Take Care of Your Teeth Now For a Healthier Tomorrow

Heading out to the dentist isn't the most exciting item on your to-do list, but it is a critical part of everyone's health. Your mouth isn't an isolated body part. In fact, infections that start in the gums can easily lead to cardiovascular issues and other ailments. Take good care of your teeth today, and you'll notice a healthier tomorrow.

Cleaning Importance

Many people believe that flossing and brushing their teeth is all that's necessary for good oral health. However, there's no substitute for a dentist's tools cleaning out the tartar and plaque every 6 months. Almost everyone will have some buildup of plaque regardless of their strict dental hygiene. Dentists will clean out this residue and take X-rays during the same appointment. These X-rays tell a deeper story about your gum-and-tooth health. Minor issues can be dealt with before major surgeries are even necessary. Without these frequent visits, your dental health can decline very rapidly.

Adding Implants

There are several situations that might arise that require a dental implant. Studies from the Implant Dentistry Journal show that sports and everyday accidents can contribute to tooth loss. Disease can also play a part, such as in your senior years. In these cases, you might require a crown, veneer or bridge. Today's dental technology is so advanced that implants are added with ease into your jawline. Unlike removable dentures, these implants work similarly to real teeth. Simply care for them with flossing and brushing, and they'll last for many years. 

Straightening Isn't Vain

Your dentist may also advise you to see an orthodontist. Straightening your teeth may seem like an aesthetic issue, but proper tooth alignment is critical to oral health. Crooked teeth tend to create unnatural crevices. Food particles become easily trapped in these areas where brushing and flossing cannot reach. As a result, you have a higher risk for dental problems. Consider some orthodontia treatment if your teeth tend to have cavities and other problems caused by the crooked angles. Your oral health will be easier to maintain after the treatment.

If you have lackluster dental coverage, most professionals offer some type of payment plan. Don't hesitate to ask about these plans because your health could depend on their use. Government resources might also be an option in some cases. In the end, you should have biyearly exams that clean up your teeth and gums for a healthier you. Pin It

Which Steps Should I Take To Become A Healthier Person?

If the idea of leading a vibrant, disease-free life appeals to you, now is the time to get the health optimization process underway. You can start enhancing your level of physical and mental well-being now by utilizing some or all of the following wellness techniques: 

1. Diagnose And Eliminate All Diseases. 

Individuals who are serious about leading lives of profound wellness should make a point to identify and eliminate diseases from their bodies. Failing to do so can result in a wide range of long-standing physical and mental complications that shorten your life span and induce depression. The first step towards eliminating disease is accurately diagnosing the condition, and you can do so through the use of testing kits offered by companies like Diagnostic Automation. This organization offers a wide range of kits, including the CLIA test kits. 

2. Kick Dieting To The Curb. 

Another technique that you can implement to enhance your level of wellness is avoiding diets at all costs. Unfortunately, we live in a society where many people are caught in the destructive cycle of yo-yo dieting. With this pattern, people go on diets, lose weight temporarily, and then return to a world of overeating that facilitates weight gain. They then start this cycle over. The end result is a severely damaged metabolism and the low self-esteem that results from feeling like you've failed. Diets almost never work, so be sure to kick them to the curb immediately! Instead of dieting, focus on finding healthy foods that you really enjoy eating and then make them a staple part of your meal plan. 

3. Exercise Regularly.

Although it may originally seem difficult to get into the habit of exercising regularly, individuals who do so often find themselves overwhelmingly pleased with the great physical and psychological results they receive from doing so. For example, people who work out regularly tend to experience improved digestion, better memory, enhanced metabolism, and sounder sleep. You can choose from a wide variety of physical activities when you begin to implement your fitness plan. Some of them include: 

• yoga 
• tae-bo
• swimming 
• cycling
• running
• weight-lifting

Don't Delay: Get Healthy Today! 
If you want to lead an extraordinarily rewarding life, getting healthy is a must. Luckily, there are numerous wellness systems you can implement to make great health manifest in your life. Utilize the information and strategies outlined above to get on the path to optimized wellness immediately! Pin It

Next Phase In My Weight Loss Journey

It's been 11 weeks since I started on my lose one pound a week weight loss goal and I've lost 10 pounds so far. The past 3 weeks I saw a slow down as old habits crept in. Weekends are especially hard because I don't cook during weekends. We either go out or we eat takeout which usually adds up to a lot more food then when I cook.

