirs are absolutely heavenly! For the non-scone people, they also have some delicious-looking sundaes and other treats. We haven't tried them ourselves ~ we always opt for the scones when we visit ~ but they also look quite stunning and appear to be popular.

Just a Blog Post

2007-02-14T21:44:00.000+11:00

I haven't blogged in almost two weeks. That's not like me. It's because I've been a little uninspired lately. Most of the time I have so many things swimming around in my head that I want to post about, and I have to focus myself and pick one topic at a time only.

But lately I've been uninspired because I've been... unemployed. I've been in between jobs (waiting for the right time to start a part-time job). And, more importantly, I've been waiting for my fitness course to start!

As of right now the countdown says 4 days, 2 hours, 11 minutes, 58 seconds. It's so far away! Ugh.

But it's getting nearer even as I type. Now it says 4 days, 2 hours, 8 minutes, 42 seconds.

Actually, the countdown is 18 hours fast, because it will hit zero as soon as the clock ticks past midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning.

The correct starting time is 6pm. Monday 19 February. I can't wait!

Running Group

2007-02-01T13:52:00.000+11:00

We're now one month into it, and going strong! This week we had 3 new participants.

On Sunday we did Speed Work ~ instead of going on a longer, moderately-paced run, we did a series of short sprints, both on flat ground as well as up a hill. The purpose of Speed Work, according to Brett, is to increase the anaerobic capacity of your muscles. Click here for an explanation of anaerobic exercise.

This training session was difficult! Probably one of the more difficult running sessions I have done since I began running almost 2 years ago. But my sense of satisfaction after completing the speed work was immense. And my muscles boasted evidence of hard work on Monday morning ~ I had sore hamstrings... so did James!

After discussing with Brett, it looks like we may schedule speed work sessions for once a month. Whilst they will only get more and more difficult as each individual in the group seeks to push him/herself further with each session, I think the results will speak for themselves. Even on my run yesterday I felt an improvement since Sunday ~ I was able to push myself to run a bit faster than normal without my need of oxygen giving in on me as soon.

Here are some of photos of our training session from two weeks ago:

I really love this next photo:

This one's for Neli!

2007-02-01T10:57:00.000+11:00

Neli, I am so proud of you! Friends and readers ~ this is why.

It is by no means an easy thing to make a lifestyle change. But then again, anything that is worthwhile is not easy. Neli, you've counted the cost, you're making your stand, and you are publicly declaring it to the world so that we can encourage you and keep you accountable.

YOU STRONG, NELI!

As someone who has experienced and learnt from the same journey you are embarking on, I am behind you all the way! There will be many things that you will learn, just as I did. Not only was I made aware of my own weaknesses ~ especially regarding the unnecessary desires of my stomach, LOL ~ I also learnt just how much I am capable of!

Neli, and everyone else out there, you are capable of so much! And for those of you who have the privilege of following after the God that I follow, even more so with His strength behind you!

Did Moses actually part the Red Sea?

2007-01-28T22:14:00.000+11:00

I read in my Bible today and yesterday about Moses and the ten plagues God sent to Egypt because Pharaoh was too stubborn to let the Israelites go.

Even if you haven't read this story directly from the Bible, you will most likely be familiar with it, thanks to classic feature films such as The Ten Commandments starring Yule Brynner as Pharaoh and Charlton Heston as Moses, and The Prince of Egypt animated film.

Well, these last two days, I discovered something that I had never noticed before. I even pointed it out to my intelligent, Bible-scholar-type-and-also-a-history-buff husband James, and he, too, had not noticed it.

Funnily enough, these last two days he had also read the same Bible passages that I had, but somehow hadn't noticed what I did. LOL.

So, what is this interesting news? It is this: Moses was not the person who threw his staff down to the ground where it became a snake. Moses was also not the person who raised his staff and initiated the first three plagues (water turning to blood, frogs, lice).

It was Aaron, Moses' older brother!

Aaron was the one who threw his staff down (Ex 7:10b), who lifted up his rod and struck the waters of the Nile (Ex 7:19-20), who stretched out his staff over the waters of Egypt to cause frogs to come out of them (Ex 8:6), and who struck the dust of the land with his staff so that it turned into lice (Ex 8:17).

