Monday, May 31, 2010

Do You Ever Wonder...?

Do you ever wonder why some of the people that you care so much for can change so much...

Do you ever wonder why some things that you're familiar with could one day suddenly become something so strange that you wondered if you imagined the familiarity and knowledge you have of it in the first place...

Do you ever wonder where time has gone when it seems like just yesterday when the first that stared back at you was of a young girl and now you can see lines emerging on the face that looks right back at you in the harsh light of the day....

Do you ever wonder how you got here..

And feel worried and even a little sad about what big surprises await you in the future that you have little control of.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Man vs. Woman

I've been with the gym for 3 months now, and have had about 14 sessions with that personal trainer of mine. So far I've lost four kilos, and my jeans are looser around the tummy.

Before you say "Hey that's great!" or "Wow, good on you!".. let me just highlight a typical day at the gym, and a typical day of training.

On a training day, I get to the gym at 10.40 a.m. I usually have breakfast at home, at 9 a.m. so that by 10.40, the food's gone down nicely. As soon as A sees me (A is my trainer), he'd say; "Fifteen minutes!" or "Twenty minutes".. which basically means that's how long I have to be on the cross-trainer or the elliptical machine (using a fat-burning program setting that leaves your legs feeling like jelly and your thighs burning like on fire). Then when I'm done with the "warm-up" part (yes that's just the warm-up), A would start me on a circuit training program, or sometimes we'd make our rounds and work the machines. If the day's training involves circuit training, a typical session would involve approximately 200 lunges, 100 squads, 100 tricep curls of some sort (don't ask me the names of the motions coz I don't know), 100 bicep curls/exercises of some sort, 100 shoulder-strengthening exercises, 100 lower back exercises, 50 upper back-strengthening exercises (usually we do the "seated rowing" for this with weighs up to 20 kilos), 100 pulley-exercises, 100 reverse crunches, intervals on the step-thingy (where you go up the step and kick or simply jog up and down the step in a hurry).. and many many other exercises that the forever pleasant-but-sadistic A could squeeze into our one-hour session. And A, being the hardworker (right!) that he is, would gladly extend the session to nearly 2 hrs if there's no client waiting after me. And after the session is over, it's back onto the elliptical or the cross-trainer again for another 20 to 30 minutes of fatburning cardio.

On a non-training day, I'd come in at about 11.00 a.m., do 20 minutes of fatburning cardio, and then spend about 40 minutes to an hour working the machines and doing lunges, squats, crunches and weights. Then it's back for another 20 minutes on the cardio machines before rushing off to shower and fetch Gibran from school at 1 p.m.

Every week I'll have two days of personal training, and three days of independent trainer-free workouts (either at the gym of at home on my own elliptical, and using H's gym equipment).

So let me get this straight...

For the amount of work that I put in every week, I really want to see a bigger number than FOUR KILOS.

Just look at the biggest loser and the kilos that fly every week!

Oh well. A girl can dream, right?!

Now lets talk about H.

He works out 5 to 6 days a week about one hour each time, using some workout programs he downloads from the Internet..

And he's already tight and taught from muscles all over in places one can think of. His abs only has a thin layer of fat left amidst those ketul-ketulan of stomach muscles, his arms do not have even an ounce of fat left, and his face looks thin to the point of being gaunt. Oh, and his body fat is more than 10% less than mine.

Blame it on the genetic differences and the biologies of man versus woman.

But really.

How unfair can life be?!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Changes in My Comfort Zone

Did you hear about Jusco One Utama closing down soon?

Dang. That shop's been there since OU first opened back when I was 16 years old. Perhaps 60% of everything that I have in the pantry (and in my closet) comes from there.

Did you know that Marks n Spencers' things are now more affordable than many departmental brands?

And yet the staff still act high and mighty as though you're buying a highly rare and prestigious brand. That's alright coz now that I'm older I just take my business elsewhere if a certain store's staff irritate me in any small way.

Did you know that I've owned Coach, Nine West and Liz Claiborne and I frankly feel as if they all wear out in the same ways that good quality handbags should?

Thus I don't idolise any particular brand out of those three, and to this day I don't understand why Coach OU staff act as if their noses are constantly hung in the air and would tag around smilingly when we go in wearing our LVs and Aigners, but would treat us like mites if we happened to be wearing our Liz or Charles and Keith bags. And to think Coach only costs so little when you buy em at US outlet stores anyway. So what's with these so-calledly prestigous shops layan-ing only datin-look-alikes?

I've always been a small-time-shopaholic and I don't like the way things are changing in my shops.

I hear Isetan's taking over Jusco in One Utama.

Oh no.

Give me good ol' Jusco any day.

There must be a point to this story...?

Take pity on me. I'm just a simple girl who loves my neighbourhood Jusco shop where the surroundings are as familiar as my old socks and the sour-faced staff don't bother me at all coz they don't judge me by the way I look on my bad-attire day.