So now I'm going to start with a new base. 145 pounds and I'm going on my next phase of losing 10 pounds in 10 weeks. So, hopefully by end of September I would reach my new goal. This time I invited some online friends to join me to keep myself on my toes. Yup! Group support, encouragement and inspiration will help a lot. So that's what I will be doing.

I'm doing well so far, no hunger pangs (well, not too much), no pills, no artificial foods. Everything is natural and slowly but surely I will reach my goal. I'm looking at my calendar and thinking that if I keep at this, I will be able to buy myself a new pretty dress for Christmas this year. Yippee! Pin It

Excuses! Excuses! Excuses!

No weight loss to report this week but a weight gain! Now the weight is 147 pounds. Seems like 145 is illusive for now.

What is the excuse? Its school holidays and with the kids home, every time I make tea for them, I eat it too. Teas include piping hot pancakes with cold ice-cream to tease the palate. Help!

I even went and bought more salads to stock up the fridge but those teas! And to be honest, I ate normal meals too for some lunches and dinners. I've become lazy and lost some willpower.

I shall not be derailed from my goal! Chant 3 times and let's get back to it! Pin It

No Weight Loss This Week

No weight loss to report this week.

I started the week at 146 pounds. This week I was careless with my diet. Its not that I binged or anything like that. I still ate little but I did not eat VERY little. By mid week, I had gained 3 pounds erasing my 10 pound weight loss. Gosh! It is so difficult to lose weight but so easy to gain it!

So by mid week, I quickly filled my fridge with lots of greens and resorted or went back to eating grass salads and finally, I lost back the 3 pounds so I am back to square 1 at 146 by the end of the week.

When losing weight, it is important to track it or else it is too easy to gain back what you lost so easily.

That's all for this week. Until next week, it is onward and upwards, I mean downwards..... Pin It

Eating Out On A Diet

Weight This Week: 146 pounds.

It was not easy to keep up to the 1 pound a week loss this week. Old habits keep on coming back. Especially weekend eating habits.

When on a diet, weekend and eating out is the toughest.

I find that one of the ways to do it is either to order and super scrumptious salad like the one in the picture or share what everyone else is eating. Don't order a full portion unless it is a salad.

Hmmm... the salad was really gooood. It had kale and some peanut sauce. Ok, peanut sauce isn't all that fantastic but everything in moderation is ok. To me dieting means eating everything in moderation and reducing everything slowly. Dieting does not mean depriving yourself. When you deprive yourself, you feel a yearning which may easily backfire. So don't deprive yourself. Order the most delicious, nicest looking and scrumptious salad in the house. If you are one who likes some crunch in your salads, add seeds and nuts. Oh.  Yummy! Enjoy your food and still lose weight. That salad I ordered when eating out on a diet had crunchy kale, purple cabbages, carrots, sesame seeds and nuts and some green colored beans, I'm not sure what type of beans. I am so going to make this on my own soon.

I must work on my bad weekend eating habits too. That's my biggest problem at the moment. Pin It

Exercise Apps For My Weight Loss Journey

Time for my weekly update. Happy to report that the weight is still going down at 147 pounds. Not going to talk about me today but going to talk about the exercise or fitness apps I have on my phone.

There are many exercise apps available but currently I have 3 on my phone. They are Sworkit Pro, Tabata and Beach Body. Oh well, one can dream.

I'm not going to talk about them in detail (because I don't use it that much. Ahem! I know I really should because dieting alone won't speed up my weight loss. It has to be coupled with exercising.)

