I used to buy a lot of what I thought cutesy cheesy pressents which ended up collecting dust or put away in some cabinet never seeing the sun again. It was nice getting those as well back in the early days but as time goes by, you start to realize those things aren't really practical except for decoration purposes. That, if you have the space to display them too.

I'm learning to be more practical with gifts. Yes, when it comes to gifts from one fitness freak to another, practicality matters!

From me to him.

Daypack for the bf. His current one is falling apart and getting this for him just seemed right :) Comes with rain cover too, now we don't have to worry about our belongings getting wet whenever we walked up the hill in the rain. Plus, he's doing all the carrying anyway :P

From him to me


Love the cute bag! By the way, the rose was from the restaurant we dined in. I specifically told him not to get me flowers cause it's a waste of money. It's not that I don't like them but I don't think it's worth spending that much money for something that will die in a few weeks time. Pluck them fresh for me and I'll appreciate them even more :D

I took a peek inside and saw a card and a box. Bag felt quite heavy so I thought it might be perfume. But upon checking, my jaw dropped.


He asked me before if I want one... I said no since I'm not training really that hardcore anyway but of course secretly, a thought said it'll be nice to have la. Plus, I don't want him to waste the money as well. Now that the damage had been done (burned another hole in his pocket) I can only treasure this gift and put it to good use. Now I can 'look' like I train like a blardy professional even tho I'm not haha

Love it love it love it!

Thank you, once again :)

It's amazing how a good deed can go a long way.

3 year ago when I was in US for work, there was this manager who needed someone from my team to do him a huge favor. It was the Thanksgiving week and a lot of people had gone off early for holidays. As a visitor, pretty new to the project and was still in the process of learning things up, not to mention obviously don't celebrate Thanksgiving, I was probably one of the last people in the office to be working at that hour.

An email came in from this manager close to after office hours asking if anyone in the team would be able to do him a favor. An urgent one too. I volunteered, since I was the only one in the team still there and I don't quite mind putting in a few extra hours. It was Thanksgiving season, I was alone with nowhere to go except maybe to the supermarket to get dinner and then back to the hotel room to stare at 4 blank walls.

A while after I replied his mail, he came over and thanked me for volunteering to help. We discussed on the details and I was soon left to do the work for him. I don't remember how long exactly I spent finishing up the 'favor'. I remembered the next day, an email came in from him (with my manager cc-ed) thanking me again for the much appreciated help.

To me, it was just part of the job.

To him, I was his savior of the day.

Fastforward 3 years later....

He is on a business trip in Penang. Another manager brought him to my place.

"Sharon sits here, the one you've been wanting to meet"

I turned in surprise upon hearing my name and there he was, grinning from ear to ear, the guy I once helped, or did a favor for.. or I was just doing my job really.

We shook hands and he thanked me again and again for helping him. I was like 'Wow, that was quite a long time ago' and he went 'Still, you saved me from some real trouble that day' and I said 'Oh this thank you is a few years late isn't it' and we laughed it off.

When he was gone, I was left with a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart thinking WOW, who would have guessed that small little deed had come such a long way?

And yet again, my day was made :)

This year's Valentine, I got lucky. (NOT lucky in the sense I'm thinking what you're thinking) *ehem*

Although my ultimate wish is to have Valentine's meals with 3 most important men in my life, I only managed to eat with 2.

First Valentine meal (lunch) with man no1....

And he's none other than.......

MY DAD! haha

Next Valentine meal with man no2 was very 'interesting' but will talk about it later probably.

Happy Valentine's Day all!

Don't just wish your partner/spouse/bf/gf but remember to wish your grandparents, parents, siblings and friends too. Valentine's Day is all about celebrating love and love exists in many forms :)

Spread the love people!

The noise and the crowd were completely oblivious to me as I strolled the aisles of the bookstore looking for something and yet, nothing in particular. The fiction novels I used to be interested in no longer attract my attention and yet I stood at the section staring into nothingness.