It was Aaron!

As for the remaining 7 plagues, the Bible does not specify who performed the initiating move to cause the plagues, only that Moses confronted Pharaoh and declared that if he didn't let the Israelites go, then ______ (fill in the blank) would happen.

I find it so interesting that I never noticed this before. I don't know if this was because I have been influenced by movies made about this very story, so that prior to this week, I hadn't read what actually happened, but instead read what I thought happened. It just goes to show that we all view our world, read books and hear what people say through our own individual set of filters.

Of course, James asked the clever question and we immediately looked it up: did Moses actually part the Red Sea?

Answer: Yes, he did (Ex 14:21). Well, at least we all got that part right!

Philosophical side note: yes, yes, you could be pedantic and say, no Moses didn't, God did, etc, etc, and I would agree with you on this point, but please remember the purpose of this post is to point out that Aaron was the one who followed God's instructions in order for God to do what God did. ;)

Wongs Have a Wright to Have Fun

2007-01-25T14:11:00.000+11:00

Looking back over my collection of 2006 photos, I have come to the realisation that one thing my brother and I have in common is that we both have this love for taking silly photos of ourselves:

Jan/Feb 2006
Brian: in Kota Kinabalu ~ stuffing around with the straws from our drinks
Me: at a friend's wedding ~ I felt the need to make our photo more interesting

Dec 2006
Brian: fooling around at his birthday dinner
Me: after taking my hair out of a hairdo

I am proud to say that James has truly become a part of the Wong family.
He is not simply a recruit to this essential family practise, he is a willing participant!
The second of the following two photos is a particular favourite of mine - James' expression makes me laugh. He's so into it!

Edit: I found a couple more photos that I just had to share. These also include my sister Stephanie, proving that all three of us gladly participate in this essential Wong practise. I have a really old sticker photo somewhere too of my mum, me and Steph with matching silly faces... if I ever find it, I'll scan it and post it if you like!

Job Opportunities

2007-01-25T14:03:00.000+11:00

Next week, I have an appointment to see the manager of the gym where I work out. We're going to talk about job opportunities.

I have no idea whether I can get a job at a gym before I have gained my qualifications or whether I need to wait til after my course ends (which is not until June). The fact that he's willing to meet with me next week, with my course still a few weeks away from commencing (see countdown above!), suggests that I may be able to get something before I'm qualified and thus work my way towards actually instructing and training after I've finished my course.

I hope so!

Going Bananas!

2007-01-22T20:12:00.000+11:00

Bananas were priced at only $1.95 per kilo at Safeway today!! I was so excited that I bought four. Yay!!!

Movies on my "To Watch" List

2007-01-20T16:01:00.000+11:00

Here's my list, at the request of Dave - it's not all the movies on my list, rather just whatever I can think of right now off the top of my head, in no particular order:

Il Mare ~ see note at bottom of post
Blood Diamond
The Pursuit of Happyness
Mission Impossible II and III
Pride & Prejudice (BBC version)
Material Girls ~ yes, that's right, I am a fan of teeny-boppy Hilary Duff movies. They're no-brain movies that one can watch with some light-hearted fun in them.
Being John Malkovich
Castaway
Chariots of Fire
Carousel
The World's Fastest Indian
It's a Wonderful Life
LA Confidential
Walk the Line
Cinderella Man
United 93
World Trade Center

Actually, my movies-to-watch list is so long that I usually can't remember most of the list. I really should start a proper list. James has a notebook somewhere with a list of movies in it too... all movies he's watched that I haven't, of course.

Whilst I'm at it, some movies on my favourites list, again in no particular order:

The Lake House ~ my most recent addition!
Suddenly 30
Pride & Prejudice (Keira Knightly version)
The Sound of Music
Singin' in the Rain
The Shawshank Redemption
Schindler's List
Hero
Beauty and the Beast
Monsters Inc

Movies that lots of people love but I don't particularly enjoy ~ just so some of you can bag me in public if you dare(!):

Napolean Dynamite
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Wayne's World
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

I'm beginning to see a bit of a trend in this last category.

