It's Been A Year Already??

How time flies...

It is so strange that October is the month for anniversaries. LOL!!

Stretch Your Muscles!

I've been suffering from back pain for the past week or so. I've visited the physio twice for treatment which was some improvement but there was still pain.

Charlotte learning some "qi-gong"

Healthy Sandwich Options - Turkey Breast

It's the start of another week and almost the end of the 1st month of the 1st new decade of the 2010's.

How is everyone keeping to their diets and resolutions?

Anyway, just to share with you a nice sandwich option for lunch. It is filling and very healthy, provided you use healthy ingredients...

I've used the following ingredients for this sandwich:
- Mayonaise (about 2 teaspoons to spread)
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil (sprinkle)
- Coral lettuce
- Cherry tomatoes
- 3 slices of turkey breast (small)
- 1 low-fat cheese slice
- 1 wholemeal Mini Pide Loaf (Turkish bread)

Absolutely delicious. It tastes even better if you just toast it in the toaster oven for a few minutes.. ;-)

Diet & Exercise - Linked Soo Closely...

Just a quick post since I've got to start studying some stuff soon.

Over the weekend, I caught up with my mates whom I've not seen in a while. One of whom I've not seen even before the event of 21-Oct-2009.

I was shocked to see my friend lose so much weight in the span of 3-4mths!! She was on some liquid diets and did manage to lose quite a bit of weight but I think she found it hard to lose the 5kg or so to reach her ideal weight.

Then, she started to work out at home on her treadmill and now is about 1kg away from her goal weight. Back in uni, she was a little chubby and had lost quite a bit of weight by sleeping the entire day - essentially skipping most of her meals.

Well, I'm also happy to report that I've lost some more weight too, i.e. I think I may have dropped a couple of kgs too. It's linked to my diet, medication & exercise. Ever since I've cut away about 99% of sugar from my diet, every thing seems to be better.

However, I still have a little bit of high blood pressure despite me cutting off a lot of salt from my diet. The most difficult part is to have a balanced meal when we're not at home, especially when you're out with friends or colleagues. I've tried to ask the hawker or waiter to help me ask the cook to prepare my food with less oil and salt to much avail. Sometimes it works, most often times it doesn't.

Seems that oil & salt are "cheap" for these restaurants/hawkers? Hey... I'm still paying the same price despite them putting less "ingredients" and that contributes to their bottom line & they still don't want to do it??

Anyway, I'm still on my diet & exercise regime. My exercise is getting a bit more intense after my doctors gave me the green light. My strength training has been slow as I've got to start all over again on building them muscles...

Mixed-Herb Roast Chicken @ Home

Since one of my goals this year is to be healthy, I've been on a quest to discover some healthy recipes (low salt, sugar, fat) to cook at home.

This is a simple roast chicken recipe which I've adapted from Jamie Oliver.

Ingredients

• 1/2 fresh chicken
  
• Olive oil (about 2 tablespoons but depends on size of chicken)
  
• Dried Mixed Herbs from MacFoods
• 1/2 a lemon
• Pepper and Salt (optional)

Method
1. Clean the chicken and pat it to dry.
2. Mix the dried mixed herbs with olive oil, pepper (and salt) and juice of 1/2 a lemon into a bowl. Keep the lemon skin as it can be used for roasting the chicken later. Spread the marinade on the chicken.
3. Leave chicken to marinade for 1-2hours.
4. When ready to roast the chicken in an oven, cut the lemon skin and place on the roasting rack of the oven. Place the chicken on top of the sliced lemons. Do remember to place a tray underneath the rack to catch the drippings from the chicken.
5. Roast at 300F for at least 45 minutes or until the thickest part of the chicken is cooked.
6. Rest the chicken under tin foil before serving.
7. Serve with steamed vegetables and starch of choice.

You may also make a bit of gravy from the drippings provided the excess oil and fat has been discarded first. If you like to make it a bit more spicy, add a bit more cracked black pepper for taste.

