As with many old wives’ tales, it seems there is more than a grain of truth - “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” is not a folklore anymore. I do know apple are a rich source of dietary fibre. When it comes to bowel regularity, apple’s fiber tackle the job no matter what it is. All you have to do is make sure that apple is included as one of the five portions of fruit and vegetables you eat each day.

These are the fruits combination I like:

Apple + Cucumber + Kiwi = To improve skin complexion

Tomatoes + Carrot + Apple = Improve skin complexion and eliminate bad breath

Carrot + Ginger + Apple = Boost and cleanse our system

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With the combination above, not only your body system is cleanse, you will be surprised to notice the acne on your face may clear up eventually.  Healthy Eating, Happy Living.

Namaste!

I turned into a Flexitarian more than six month ago. During that time, I wasn’t serious about it till recently when I read more and more about meat and yoga. Even Ninie has turned a vegetarian. Hats and cap off to her. She is one truly Yogis I know. Not many people has come to the term of Flexitarian. Vegetarian adhered to 100% vege diet but a Flexitarian is semi-vegetarian diet who consume four or more meatless meals per week involving the practice of eating mainly vegetarian food but making occasional exceptions for social, pragmatic, cultural, or nutritional reasons.

For my personal reason, I do not want to give up meat entirely, but want to recognize the health benefits connected with decreasing consumption of meat and be a better Yogi. During the weekdays with my busy schedule juggling between work and family and yes, blogging! I hardly have the time to cook at home. I ate lots of raw vegetable and drank lots of juices instead of coffee.

This is an example of what my family had for lunch. We had big red juicy strawberries, edamame (green soya beans), zucchini and unagi roll. At times, we had Bak Kut Teh without the pork. Really! I have to beg the Uncle to sell me vegetarian Bak Kut Teh as he was quite reluctant at the first place.

Obviously, I felt much healthier, lighter and more flexible now.

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the relationship between coffee, yoga and flexibility. I used to think yoga was all about stretching and flexibility. Most yoga poses demonstrate rather than develop flexibility. If you are stiff, you don’t need yoga. You need to stretch! A good stretching exercise is like how you managing weight loss with the consumption of diet pill. You have got to ‘eat right’ and not ‘eat less’. It is the same as ’stretch right’ and the accompanying factor would be taking nutritional food.

Try to cut down on this food or maybe nil:

1. Coffee - they contained caffeine that causes our senses to be over stimulated.
2. Mucus producers - Dairy products, white rice, white sugar, refined bread, refined grains, honey

This are the two food which I know to gave you that stiff body. There should be more if you want to add on to my list.

Practise this healthy diet for flexibility:

1. Replace dairy products with soya milk and brown sugar instead of white sugar.
2. Drink more juices instead of can drinks, etc…
3. Green stuff are good for you for example spirulina, chlorella, wheatgrass
4. Vitamin C

Ever wonder why yoga teachers are so flexible? I didn’t know this but without proper stretching exercises and proper nutrients, you can do yoga poses all day long and yet still be stiff as a board… now that is super depressing!

It was a dread whenever the weekend is here.  My usual weekend yoga routine now is replaced with loitering routine at the mall and not forgetting, spending more $$$ buying more shoes! Sigh… Wondering how long do we have to wait for the classes to resume.

One of the weekend when I was loitering in Mid Valley, I stumbled upon a very interesting foot reflexology called Kenko Reflexology & Fish Spa.

The Garra Rufa fish foot spa has been an ‘in’ thing nowadays. Since we have nothing much to do, we decided to gave it a try. We just did it for fun and out of curiosity. Not a bad experience after all having your foot nibbled by fishies. Those tiny fishies you see in the above pic is nothing. You should try a bigger ones and I mean really big ones like the size of two thumbs putting together!

The fish spa is supposed to be good for those with skin problems like eczema and psoriasis. Apparently, the Dr. Fish helps to clear away scaly and dead skin by nibbling on your foot thus allowing new skin to grow. For a 30minutes session, RM38 is not cheap but it is definitely worth the experience.  The whole 30minutes fish spa included a routine of occasionally leg lifting (hey, this is part of Yogaing), lots of squealing and controlled giggles.  After a while the foot started to get the hang of these nibbling.  It is quite therapeutic I would think.

The end result - the skin is smoother and cleaner especially on the back of the heels.  I would advise you to apply some moisturizer after the session.  Not sure about you but I do felt my skin is a bit dry from all the nibbling. I would return for another experience, simply because it is such a bizarre and amusing way to have my legs exfoliated.