A quick follow-up on my Lake House post:
I am currently about halfway through Jane Austen's Persuasion. The Lake House is definitely not based on this book, or at least not as far as I can tell. But Dave has since informed me that The Lake House is actually based on a Korean film called Il Mare, which he recommends.

To Dave: I am impressed that you have seen the Korean version but not the American. It is things like this that make you truly unique (good-unique, not bad-unique). Also, you know how highly I regard your opinion on these matters which is why it's now on my to-watch list.

Yet another one...

2007-01-20T15:00:00.000+11:00

I know, I know, I am so easily influenced. My brother has introduced me to another networking toy - Facebook. Multiply is still my favourite by far, but Maven-Me had to try out Facebook to prove at least to myself that Multiply was the best, if nothing else.

One good feature of Facebook that sets it aside from the others is the mini-feed. It tells you all the activities within Facebook that your contacts have been engaging in, including new connections they've made since you've logged on. Thanks to the mini-feed, I only had to hook up with a couple of friends and others that I knew found out I'd joined the crew, so I now have almost 20 connections with people I know with very little effort on my part.

One day after trying out all these sites I will post my ultimate site featuring the best bits of every other site. Then maybe I'll email Multiply to read my post and see if they can work some of those winning features into their site! If they know that I am a Maven, they will be sure to take my ideas onboard. :)

MySpace does have its usefulness... occasionally

2007-01-15T23:52:00.000+11:00

If you know my opinion on friendship sites, you will know that I fully support Multiply for its functionality, and mainly have a MySpace because that's where I have been able to connect with the most friends online. MySpace does hold the highest percentage of the online networking market at the moment, according to some newspaper article James read to me a few months ago.

Thanks to Multiply I am more in touch with some of my overseas friends than ever (only some, because not many use Multiply... yet!).

For example, if it wasn't for Multiply I would not know that one of my Filipino friends who currently lives and works in Malaysia is currently going through a series of job interviews whereby he could be offered a position in New Jersey, USA by the end of the year. I would also have missed out on friends' Christmas and New Years celebrations, all of which I was able to feel a small part in through seeing their photos online.

However, I have a small admission to make - MySpace has its benefits too, mainly due to the larger percentage of the online networking market that it commands. I was finally convinced of this yesterday, when I received a hand-delivered note from my Senior Pastor, who had just returned from a visit to South Africa. The note was from one of my online MySpace friends. I don't just make random online friends ~ the 4 or 5 that I have are specifically members of other Every Nation churches around the world.

Thanks for the note, Chandre! It made a little bit of cyberspace into reality. I'm still hoping we can hook up at World Conference!

The Lake House

2007-01-15T23:13:00.000+11:00

I watched The Lake House last night. I absolutely loved it.

Ladies, if you have not seen it, check it out. Assuming you enjoy a classic romance movie of course. If you prefer blood and guts, I have heard that Blood Diamond is quite a good film (it's on my "to watch" list too).

I will not divulge the plot here. Instead, you can check out the trailer to get a feel for what it's about. It was well put together, enough to leave you in a bit of suspense, as a good romance movie should do. However I am fully aware that Keanu Reeves is not the most well-liked actor around, although his acting has never bothered me personally. But then again, I have never been the sort of person to analyze a movie or its actors. It's normally entertainment value that I go for. Plenty of that here for any lovers of a classic romance story.

Sandra Bullock's character had a favourite book - Persuasion, written by Jane Austen. So of course I borrowed it from the library today and will begin reading it this week, partly because the movie left me wanting to read this book, and partly because I wanted to see if this movie is somehow a modern version of Persuasion, because it certainly seems to me that it was inspired by this book at some level. Jane Austen writes good books, so I'm looking forward to reading it.

P.S. Gentlemen, I highly recommend that you read at least one Jane Austen novel in your lifetime. A great way to delve into the female mind and her romantic desires. I suppose if you can't bring yourself to read the book, you could always watch a movie version, but as they say, the book is always better than the movie. If you're stuck for a starting place, here's a list of titles to get you started: Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Emma, Persuasion. Or you could just look up "Jane Austen" at the library. :)

A Berry Fruitful Day

2007-01-13T15:31:00.000+11:00

If you have never been to a Strawberry Farm, you have to go sometime... my parents used to take us kids regularly during the summer months and I loved it. For the last 6 years, I have been wanting to visit, but I just never got around to it. Yesterday, James took me. We had so much fun!