I decided to serve my chicken with some steamed broccoli and baked sweet potato. Of course, I removed the skin before I ate... Kekeke...

The chicken is quite different from your average roast chicken which is usually with salt, pepper and honey or malt as the marinade. This roast chicken is fantastic when paired with a tomato-based pasta as well.

Hope you all will try it out soon!

Healthy Breakfast Options

The holiday season is about to end. Am sure that everyone is busy with getting the kids/themselves back to school/work.

I've been spending the last couple of days stocking up on my cereal supplies for breakfast. I was looking for a particular brand of cereal as I've got to ensure that there is no added sugar/salt in the cereal. Yes, one has to be more careful with nutrition these days.

I've shared my Dad's breakfast oats recipe previously and of late, I've decided to use skimmed milk instead of water to soak the oats. After adding a variety of fresh fruits with the oats, the results is a very delicious and fulfilling breakfast.

Another variety was to add cereal with sliced almonds and dried fruits on top of the fruits. It sounds quite complicated but in fact, is a very quick and simple breakfast to prepare. Not only that, it is highly nutritious with all the required vitamins and fibre for a good start.

When there is home-baked bread at home, I often like to make toast with it. A recent favourite of mine is to have peanut-butter toast with sliced bananas. The recipe is so simple & quick, I didn't realize why I hadn't thought about it earlier!

The only ingredients required are:

• Thick slice of wholemeal bread
• 2 teaspoon of peanut-butter (no added sugar/salt would be best)
• 1/2 slice of medium-sized banana (not too ripe)

The steps are equally simple:

1. Toast bread.
2. Spread peanut-butter on toast.
3. Slice bananas.
4. Arrange bananas on toast.
5. Eat and enjoy with a glass of cold skimmed milk or hot drink. (^.^)

Have a great start to the week everyone!!!

Mini Steamboat Lunch @ Fong Lye, Gardens MidValley

A couple of months back, I met up with my friends for a quick lunch at Gardens, MidValley.

They had been quite interested to see how I was after I got out of the hospital and was about to go back to work.

We met up at my favourite Taiwanese restaurant, Fong Lye.

There's always some sort of a queue in front of Fong Lye and so far, this is perhaps one of the few Taiwanese places I've tried within the Klang Valley. I've been to a few others, including one which has started a chain of restaurants but I've always preferred Fong Lye.

Unfortunately, Fong Lye is a non-halal place as it serves pork dishes. It also has a few wonderful chicken and seafood dishes as well. What I like most about Fong Lye is that the main dish comes with a few side dishes as well.

This time round, we decided to go healthy and had something light to eat for lunch.

The stir-fried kangkung (Morning Glory) with garlic was scrumptious. I did request for less salt and oil but the dish still looks kind of oily. However, it still tasted delicious and goes well with rice.

EV had always been interested in the mini-steamboat and since there were 3 of us sharing, we ordered it to try. The steamboat comes with a variety of seafood - clams, fresh prawns, fish and meat balls. The set also comes with some vegetables and "tang hoon" noodles as well. I did not take much of the seafood but enjoyed the soup immensely as it had the lovely flavour of the seafood and vegetables.

I cannot recall how much the meal was exactly, but it came up to roughly RM60++ in total, which includes drinks for two people.

Hmmm... Now, looking at these photos makes me feel like having Taiwanese food soon... LOL!!

Christmas Came Early for Me This Year

I'm pretty exhausted now although it has been hours since I got back from the hospital.

Well, I just got a great early Christmas prezzie... One of my doctors, i.e. the cardiologist is quite happy with my echo-cardiogram which I did this morning. According to him, my heart looks to be back to normal with the treatment I'm undergoing.

It was a very busy day at the hospital, with a lot of folks coming for their check-ups and etc. I had to wait for almost 1.5hrs to get my blood drawn for tests. Some kids had to get their blood drawn and being so small, I pity those kids who had to be pricked by needles.