3 Fitness/Exercise Apps On My Phone

1. Sworkit Pro. I have the Pro version for free on one of those free days. Many apps give discounts or free promotions on certain days. I have an app that shows me the free daily apps so I got these for free when it was on promo. You can choose between stretching, yoga, cardio or strength training and set the timing for each session from 5 to 30 minutes. Its very flexible and you can have a full body workout. Just follow the trainer on the screen who will do the countdown and show you how its done.




2. Tabata is a high intensity 4 minute workout discovered by Japanese scientist Dr. Izumi Tabata and a team of researchers from the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo. You can try out the Tabata Lite app which is free to decide if this workout is for you. Tabata is great for time strapped people because its just 4 minutes of workout.



3. Beach Body - There are many Beach Body apps available, the one I have is the 4 Minute Beach Body app or Women's Tabata Workout. I don't use it much because the exercises seem hard with a lot of planking required. Oh well, if you want to have a beach perfect body, you gotta work for it! I should be deleting this one. Its too tough for me.




Want more workouts? Just go to google and search for fitness or exercise and fine tune your searching by going to "more" and "apps". There are just so many apps available these days, you can find an app for working any part of your body! Pin It

Weight Loss Progress

It's been a little over a  month since the start of my weight loss journey so it's time to have a look at the weight loss progress.

Started 8th May 2016 at 155 pounds
Today 11th June 2016 at 147 pounds
Total Loss = 8 pounds

Despite losing 8 pounds, it is hardly noticeable. I would say the progress in terms of fitting into clothing is something like this. I still have a lot of items of clothing hanging in my closet which I cannot fit into. A lot of pants too. However, for a couple of the larger sizes pants, the fit has changed like this. From totally unable to zip up (even when lying in prone position and breathing in) - See BEFORE drawing, now upon lying down in prone position and breathing in, the trousers can be zipped up but it is tight with lots of crease lines and belly flopping as you can see in the AFTER illustration. (Do excuse the poor illustration - the hands in the pocket looks out of shape just like me still).

Still, if I may say so myself, I am quite happy and proud with the progress. So going to give myself a pat on the back and say "YOU GO GIRL!" and on with the diet!

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It's Easy To Lose Weight But So Hard To Lose It

As at 12 pm yesterday, I checked the health app on my phone, the one with a little red heart on it and found that I had walked 11,399 steps for the day or equivalent to 7.46 km. This was from our 5 km jungle track (pictured above) with the kids and grocery shopping after that. Wow! Mall walking takes up 2.5 km. I think I should go shopping more often. On Saturdays, I walk about 90% for the rest of my week where I remain pretty sedentary. Boo!

Today's weight is 149. Yay! I managed to say bye bye to the 150s..... It fluctuated between 149 point something to 148 point something. So losing say 1 pound is nothing because it could merely be the weight fluctuations throughout the day. For example, the scales read 149.6 after dinner last night and 148.6 before breakfast. I also found out that my jeans weigh 1 pound and a so too does the towel I use to wrap around my wet hair because of the weight difference with or without them. Ok. I admit. I'm currently obsessed with my weight, so I check it pretty often.

When I say 149. I mean 149 pounds. I prefer to watch pounds than kilograms because it is more satisfying to say, I have lost 6 pounds since I started compared to I have lost 2.72 kg since I started. I like 6 better. Makes me think my effort is paying off much better compared to 2.72.

Having lost 6 pounds since I started does not feel any different at all. I still have difficulty fitting into my clothes. Take a pair of old trousers for example. At 155 I couldn't even get into them. Now, I can get back into them but I can only zip it up in prone lying down position. Arrgh! I cannot weight (I mean wait. See? I'm weight obsessed) for them to fit better. I shall have a gala time taking out every dress in the closet to try them to see which one fits again. At the moment, my wardrobe has been strictly limited to wearing just a handful while the rest hangs on racks in the cupboard untouched and unwearable.

Fortunately I started on the diet. Enough is enough! The slide down to weightiness is an easy one but difficult to climb back out from. It's easy to lose weight but so hard to lose it.