I had wanted to read my mind into tiredness so it will not operate so actively at night, making sleeping a tedious chore. Exhausting my body with workouts didn't help so I shall try to exhaust the mind too. What do I want? What do I feel like reading? I'm not too sure.

I looked up and noticed the long lines waiting to pay at the counter and I was immediately discouraged. It had to be at least half an hour's wait. I was about to go out when something big and bold caught my attention.

Self enrichment, it says.

Hey, now that's something I should be looking at. So I went back in and ran my eyes through the list of displayed books.

Train your mind to happiness... hmm...

365 ways to a better you.. hmm.. a little cheesy and my guess, a bit of a no brainer to write this book but why not try? Perhaps it's not supposed to be that hard afterall.

The monk who sold his Ferrari, something I've been looking for, ok grab one from the shelf.

That should be enough for a couple of weeks or months worth of reading.

Then I turned towards checkout. The lines did not look as if they got shorter, in fact they went all the way to the end of the bookstore. Seriously people? What's the rush with buying books and stationery all of the sudden? Oh then I remembered the RM200 books voucher.

Something inside told me I could look for the books somewhere else so I put back the books where I got them and strolled across to the other end of the mall. More mindless strolling in the other bookstore later, I found myself in a section I never thought I would be interested in. One book in particular, with its bright color and a well known figure printed on it caught my attention. I sat down and after flipping the first few pages, there was no doubt I was going to get it.

I got another 2 more books and headed straight towards checkout. The man behind the counter took his own sweet time keying in my credit card bla bla.. and there I was, with this whole new interest in me, can't wait to get back home and get started on the book.

"Miss, the total would be 142.65. Would you like to top up another *pause for a moment doing calculation in his head* 7.35 *he actually smiled, looking pleased with himself as if it was a great achievement to be able to do that calculation in his head* to get a free Borders card? For every 150 purchase we give a free Borders card."

I looked behind and the line was starting to build up.

"It's ok, I don't want to hold up the people behind anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"It's really alright." Please can you process my payment already?

I got started with the newly purchased books almost immediately when I got back. Every word, sentence was taken in to heart and understanding. Whenever my mind got distracted, I went back to the beginning of the paragraph and reread it again.

This man certainly knows what he's talking about.

Yes, it has begun.

New Year resolution #3 officially starts.

I have also bought another small size pocket book which taught me on mindful breathing; the start to all meditation practices, and I was able to fall asleep without much effort.

Ok, now that Chinese New Year is over, Thaipusam is also over, it's time to get back on track to training and get the fitness level up.

Losing weight is not only about exercise but majority of it is diet aka you are what you eat. If you're feeling bulgy or bloated or kembang-ed or starting to OR already accumulated muffin top/love handles on the sides of your tummy, here's a high fiber diet meal you can try. It may not look appetizing but it's filling, less fattening and if you can get creative with the ingredients it can actually be quite delicious.

I still stick to normal breakfast (VERY IMPORTANT meal of the day) (toasted tuna sandwich or Milo + oat) and lunch (varies from full blown fruit diet to economy rice to Subway) but for dinner I try to stick to this plain cereal meal.

Super easy to prepare, all you need are quick cooking oat, hot water, low fat milk and a natural sweet ingredient of your choice. In this case it can be raisins, bananas, strawberries, even cinnamon or brown sugar powder. Just get creative!

Quick to whip up meal as following. 5 spoonful of oats and some raisins

Add hot water, mix and stir. It'll eventually become a paste.

At this point, the mix has no flavor at all so I added low fat milk. I opt for HL for it gives a slight vanilla taste to it. You may also add chocolate milk which I had tried before too but a bit more fattening lor.

More stirring and tada! Your meal is ready!

Simple, cheap, delicious (at least for me), high fiber, low cholesterol and guilt free! Always the perfect recipe when I'm trying to get a flatter tummy fix

Results as below:

Pushups (women style) - 69 (1 min)

Situps - 51 (1 min)

15 shuttle runs - 1:11 min

1.5km run - 9:51min

Quite satisfied with the results except for the 1.5k run, could have done better if I had tried to push harder but I've never been that good in running so I guess it's ok. Will try harder the next time!