This time, the technician somehow "chose" a small vein and it was difficult to draw blood out. -_-"

So, I was in a bit of pain. Funnily though, I'm not too scared of needles or blood. But then again, at one point, I did seriously think about taking up medicine but in the end didn't when I decidedly loved Physics more than Biology in pre-U.

Luckily, there was no queue at the diagnostics services but the echo-cardiogram took a really long time to complete. After all, the test was to scan all 4 chambers of the heart. I had forgotten that it was cold and by the time I finished, I was freezing.

All that time I did not have time to take my breakfast as I had to fast before my blood test. So, I only had a late breakfast/early lunch by 11:30am. After a quick bite, it was off to see the other doctor too.

The doctors did warn me about side-effects of the medication and should I experience any of the symptoms, I was to go back and see the doctors.

Other than that, I'm now free to do a bit more stuff at the gym... in small steps. That means, I can't start doing 20kg bench presses or dead lifts so soon but to do so gradually when I'm strong enough. It'll be mainly cardio and some light strength training to tone those muscles. I'm looking forward to doing some running soon.

I'll still need to see my doctors in about 2-6months time.

Meanwhile, I'm just glad to be able to celebrate Christmas in good health this year.

Thanks to everyone who kept me in their prayers and thoughts. (^-^)

Teo Chew Food @ Chao Yen, 1Utama

My laptop still has some life left and so, I'm taking the opportunity to blog about something before I embark on my minor upgrade exercise.

It won't be much, I'll most likely just upgrade my RAM from 1GB to 2GB and the HDD from 100GB to 160GB. My old laptop takes only IDE and so, I can't take advantage of the lovely SATA drives... Besides that, I can't seem to find those 320GB or 500GB IDE drives in the market anymore. :(

Oh well....

Anyway, it has been over a month since I had my little life-changing event... One of the first places I went to eat with EV was to a little restaurant in 1Utama. It was the Teo Chew restaurant called Chao Yen.

We've been curious about this place ever since the banner went up some months back before it opened. Both of us wanted to indulge in our Teo Chew heritage food and gave the place a try.

EV and I love vegetables. In fact, I have to thank her for "teaching" me how to appreciate vegetables. We used to cook a lot back in our university days in Australia and so, she, being a "cow" would love to cook vegetables while I, being a "lion" loved my meat. I requested for little oil and low salt which was just nice.

This brings me to the only meat dish we had. We ordered a set (which included a bowl of rice) of the braised Teo Chew styled chicken. The skin was a bit salty but the meat was just sweet. I do not recall my grandmother making this and EV's mom only makes the duck version for Chinese New Year only.

Chao Yen also serves other Teo Chew dishes such as the Teo Chew style Bak Kut Teh, i.e. pork ribs/meat in a tea-like broth and also "Or ni" which is the yam dish.

Due to health reasons, I'm "forced" to take brown rice and was glad that this restaurant had an alternative option to white rice. It tasted yummy and chewy.

Anyway, these days, my rice intake has dropped significantly as I'm taking more vegetables in proportion to rice and meat. A higher fibre diet is what the doctor ordered and if I do take rice at home, it has to be brown rice and the most I can take is probably 2-3 tablespoons worth.

Chao Yen is pretty pricey. Our meal for 2 persons came to a total of RM 54++, which included a pot of fantastic Pu Er tea. The taste though is quite mild as there are not much spices or sauces to overpower the ingredients. Anyway, Teo Chew food tends to be quite "pure" and simple.

Not sure if I would recommend folks to try this place due to the price but Chao Yen offers a variety of Teo Chew cuisine which is not very Malaysianized and so, can be said that the food is more of China Teo Chew style...

Healthy Pasta Recipe - Chunky Tuna

Here's another healthy recipe idea... This time, I happened to have some fettuccine and tuna left over and decided to have a quick pasta dish.