Want to know what is the secret of loosing weight without popping all those expensive yet not-so-safe diet pills? This is what I’ve been consuming since 2 years ago - Kenko Diet Plum.

Originated from Japan, Kenko Diet Plum helps in detoxification, loosing weight and treating constipation problems. Kenko Diet Plums are natural organic plums without any chemicals. The looks might not be very appealing but they taste exactly like normal dried plums. This is how it works, for first timer, consumed 2 plums after dinner even though the instruction says here 4 plums.

The plum which contained mostly herbs from Golden Plum, Lactic Bacteria, Garcinia Cambotia, Alexandrian Senna, Angelica keiskei(Ashitaba), Essence of Pu-er Tea help create bowel movement and perform internal cleansing by excreting toxins and faeces. Therefore, you might find yourself visiting the toilet more often after consuming the plums. What you eat will flush out the next day. It also claims to gave you a slimmer waist line. What I totally love about the plum is the way they create bowel movement especially for someone like me with irregular toilet trip. Sometimes when I over indulged (especially during CNY) or ate too much unhealthy food like char kwey tiao or red meat, I will pop one plum after dinner and the next day, you will expect some very soft almost runny stool. That way, I can eat all the sinful food as much as I like and yet I don’t put on any weight at all.

After a week, consume only one plum a day or you can alternate the intake. At this period, exercising regularly to maintained the body weight and don’t forget to drink lots of water. You should try them if you envy the slim waist line like most of the yoga instructor.

Last weekend I was fortunate (yea, I still get my pay check unlike many unfortunate working people out there) to have a little getaway with my family to Avillion, Port Dickson. The hotel especially the water chalets is truly out of this world.  Do check out the hotel if you are interested in it.  At the meantime, I’m leaving you some yoga photographs I took of the kids as we are having so much fun clowning around in various poses.

Don’t ask me why his warrior II is seen with his back leg flying up.  I never teach him how to portray, he just did that on his own!

Kids was wobbling and hopping around trying to balance themself.  lol.  You should see the way they try to keep their balance and all of a sudden, here comes the butterfly hands and they drop in the pool.  Awesome!

So I get the kids to do it one more time for the animation.  Cool!

I’m trying to catch up on my yoga at YZ this weekend as the new timetable is arranged in a way that I can hardly fit them to my schedule.  Have a nice weekend ahead and say hi to your Mom for me.

Namaste!

Other than going to the gym or practising yoga to keep yourself healthy, do you practise a healthy eating? I know of some practitioner that used to pig out like there is no tomorrow after a yoga session. Even before the classes start, they will be talking (so loudly) about where-to-meet and where-to-eat-BKT-session (Bak Kut Teh) after class. Can’t really blame them as BKT is part of pa sang lang (klangist) life and also the trademark of Klang.

Back to the topic, do you have the habit of blending your own juices? I have. I love making my own smoothies. Apart from fruits, I do include vegetables too like tomato, carrot and celery. Wait a minute, is tomato a fruit or vegetable? Oh, nevermind.

If you read up health article on tomato, they are actually the best detox food and help to prevent prostate cancer in man. Unfortunately not after I read up the article on the new study from the National Cancer Institute and Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Ok, I don’t really care about that since I am not a man.

Back to the topic again, not many people favour to eat Tomato by it’s own or even drink tomato juice alone. The best way to overcome them is to include tomato in your juices. That way, you can hardly even taste it. My favourite recipe would be:

• Oranges + Carrot + Celery
• Oranges + tomatoes + yogurt

It is up to you to include any fruits as long it is one or two portion of fruit and one portion of vegetable to your juices. It can be any type of fruits - watermelon, honey dew, grapes, star fruits, apple. Just be a little creative - Healthy Eating = Healthy Living.

Anyway, it is a Friday today and most of us will be looking forward to the day off. So, let’s chill a bit ya? Please say hi to your Mom for me too. Tomato Juice, anyone ? Cheers!

A cup of drink albeit any type of drinks will not be as healthy as the one you make at home, or at least they are free from excessive sugar and fat free ingredients.  Just as much as I love smoothies, I made them at home quite often too using the finest ingredients.

This is MY way of making a cup of healthy Strawberry milk shake/smoothie:

Frozen some strawberry flavoured milk in an ice tray. Frozen a cup of low fat yoghurt too. Once set, place them in a blender with 6 pieces of fresh strawberries. No sugar add, please! Blend ingredients till smooth.

Garnish with strawberry and serve immediately.  You can be a bit creative by adding banana + strawberries.  They taste great too.