My next target is 145 in a 2-3 weeks hopefully. Even then, 145 used to be my peak weight and which I had great difficulty losing to 135. My gosh! It will be like starting over again once I reach 145. I remembered telling myself the second time I reached the peak of 145 that I was going to lose it but then instead I ballooned to 155. I blamed it on menopause but then really, besides menopause, there was Christmas and holiday bingeing followed by the Chinese New Year, then one birthday celebration in the house after another and you just gotta have cake for celebrations don't you? Oh, and I started trying my hand at baking. I baked buns and breads and cakes and..... Anything freshly baked smells so heavenly. I ended up finishing them most of the time!

The hardest part I find about being a mum and dieting is the food preparation part. Preparing yummy foods and not eating them is real hard. When the kids commented on that, I told them "Now, that's what you call will power." When  you want something, you have to work really hard to make it happen. I will work really hard to make this happen.

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Its Okay To Declare A No-Diet Day

Weight: 150.4 pounds

This week started off really slow. Despite eating about just one quarter to half of what I normally eat each day, I was stuck at 151.6 till Wednesday. On Friday, I celebrated my 15th wedding anniversary so I declared a No-Diet evening when we went out for dinner. I wanted to enjoy my dinner with cocktails and all. I didn't want to be salad picking and I think that's okay too. One does not have to be extremely rigid about the diet as long as you get back on track. The next day, I was back on track. Even the kids noticed the next day and said "Mom is back on her diet."

Despite that one No-Diet evening, I was happy to see the weight leaving the 151.6 station. Now 14++++ is within site. I'm so excited. Soon I can say bye bye to the 150s. The funny thing is it was so easy to move from 140s to 150s, I didn't even notice it. It happened in the blink of an eye. To reverse that is tough! I remember when I was 140, I told myself that I would reduce to 135 but then it was Christmas and Chinese New Year and one thing food led to another and soon I was at 155. Geez.

I could have done it if I had worked at it harder. Its not very hard to reduce 5 pounds. Now I have to reduce 20 because of letting myself go.

That's it for this week. Hope to leave 150s next week. Pin It

Weight Loss Journal Blog Update

I was hopeful to go below 150 pounds this week but alas .....

I started at 152 pounds from last week and did everything the same as I did in terms of food reduction. No more teas or snacks, no rice, and salads instead of full blown meals for meal replacements. I did not overdo it. Meal replacement would be only once a day, either lunch or dinner.

The lowest I went for the week was 150.2 pounds but all it took was my a birthday in the house and a slice of cake and eating out to slow me down. I skipped the rice too when eating out and exercised lots of self control too. Hmmm....

In terms of extra activities, I was very busy this week. I managed to go for my once a week 5km walk but other than that it was no go and I spent hours sitting instead of moving around. I downloaded an exercise app which I shall share next time as I only used it once this time round.

I've lost 3-4 pounds since I started 2 weeks ago but there's no sign of it yet. All the clothing are still tight and am still unable to get into many at this time. Double Boo Hoo.

That's all for this week. Not an encouraging week despite feeling hungry most of the week but I shall PERSEVERE. I can do it! AND I shall do it the natural way, without supplements or starving myself too much, slow and easy. Pin It

Weight Loss Diary - I Downloaded A Weight Loss Tracking App

I started on my weight loss journey last week with the goal to lose one pound a week. Let's see how I am doing. Last week I was 155 pounds. This week 153 pounds. Tadaa! It's been hard. I was hungry. I tried not to get too hungry though, eating slowly and taking snacks whenever I felt hungry. I had lots of salad, soups and shared foods of others so I won't overeat.

In terms of activity, I did more housework but not quite enough. At the moment, I take a 5km walk once a week but that is as far as I go in terms of exercise. My goal this week is to increase my activity.

The weight loss tracking app is called Fitter Fitness Calculator & Weight Tracker. It is supposed to help you measure your BMI, BMR (whatever that is), Body Fat % & Waist to Hip Ratio. I don't care about all that. I only care about my weight loss. The rest will adjust itself.

There's this tracker page where I can key in my goal of 1 pound a week, my start weight and it will calculate how many days I will need to take to reach that goal. My target is 125 pounds. 125 is a tough target for me. I've never seem to be able to get below the 135 pounds barrier in recent years.