On our way there, we stopped in Dromana for my favourite kind of fish n' chips lunch ~ the kind that you eat by the ocean:

Sunny Ridge strawberry farm:

Various berry-picking activities:

They never said we couldn't eat whilst picking!

My first BIG strawberry:

James was wonderful, because he took all the photos, which means we don't have photographic evidence that he was actually at the strawberry farm with me. But here is a picture of him afterwards trying their home-made vanilla bean ice cream (which tastes quites different from normal vanilla ice cream):

Lots of strawberries in our fridge!

And of course I had to have strawberries in my breakfast this morning!

25 Degrees

2007-01-11T12:08:00.000+11:00

Isn't it funny how 25 degrees (Celsius) is an absolutely beautiful temperature during the day, but at night it's considered too hot? We slept in the living room again last night. Thank God for air-conditioning!

I've decided to store my chocolate in the fridge for the rest of the summer - it just doesn't taste the same when it's been melted by hot weather and re-set. It also takes on a funny colour and texture. So I'm protecting it... and my taste-buds.

Congratulations!

2007-01-09T22:36:00.000+11:00

To Devi, for completing your first official race! You can read all about it here.

Report back on Running Group

2007-01-09T21:13:00.000+11:00

We had fun! Five people showed up - Brett, James, Daniela, Devi & me. We had a good talk together about what this group means to us and what we want it to be. Personally, I am excited about what this year will bring, specifically within this group.

If you are considering joining us and feeling unsure about whether you can keep up, or feeling intimidated, don't be. Come join us! We want to make this group a warm, friendly environment in which each individual can train at his/her own pace.

I know for sure that I am in a great position to encourage you to join us, because on Sunday we subjected ourselves to a series of fitness tests, and I came out with the smallest numbers for most of the tests. But that doesn't bother me, because whilst some people (James...) were competing with the rest of us, most of us were competing with ourselves.

So take it from the slowest, weakest person to show up on Sunday (that's me, in case you still didn't get that) ~ if you have a New Year's Resolution to get fitter and more active, we are here to work with you to achieve your goals.

If you've never run before, but want to try, then this group is certainly for you - we've got a couple of first timers joining us in the weeks to come so you will not be alone!

Leave a comment if you'd like to be added to our weekly email list. Brett & I will be putting a training schedule together at some point which will be released through the email list too.

A Quick Response

2007-01-08T17:59:00.001+11:00

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Heh heh.

By that, I mean this week is my first week not working full-time in the office, which I can now officially call my previous job!

Spent most of today organising stuff for the year ahead. If I told you what I've been doing you'd either be astounded that I did it, disgusted that someone can be that organised, or not at all surprised because it's exactly the sort of thing you would expect me to do.

Running Group went well yesterday. That deserves its own post, which I will take care of either tonight or later this week.

One of the things I did today was update my Birthday Alarm. All I had to do was send a mass email out to anyone who was not on my alarm list. They click on a link in the email, enter their details and it's done. It took me about 5 minutes.

I received my first response 3 minutes after sending out the email, whilst I was still checking other emails in my inbox. Right now it is about an hour later and 8 people have responded already! I just re-checked my inbox again and whilst typing this, yet another response came through.

Talk about a good return on your investment of time.

Finding your exercise love

2007-01-06T17:14:00.000+11:00

I headed to the gym this morning for a Cross-Trainer aerobics class. For the first time since October, I felt excited to be going to the gym for a workout.

That's when I re-discovered my love for aerobics. Yes, I am starting to enjoy running, largely due to the fact that I am now able to start and more importantly finish a run. However, the prospect of a run does not excite me anywhere near as much as the prospect of going to an aerobics class.

For the last few weeks I have been thinking and re-thinking through whether I should become a Group Fitness Instructor in addition to Personal Training, or just do Personal Training only. There are various arguments to support both options. Today I realised that if I love aerobics so much, I will probably love teaching it, especially because I am presented with the unique opportunity to be the very sort of instructor that I love.