Ingredients for 1 person's portion:

• Fettuccine - 1 portion
• Garlic (sliced) - 2 cloves
• Onions (sliced) - 4 small onions
• French Beans (sliced) - 1 portion
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Tuna chunks (in water or olive oil) - 1 portion
• Salt and Pepper - to taste (optional)

Method:

1. Mix some sliced onions with the tuna chunks. If the tuna chunks was in water, drain the water first and mix in a bit of olive oil to moisten the mixture. If you like the tuna to be a bit sour, add some squeezed lemon juice.

2. Cook the pasta as per instruction on the packet.

3. Heat the pan with the extra virgin olive oil.

4. Cook the onions and garlic until it is soft. Becareful not to burn the garlic. I find that by cooking the onions first and then adding the garlic, I tend to not burn the garlic.

5. Add the tuna chunk mixture and stir well.

6. Add the cooked pasta and if possible, add in a bit of liquid used to cook the pasta.

7. Add in the sliced french beans. The french beans may be steamed first if you prefer them to be soft; otherwise, the crunchy french beans add a lot of texture to the dish.

8. Season the pasta with salt and pepper to taste. This step is optional if you intend to keep it low sodium.

9. Add some extra virgin olive oil to finish the dish.

This is definitely a very quick dish to make especially when you don't have the time when you're back home from work or school.

Hope you like it!

World Diabetes Day

14th November is World Diabetes Day.

The reason why I'm blogging about this is because my mother's sister suffers from Type 2 Diabetes. We don't have any substantial medical history if my mother's parents or other relatives suffers from the disease previously. So, when we heard that she had it, we were shocked.

A lot of folks do not realize the dangers of consuming too much refined sugars in our diet.

There are also alot of myths surrounding getting the disease such as "I'm thin, I won't get the disease" or "None of my family members had the disease and so, I won't get it."

Based on what I've read, it seems that researchers cannot pinpoint exactly why some adults will develop the disease despite being perfectly healthy and active. Of course, being overweight and not having a healthy lifestyle makes us more susceptible to developing the disease.

Some years back, my family discovered a book on the dangers of sugar and we started to cut back on our intake of processed foods. However, I've learned now that cutting back sugars is only 1 small part of the puzzle. The major part of the staying healthy is to be active, i.e. exercising.

My recent health scare has prompted me to take a more serious action on this as diabetes can cause many problems such as heart disease and kidney problems. Diabetes can also destroy nerves which leads to limb amputation and blindness. I learned that my blood sugar was a bit high and so, decided to learn more about this disease.

However, if you get diabetes, it does not mean that you'll need to have insulin injections. There is oral medication if you are found to be insulin resistant. That's why it is important to have a full medical check-up as the doctor would be able to prescribe the right therapy for you.

Besides that, getting diabetes also does not mean that your diet must be entirely sugar free. Diet changes should be to cut back on all foods with refined sugars such as white bread, sugar (obviously), soda drinks, anything which contains "corn syrup or high fructose syrup". Diabetics can still take sugars but in very very small amounts and less frequent as possible. Our bodies still need sugars as fuel.

Get your blood sugar checked. Prevention is better than cure...

Life Is Precious

I don't think most of us know how precious life is until something happens to us.

Anyway, as a quick update as I'm sure lots of folks are concerned about how I'm doing lately.

When I left the hospital I had lost 4kg. The nurses were quite shocked when I kept losing weight when they weigh me in the mornings when I was at the hospital. This is all water weight as I was taking some medication to get rid of water.

I had been given some medical leave by the cardiologist and I badly needed it. My BP (blood pressure) had dropped to almost normal and because of that new BP, I was feeling dizzy whenever I stood up. In fact, there were times when I experienced black outs and nearly fainted. So, I had to rest more in order to get used to that new range of BP.

For the last couple of weeks I've been closely monitored by my doctors and from the last visit, one of them decided to increase some medication, while the other has planned another echo-cardiogram scan next month.

