Getting fit & making smart choices.

As I've said before, I'm going on a fitness streak. I haven't stopped of given myself any slack at all. Its probably one of the craziest things I've committed myself into. And trust me, I have plenty of excuses reasons not to workout on any day. However, due to this commitment that I made to myself, 100 days of 15 mins of fitness each day, I need to do it. Hopefully, its going to turn into a habit, and it will do good for as long as I can hold onto it.

I've been trying to push the hubby to workout more, and he's been trying to get himself to go to the gym to workout more often. Starting his time at the treadmill. ;) I'm really happy, and to encourage him, I go with him, and we run side by side. He's actually a pretty good runner! He started at 6.5 after warm up, and till now, the max I can go is still 6 only. :(

But so far, he managed to go gym once this week only, and every Sunday, he would go for badminton. Let's see if I can push him for 2 times a week of gym, and 1 badminton session on Sunday. I miss his slimmer days. He's almost overweight now. I guess its my fault for cooking all those food for him.

Yesterday night, after his work, he was hungry, and asked me to fix for him supper. I told him I didn't have any food defrosted except salad. And I went ahead and fixed him a salad with some turkey ham, and hard boiled eggs. Topped with dried pear, Crasins, and walnuts. This was my dinner without the eggs.

 Maybe its our first step to healthy living. I hope its here to stay. I may be pushing my buttons, but its going the way I want it. Now, I need to educate myself more on fitness and nutrition. I take it upon my duty as his wife to allow him to live a better life, by encouraging him to take on healthy choices. I want to be that Savvy Wife, who knows how to be her husband's personal trainer / nutritionist in the home. Its a choice you have to make.

Updates on the workout I've been doing:

26 Apr 2011 

Rev Abs - Total Strength & Mercy Abs 63 mins














27 Apr 2011

1.5 mile walk / jog on treadmill 20 mins
20 mins doing strength training on machines with focus on arms

28 Apr 2011

Rev Abs - Rev up your Abs 45 mins
















29 Apr 2011

RevAbs - Power Intervals 1 25 mins

I will do reviews of the dvds I've been doing, so if you're keen, you may purchase it for your own use. I'm not a Beachbody Coach, and I'm not paid or sponsored by them. Although I'd love too. =)

I also mix other DVDS in my workout, and I'm currently crazy about, Biggest Loser workouts, Jillian Michaels, and Bob Harper, as well as, this RevAbs series. I like to keep switching things around so that I don't get bored. I'm always on the lookout for new workout DVDs as well, so if you have any to recommend, just leave me a comment, or drop me an email. Preferably, with minimal workout equipment and doable in a small space at home.

The Fitness Streak

My food's now back to the average, aside from the slight disappointment the husband shows when its alittle on the bland side. He kinda told me off today, that the food was a little boring, and he didn't want to share it with his friends. Oh well, his way of telling me to buck up on my cooking. Yeah, thanks! I'm trying hard alright!

So, I've been saying how much I needed to workout, and how much I haven't been working out. I let my body laze for 1 entire month straight. All along, just feeling guilty but not doing anything about it.

I've been using Sparkpeople, to log my workout minutes for quite sometime. I love that its free, and they have articles on nutrition, meal plans, and they count calories for you too. They have a forum, and members blogs, which they share their stories and motivate each other. I'm kind of a quiet lurker, but I love it there. Just logging my own time.

So I came across Sparkguy's blog, and he mentioned that he's going to go on a 1000 day fitness streak. Whereby, each day, he had to do 10 mins of activity, and log it, until he hit 1000 days. So that strike a spark (pun intended) in me, to get into a 100 day fitness spark. I haven't been active for that long before, and I wanted to get my fitness on track, without scaring myself off. So now, I'm on Day 5 and still on track with drinking 8 glasses of water a day, and a minimum of 15 mins of fitness activity a day.

Here's what I've been doing:

20 Apr 2011

Biggest Loser Cardio Max Lvl 1 and 2 (35 mins)















21 Apr 2011

2 mile walk (30 mins)

22 Apr 2011

1 mile walk ( 15 mins)

23 Apr 2011

1 hour walk around Boise Farmer's Market

24 Apr 2011

Jillian Michaels Biggest Winner Cardio Kickboxing (30 mins)













25 Apr 2011

Chalean Extreme Day 1 Burn 1













Care to join me in my fitness route? Are u doing something to keep yourself active everyday?