In my entire aerobics-class-attending-career (this being my 8th year) I have come across five instructors - Chris, Rachelle, Carol, Jenelle & Cheryl - that I think are outstanding, in each her own way. I want to be a combination of all of them ~ excellent choreography combined with an amazing ability to teach, combined with the ability to challenge, inspire, and push (!) people to work hard during a class.

For all those of you who have made New Years Resolutions to exercise more, a word of advice: find something that works for YOU. Yes, you do need discipline to maintain an exercise routine, but you will find it so much easier to achieve if you ENJOY what you are doing! I first discovered aerobics in 2000, and ever since then have gradually moved onwards and upwards in my fitness levels and subsequently my personal goals in this area of my life.

Had I not discovered this love, I might never have started the journey. If you want to start your journey, start by finding out for yourself what you love (or could love) to do. Experiment! Try something new! Don't allow yourself to be intimidated. I could barely keep up with the instructors commands in my first aerobics class... and that was a beginner's level class. But I enjoyed myself, kept going, got better, and loved it the more I did it. Did you know that there are new types of fitness classes being invented every year? So don't be afraid to think out of the box. Or you can ask me for ideas!

Running regularly helps me to maintain my fitness and train myself to be disciplined, because it's something I find difficult to do. But aerobics is what keeps me passionate about exercise in general. In this day and age, our sedentary lifestyles mean that it is not an option for us to not be active. So find your niche, your passion, your love... and do it!

My books!

2007-01-04T22:12:00.000+11:00

I just got home, and I had to post a photo of my newly acquired prize:

Today was my last full day of work in the office and I was beginning to wonder what to do with my time next week, but looks like I can get started reading already. YAY!!!

It's here!

2007-01-04T17:00:00.000+11:00

James just told me that that my package from FitNation is sitting at my house waiting for me right now! In fact, it arrived at 11am this morning (which was before I even wrote that last post).

I can't believe he didn't tell me, he knows how excited I was yesterday about getting that stuff! His explanation was that it would have just been too distracting for me today... whatever! ;P

He's right... I still have band practise tonight and so won't be home until 10pm, I'm going to be thinking about what's in that box all night long. *sigh*

A new blog addition...

2007-01-04T11:48:00.000+11:00

You may already know that I have a second blog which is my Dream Diary. Well I am giving up that blog, and instead will merge it into this one. Any posts from that blog can now be found here (or will be after I've copied and pasted them all across). They are labelled "fi's dream diary" of course, so if you do want to read on back issues of Dream Diary, choose "fi's dream diary" from the "all things F" list in the left column. Ah, yes... can you tell I have teacher tendencies?

Now, to start the ball rolling...

New, exciting dream diary update: I faxed my enrolment form to FitNation yesterday! After faxing it in, of course that doesn't actually enrol me into the course until they have processed my form, I still felt enrolled!

This morning I got an email from Australian Air Express saying that a 3kg shipment from FitNation is on its way to me... so that must mean NOW I'm officially enrolled, and on top of that my learning materials are on their way to my doorstep!

ARGH, I can't wait!!!!! Feb 19, here I come!

Remembering 2006

2007-01-01T20:37:00.000+11:00

Things I will remember 2006 by:

6. The introduction of my favourite item of clothing into stores Melbourne-wide: lacy black leggings.

5. My best purchase of the year ~ The Ultimate Jewellery Stand.

4. I wrote a song and it was recorded on our church's first worship album.

3. I went to Carols by Candlelight for the first time. A childhood dream come true. Next dream: to sing there one day. ;)

2. I went from not being able to run at all in mid-2005 to running my first race this year.

1. I achieved my goal weight on 22 June 2006. I first started out on 8 October 2005. James cheered me on all the way, especially when I needed encouragement the most. With his help, I did it, losing 11kgs in total.

Runners' Lingo

2006-12-31T16:32:00.000+11:00

I read this completely random guy's blog every week, because it's his running training diary, and an inspiration and motivator for me. Sometimes I have no idea what I'm reading because he appears to be using some sort of code language reserved only for the super serious runner.

People comment on his posts, even on the ones that only contain said language, which confirms to me that such a language does indeed exist.