The good news is that I'm allowed (and encouraged) by the cardiologist to start exercising, i.e. to concentrate on cardio more. I could do some resistance training to strengthen my muscles but not heavy lifting. So, until the doctor gives the OK, can I start to do vigorous exercising again. So, I'm limited to walking for cardio but not running on the elliptical trainer, which was what I like to do.

Besides that, no heavy lifting means that I can't really go running around with my laptop strapped to my back; which is what a lot of folks at the office see me do as I move around floors and between the two client sites.

I'm grateful for this new lease of life. To a lot of folks who knew me, I've already started my journey towards good health last year when I joined the gym and got educated on how to exercise and eat right.

All I can say is that, the cause of a lot of health problems was stress. I was stressed out. When I got stressed, I didn't sleep well, eat well or even found time to rest. When stress levels are high, we are drawn to unhealthy habits which would eventually lead us down a dangerous path.

So, from this scare, I'm grateful that God has led me down that path; and with His help and love, I can only get better in time.

Healthy Pasta Recipe - Tomato Based

Due to my food restrictions, I've been looking out for some healthy pasta recipes which I can cook.

I managed to find my whole wheat pasta and low-salt tomato pasta sauces from Cold Storage. I bought Preggo's Heart Smart Pasta Sauce which is made up of tomatoes, onions and garlic. It has low salt and has been approved by the US Heart Association. The sauce was a little pricey RM12 for a large bottle but I was lucky as I got the whole wheat pasta free together with the bottle!

Anyway, my recipe does not have any added salt or sugar as the sauce would have adequate seasoning.

Ingredients for 1 person's portion:

• Whole Wheat Spaghetti (I got San Remo) - 1 portion
• Garlic - 2 cloves
• Onions - 2 small red onions or as many as you like
• Cherry Tomatoes - 3
• Heart Smart Onion and Garlic Pasta Sauce - 5 tablespoons
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil - 1 tablespoon
  
• Parsley Flakes
  
• (optional) - Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

1. Boil the spaghetti in hot water. The pasta will take around 8-10 minutes to cook since it is whole wheat. If you have specific diet restrictions, cook the pasta until aldente, i.e. still chewy and not too soft. Drain most of the water from the pasta.

2. Heat the pan with extra virgin olive oil.

3. Cook the onions and then add the garlic. Garlic tends to burn easily and so, do watch the heat of the pan.

4. Once the onions and garlic look soft, add the pasta sauce and keep the pan to medium heat.

5. Add the cooked pasta and some of the pasta water to make the sauce. Mix well. (Optional - You can add salt and pepper for taste at this point)

6. Add the cherry tomatoes and turn off the heat when the sauce and pasta has mixed well.

7. Sprinkle the parsley flakes.

8. Eat and enjoy. ;-)

There is also an optional step to this recipe which is to add a bit of skimmed or low fat milk to make the sauce creamy. Also, since this is a vegetarian dish, you can also add meat to the sauce too. The important step is to brown your meat first and then cook your sauce in the same pan.

Also, if you want to add more interesting flavours, here are my suggestions:

• Toasted pine nuts
• Fresh parsley instead of dried parsley flakes
• Fresh basil
  

Finally.. Here is the result of my quick recipe...

Looks good, right? ;-)

My Health Scare

I'm finally well enough to touch the laptop. I don't miss it much for the past few weeks as I had to rest and it was a welcomed relief.

My silence is evident that I definitely needed to get away from the laptop and work. And I did.

It has been a couple of weeks since I had my health scare.

On 21st October, I went to SDMC (formerly SJMC) to see a doctor based on the recommendation of the family GP (General Practitioner) the night before as I had extremely high blood pressure. I went to see the family GP as I had been coughing very badly and found it hard to breathe.

When I visited the doc at the hospital, he was concerned about my BP and ordered some tests. I went for my chest x-ray and ultrasound scans first. I even had my blood drawn too. When the x-ray results came back, I had to be referred to the cardiologist.