Worst meal I ever cooked!

I had a great start to this week, where my hubby gave me daily compliments and told me how wonderful everything was. I packed up our shoe racks, and our kitchen. It made the entry to our house less cluttered, and everything was much neater. Each compliment made me a happier wife, and gave me energy to want to do more for him. I felt so much love, I put it all into the cooking, and he was full of good words for all the dishes I made.

That was, until yesterday, the most disastrous dinner I ever made. Gosh! I can't even believe it. It's probably worse than dog food. So, this smart litte bitch in me was packing the kitchen shelves, and saw 2 cans of sardines.

I, for a fact, know that the sardines in USA have this very strong stinky smell to them, and the smell lurks into the entire home. It doesn't just go away, and after u eat them, the after taste gets stuck in your mouth. As I packed the rest of the stuff, I saw a small can of curry powder, which I've been trying to finish using, now, having the new spicier powder that I brought back from Singapore.

So, putting 1 + 1 = 2, I started googling for curried sardines, thinking that the curry could cover the fishy smell. I decided in the end, to just follow the instructions on the curry can, and cook it like how i cook curry chicken, with onions and garlic and coconut milk.

I also found a packet of pureed corn soup in the cupboard, and decided to use it as well. I warmed the soup, added potatoes and carrots, and brought it to a boil for 20 mins. My itchy hand decided that blending all the vegetables together would make it like a creamy version of the ABC soup, and that's what I did. I did do spoonfuls of tasting while cooking, and it was pretty alright.

When we sat down for dinner, I spat out the sardines after the first mouthful. It was like dog food. And while trying to wash down the after taste with spoonfuls of the soup, I realise they were like baby food, and after a few mouthfuls, my palate was bored of it. I lost my appetite and decided to fry eggs for me and hubby to eat with our coconut milk flavoured rice.

No photos, I don't want to be reminded of this terrible dinner.

Lesson learnt:

Stick to what you're familiar with, or at least, tried and tested recipes.
Stop experimenting.
I'm still not that good at cooking.
Fresh ingredients are still, always the best.
To hell with canned food.
Hell yeah to fresh food!

1 mth of MIA and my holiday in Singapore

Dear Savvy Wife,

I haven't been good. A week before my holiday, I was busy buying gifts and packing luggages for the trip. Mind you, 3 weeks of holiday and visiting back home, is a hell lot of gifts to pack. 2 luggage of gifts and a luggage of clothes for each of us, that makes 4 x 20kg each. Thank SIA for good baggage allowances. Our total:

2 x laptops
2 x hand carry
4 x 20kg luggage
1 handbag

You practically need octopus arms to carry all of them. Lucky for us, we had friends to help us. I couldn't manage to carry any of them.

We had 2 important things to cover on our trip back.

1) To see and spend time with our parents
2) To eat as much local food as we can.
3) To enjoy the sun.

We did plenty of both, and only ate in hawker centers, which, to our dismay, caused our to fall sick in the first week. The toilet runs did me no good, I actually lost 3kg due to that. The weather was hitting on us, too warm, and too sweaty. And the food from the hawkers, too oily and probably not too cleanly prepared, compared to the home cooked food I've been providing back here.

It was a good 3 week holiday back to Singapore and we had pretty much covered all the food that we missed having back here. I took lotsa food pics and made a mental note to replicate as much as I can back here in USA.

As such, you'll probably be seeing alot of my failed recipes coming up on my blog real soon. And I have yet to start my workout routine again. I've fallen off my routine after falling sick in the first week. I spent much time sleeping off the jetlag and fever/flu/cough due to the weather and food.

Now, i'm trying to get off the dizzyness I'm feeling due to my periods. I have low blood pressure, and all the loss of blood is causing me to feel dizzy, and crampy.

I'll be back soon, after I get used to the housewifey routine, and packing up the home.

Love,

Natx