The weight tracking app says I will take 189 days to reach that target. Ooooohhh. There is a progress chart too. At the moment all I see is a straight downwards line. That's good. Down is good.

I've got the whole family in on this. I told the man "In a few month's time, you will have a cleaner house and a thinner wife" to which he quipped "a not so fat wife". Men!

My sisters said that I should cut out a picture of me wearing my wedding evening gown and paste it somewhere I can clearly see it frequently to motivate me. I told them I didn't need that. Walking pass the mirror and seeing the me now is enough to motivate me!

My son said "Mom, I am surprised you don't feel stressed". "Stressed about what?" I asked him. "Stressed about preparing food but not eating it. This was said after I laid out the subway sandwiches and cookies for them for lunch. The thing about dieting is, it is harder for someone who has to prepare 4 meals a day, breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner for the family. Especially the tea part where I sometimes bake muffins or prepare pancakes with ice-cream and fruit. No snacking while cooking. That's hard! These days I just prepare marmite toast or garlic bread for them for tea.

I've been telling my kids to organize their school bags so they don't have to carry all that extra weight to school each day and here I am with extra baggage stuck to me which I carry around all day! Tsk! Tsk! That weight is not good for my knees, my back and my heart plus overall health. Better do something about it before a health scare.

My brother in law showed me the iphone health app which shows that I walk about 10,000 steps on Saturday and just 1000 steps on other days.

I was thinking of buying myself a dress I like in a smaller size and working towards wearing it but I don't need to do that really. There's plenty in the closet waiting for me to fit into them again. I'll do the buying part as a reward later on.

That's my weight loss journal for this week. Next week, I start anew at 152 pounds.


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The Start Of My Weight Loss Journey

Yesterday was 8th of May 2016. It was Mother's Day and the day I officially declare as the start of my weight loss journey. I will be 50 next month and I weigh 155 pounds. My target is to lose 1 pound a week up to 20 pounds. I am writing this down publicly so that I will not waiver.

At 155 pounds and at 50, I feel the effects of my weight. A little of activity makes me sweat a lot. I am hot, tired, lethargic and my bones creak in the morning or when I sit in the same position for some time. I also have pulse, pant when I walk up the stairs and a wardrobe of clothes that no longer fit. When I go shopping, its hard to find clothes that fit. It seems that nice clothes are only made for thin people. So, I can only admire clothes, not wear them.

I have gone on a slow weight loss journey about 2 years after my second child, losing 10 pounds in 6 months. This time my target is higher. Well, you aim high so that if you fall short, you still lose. I will adjust it later if I find it too hard.

My weight seems to increase by 10 pounds for each decade. In my teens I was 105 pounds. In my 20s, I was 115 pounds, in my 30s, 125 pounds, in my 40s 135 pounds. In my early 40s, I went up to 145  pounds which was my highest at the time and it was 2 years after my second child. I managed to lose it and went down to 135 pounds and it stayed that way but now, I'm headed towards my 50s starting at 155 pounds. I have ballooned. It must be due to inactivity or sedentary lifestyle, lower metabolistic rate and menopause.

I remember during my previous diet, I felt hungry quite often. It was hard. This time, when I feel hungry, I may take small snacks of fruit, vegetables or a small cup of cereal. Otherwise it will be hard to keep up and not good for the body.

I often look around at the other women around me and I realize that many are a lot fitter and in better shape than me. I have gone over the edge to the other side.

I'm going to document my weight loss journey here as a reference for myself. I actually started 2-3 days before the 8th by watching and being mindful of everything I eat. One meal a day may be replaced by salads. No more eating the teas that I prepare for my family and eating less of everything else that I like. I will also increase my activity by doing more housework for a start. Instead of losing, I actually gained 2 pounds going from 153 to 155 pounds. I am not disheartened. I will just have to keep at it. Sometimes our weight fluctuates by 1 or 2 pounds due to water weight etc.

Strangely eating less makes the food more tasty and enjoyable. That's it for today. Pin It