That was the first scare but I was staying calm.

The cardiologist saw me, had my BP checked again and immediately asked me to stop all movement and ordered that I be admitted for full bed rest as my BP got very high and my heart was not doing so well. He had me go for an echo-cardiogram test.

I did not expect to be admitted but to be sent home with medication and perhaps a couple of days of MC.

Instead, the doctor ordered me to be admitted and have full bed rest. That meant that wherever I go, I have to be pushed in a wheelchair.

For that 1st night, my BP had a lot of difficulty being stabilized, so much so that I had to be given medication under the tongue to get the blood pressure to go down. My systolic BP hovered around the 200 region which was major cause for concern.

The blood pressure eventually did drop after I did some relaxing breathing exercises and bed rest. I ignored all phone calls except for those from my family. Some folks from work did come to visit but not my PM. She kept calling and probably wanted to ask about work or when I would be back. Not once did she visit me while I was at the hospital.

By Thursday, my BP was nearly back to normal and the doctor ordered a CT scan of my kidneys. Even then, my other PM called me just minutes before I went in to ask about work when I've e-mailed everyone about the status the day before I was admitted into the hospital.

Anyway, the CT scan was quite interesting where I ended up having an itchy allergic reaction to the dye. I had to take an anti-histamine which made me sleep. However, I did not realize that the nurses had twisted my IV needle in the back of my hand too tightly that I was bleeding for a bit. By the time I was ready to head back to my room, there was a small pool of blood on the floor and a slight pain in my hand.

Then, I had a call from the hospital telling me that they need to draw more blood from me as they did not have enough for a test. They wanted me to come in but I told that I'm already admitted in the hospital. Hmmm... Nevertheless, I gave them my room number so that they can come the following morning to get my blood.

I had a lot of visitors and was shocked that the customer came to visit too. My best friends dropped by, and one even sat down for 1 hour to give me a scolding. She had the biggest scare of her life as she said that she never expected to visit me at the cardiology ward.

I finally got discharged that Saturday and the doctor gave me 1 week to rest at home. I had an appointment to see the doctor again the following week. The doctor even assigned me a nutritionist to help me educate me about managing my conditions. Aside from the mandatory diet control, I've got to slowly get back to my exercise regime which cannot be too vigorous.

As of today, I will have a few more appointments with the doctors for the next few months before I return to the family GP for follow-up consultations.

I'm currently still resting as the doctor has given me another week off after I complained about feeling dizzy and being prone to black-outs due to my blood pressure falling very low.

However, I'm finding it hard to rest properly as I've to help out with the twins who are really a handful now. They cry constantly, cannot decide if they want to eat or sleep or burp or cry. They cry even when they are feeding!!

The biggest lesson learned is that I've not been taking good care of myself. Not enough "me-time" and too much "work-time". I'll always remember the look my family GP gave me about my attitude towards work. He said, "It can wait. Your health can't."

Hope that most of you know about your "numbers". No, this is not how much $$ you have in your bank a/c, your stock portfolio, # of skills/work experience you have but the following:

• What is your waist-line, BMI (Body Mass Index), % of fat?
• What is your blood pressure (during rest)?
• What is your heart rate (during rest)?
  
• What is your cholesterol levels?
• What is your fasting glucose level?

These are just 5 basic "numbers". If you have not done your annual health check-up, please do so.. especially when you are approaching 30 or above it.

After my scare, most of my friends are planning to do their annual check-ups and some will be doing their blood test for the 1st time.

To my friends, and colleagues who prayed and visited, I thank you guys for keeping me in your thoughts. I'm feeling much better now and am getting on track to being active again.

I've got to learn to manage my stress levels better as any stress will cause 3 things to happen: 1) increased heart rate (which is bad), 2) increased blood pressure (which is very bad) and 3) increased blood sugar (which is very very bad and may cause my kidneys to tapao if not managed well).

Take care all!