Fit Food: Chocolates

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Yeah, you’ve read it right! Horray for my sweet tooth!

But there’s a limit of course, one ounce or 18 grams per day and if possible dark chocolates.

Recently I’ve been into dark chocolates, mostly for health reasons and lower calories. Before I tend to eat an entire bar or two of chocolate in one sitting, now with the darker and bitter version I can only eat one or two small square. It already satisfied my sweet cravings, and when I eat milk or other type of chocolate I find it too sweet already. I eat the 60% cocoa but it is recommended to eat the 85%, the darker the better. Well maybe later I’ll try that one and see if I can handle it.

Chocolate's benefits are rooted in antioxidant polyphenols which can improve blood pressure, and also help lower cholesterol levels and blood sugar.

Other studies have even linked chocolate to a lower risk of death by heart attack.

Endurance Training

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I'm pretty proud of myself lately and particularly today. I've been keeping my 3 to 4x a week gym workout for about 2 months now, yey! And people are starting to notice changes in me. I don't want to divulge my weight loss numbers, it's not that big but more than the numbers I am actually enjoying my gym time.

Before I used to reason out my lack of time or being tired from work for not exercising but those are just plain excuses. Now even if I do an hour or two GX sessions, I still have energy to do my daily routine. Of course on the first weeks, my muscles were all sore (even until now) because if it doesn't it means your workout is not effective and you're just wasting your time. 

Endurance wasn't build in a day.  

Today, I finished 2 sets of RPM class. RPM is a high intensity cycling class, the instructor led us to a 45-minute workout of varying speed, difficulty, etc. When I first done a RPM, the 45-minute was like a hell and after the class I can barely walk. That means my endurance is slowly picking up.

I'm glad I started with this gym thing and hope I can keep this enthusiasm until the end. 

Fitness First: GX DCC Mar 2012 Schedule

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Fitness First: GX Burjuman Mar 2012 Schedule

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Fit Food: Kiwi Fruit

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Kiwi fruit is one of the most nutritional food out there. It is rich in Vitamin C, twice of oranges in fact. You only need to eat one kiwi a day to meet the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of 90 mg for adult male or 75 mg for adult female per day. Also good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Folic Acid, Potassium, Antioxidants and more!

 Nutrition Facts from my blog's Calorie Counter (on the sidebar)

Healthy Living

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How to live healthy? That is the question. It doesn’t need a drastic change but a little change here and there can be good enough.

Stop Smoking. I don’t smoke but even if I don’t I still inhale second hand smoke which is more toxic. I have friends who smoke and I respect their choices but I always remind them to stop or at least lessen the quantity of sticks they consumed per day. There are other options like chewing gum, electronic cigarette, candy and others. They say if you really want there are a lot of ways, there are a lot of available data like ecig tips on the internet.

Stop Alcohol Intake. It can take years off your lifespan I tell you, so with smoking. If you must drink, do it moderately.

Monitor your health. Until recently I dreaded going for check-ups, but I met a great doctor and we were just like friends chatting during our sessions. Now I drink my medicines regularly because he made me convince it’s best for me (and he is willing to compromise those meds and foods I hate).

Eat Right. Don’t over indulge, just eat enough. Incorporate more fruits and veggies in your daily diet. Avoid too much salt, sweet, spicy, fatty, etc as they say everything excess is bad.

Regular Exercise. Get your butt off that couch.

I am still new with these healthy living and I made blunders more often than I can count. But as long as we are aware of what is good and what is bad, I think we are on the right path.

Calorie Counter

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I installed a Calorie Counter on my sidebar just in case someone (or I) need to know the amount of calories in a particular food or foods. I don't really list my daily calorie intake, but it is really recommended for dieters. I tried to do so but forgot after several days. 

Still a Calorie Counter is helpful from time to time. Also make a habit of checking food labels on supermarkets and decide to buy the one with the lowest calories. In the long run a cut of a few calories here and there would pile up and make a big difference in the future. 

But be careful in reading labels, the tricky part is the per serving size and the actual size of the product. Usually they will list down the calories per 100 grams, but if you ate a bag of chips of 500 grams that means you need to multiply the calories by 5!