Random Guy's most recent post has inspired me in several ways:

1. He sure can get a message across in a succinct way - the post has only a title and no body text, and that title only has four characters in it (one of which is a space): E 8K

2. Wow, I must be picking up on "Runner's Lingo" because I actually understand what this means!

3. This year, my main running achievement was completing an 8km race. However, Random Guy ~ whose real name is Martin ~ runs 8km on his easy days ("E 8K" means "Easy 8km") and about 20-25km on a normal day. One day maybe I'll be doing that too...

Martin, you will probably never know I am reading your blog, but thanks for being able to inspire little ol' me with two letters and one number (and a space, of course!).

Silly me

2006-12-30T22:16:00.000+11:00

For two entire weeks now my most recent dream diary post has made a fool of me to the entire world, and not one single person told me... until today.

I meant champing at the bit! James is sitting right in front of me now laughing his head off.

On a blog roll

2006-12-28T18:23:00.000+11:00

Four lengthy posts in two days. Can you tell I'm on holiday? In the meantime, James has advanced about ten levels in Ultimate Alliance on his new Nintendo Wii.

I've been productive, at least in the sense that I've produced a lot of internet stuff this last few days. Fixed up the layout of my MySpace Music site. Uploaded some new stuff on my Multiply site. Done a lot of catch-up reading on various friends' sites on Multiply. Listened to my new CDs that I got for Christmas.

I think I'm just about all blogged out... well, for two days at least. At times I have to consciously make the decision to stay away from my blog so that people can at least keep up with reading without having to log on daily.

I've taken lots of photos and videos lately so it's time to leave the blog for a bit now and upload some stuff.

I have this ulcer in my mouth that makes any form of eating or drinking highly painful because it's in a really bad spot, under my upper lip. James has one too in a very similar position. Between the ulcers and being caught up in blogging/uploading and Nintendo Wii respectively, we've not really been eating proper meals when we get hungry because a) it's painful to eat, and b) we're too distracted by other things.

Old Friends, Old Times

2006-12-28T17:44:00.000+11:00

Just before arriving at the shops on Boxing Day, I received a text message from my friend Dave:

"hi fi, merry christmas to you and j :) sorry i've been so bad at trying to meet up this year. anyway, if you're free me and my mates are having a bit of a musical jam tomorrow at my parents place, [address]. 11 onwards :) cheers"

How random was that!

Dave and I go way back to the days when we were both year 8 students at Caulfield Grammar School (CGS), over a decade (!!!) ago. You know what's scary about that one? Chris, who was with James and I at Carols by Candlelight on Sunday night, graduated from CGS only last year!

Dave and I first met in math class. I sat next to him, initially because he was smart (still is - he's a doctor now!) and I could get help with my math, but eventually because we were (still are) friends. Thinking back to those days, I think that he might have thought I was smart too, but all the rest of us knew he was (still is) the smartest, even if he didn't (probably still doesn't) know that himself.

Dave is one of the only people from CGS that I am still in touch with because after I moved to Hong Kong he was one of the few who kept in touch with me. That was back in the day when email was not as prevalent (I'm dating myself aren't I?) and snail mail was the main form of intercontinental friendships. So I was delighted to discover yesterday that Dave has a blog! And just like his letters, his blog is heartfelt, witty, highly intelligent and definitely a read recommended by me.

Dave, you were always several years ahead of me in maturity, and your writing shows that you still are. ;-)

Needless to say, I didn't need much convincing to join Dave and his mates yesterday.

It is at this point that I have a confession to make: I must have become too Australianized or something because I was totally expecting Dave's mates to be Caucasian and thus found myself internally reacting with surprise that everyone at Dave's place was Asian. Then again, maybe it was the use of the term "mates". Do Asians have "mates"?

James' comment to this is that maybe I'm racist... hmm, wouldn't that be an interesting dilemma to find myself in every time I look in the mirror.

Funnily enough, I should have felt like I fit right in, considering that for the first time in a long time I was not the only Asian person in the group. Instead, I felt like the odd one out. Do you want to know why? Because everyone there had black hair except me, so I felt like I didn't look Asian enough! LOL.

After a while, this didn't matter, because it became evident to me that Dave's main intention in inviting me to said "musical jam" was to get me to sing stuff. Yes... stuff. This exercise quickly unveiled my sorely lacking knowledge of music in general. I often know a song, but can't sing any lyrics, let alone tell you what it's about or who sings it. However I can hum or "la" along.

This is why I don't want to try out for Oz Idol ~ choosing a song to sing every week would just be way too stressful, and anyone who watches that show knows how often Mark Holden stresses the vital importance of good song choice. Waaaaay too stressful.

The result yesterday's hanging out in Dave's parent's garage stuffing around (ah... how cliche... and what I would give to be 17 again... ) was this one song recording. Not an original, just a cover. Yes, yes, I know you want to hear it. The link is on Dave's blog.

Boxing Day Bargains

2006-12-28T13:41:00.000+11:00

I am a happy chappy, I've done it all this year. Christmas Eve carols, Christmas Day lunch, and now Boxing Day shopping! And it doesn't end there... we've still got New Year's celebrations to come, yay!

And so the Christmas Season Saga continues...

I wake up on Boxing Day morning excited to hit the stores. My December allowance has barely been spent because I have been too busy with Christmas shopping and card writing. There is no better day to spend it ~ a day when all the stores are having sales, a day when my $$ is going to go further than any other day!

So I arrive at Knox with an agenda in mind ~ I am ready to hit the stores in search for a denim skirt. I've been looking for one for over a year now. Something about going shopping with my husband James makes me less likely to wander through clothes racks aimlessly looking for any random item of clothing that I might like, so of course we find a denim skirt (chosen by him out of the selection I've tried on) in the first store that we visit, which happens to also be one of my favourite clothing stores.

I go on to purchase two other tops... not long after purchasing these three items, I re-evaluate my position, only to realize that not a single one was a sale item! Such is the hype of Boxing Day shopping. Lots of stuff may be on sale, but there also appears to be an underlying ploy to get aspiring sale-hunters into the stores ~ because once there, these shoppers will madly buy other goods that they see too without realizing they aren't even on sale!

This means that I have to find proof that a good bargain can be picked up. Where do I head for such proof? To Australia's Biggest Stocktake Sale, of course! So James and I head to Myer to check out their wares and see if their sale really is as big as they claim it to be. Are all the stories I've heard over the years about fantastic bargains and $1 fridges true? Is there really a good reason to line up 7 hours prior to opening time in order to get a prime entry spot into the store and grab the best deals?

The lines at Myer are so long, both at the registers and the changing rooms. But I decide to brave the changing room line in the women's wear section... for a total of about 10 minutes. Every woman in line has 4 to 6 items to try on, and in the space of 10 minutes two women have entered the change rooms. There are still 6 more ahead of me. Based on my calculations, that means an additional 30 minutes of waiting (not including the line for the register) so I give up, return my items to their racks and leave.

Not ready to be defeated, I head out of Myer in search of a store containing a bargain worth the crowds of Boxing Day. I find it at BnT! This is, of course, another of my favourite stores. The lines for changing rooms and registers are equally as long as the lines in Myer, mainly due to my impeccable timing ~ whilst waiting in the long line for the changing rooms there are only two people waiting for the register, and by the time I am ready to line up at the register it is the longest line I have seen in the entire 1 1/2 hours I have been in BnT. But it is worth the wait. Myer was boasting 30% of marked items, and in BnT I have received a discount of just over 50% on my purchase, a fi-nominal deal for items which in my (and James!) opinion are prettier than Myer's wares.

And of course, finally, I stop in briefly at another favourite, Diva. About half their already well-priced goods are 50% off including a gorgeous pink necklace that I've had my eyes on for months. I have a gift voucher with which to purchase said necklace, and so don't even spend any money on it - double bonus!

All in all, my nomination for Best Boxing Day Sale Store goes to BnT. Valleygirl and TEMT didn't fare so well ~ they had no sales in addition to their usual any-other-time-of-year sales ~ but their prices are always so reasonable anyway that I have no complaints and they still remain on my list of favourite shopping stores. As for Myer and David Jones, well if you can bear with the lone lines I've overheard plenty of conversations that commend their stocktake sales greatly ~ maybe when I'm a little more grown up and buying for my household, these department stores will hold greater value for me.