Today, lets talk about moving your body.
In this post, I will once and for all show that you too can eat (almost) all you want and live a life without being overweight. Something that I practice almost religiously these days.
I have to admit, I did not used to be like this. While my late dad was a very active person who swam & run on an almost daily basis, I was your average slob who would change the TV channel with my feet just to not move away from the couch (the remote broke).

my current weight – 59.8 KG, at 5’5
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized this wasn’t the right way to live, I wanted to be active and stay healthy, so I found a few sports I love doing, and have been staying active pretty much since.
Here are a few tips for you to get started on an active life style:

1. Find the activity you enjoy
While my late dad enjoyed jogging and swimming, they weren’t my favorite sports. After a bit of searching, I settled on futsal, badminton, and mountain biking. Futsal and badminton were fun cos they are group activities, and I found mountain biking more enjoyable than jogging due to the faster pace (see more things in the process) and that it is usually less hot with the wind blowing in your face.
2. Find activities you can do despite the weather
With mountain biking and jogging, you are at the mercy of the weather, but since futsal and badminton are indoor activities, there isn’t any such problem. You want to have at least one activity that can be done all year long. It can be gym, futsal, basketball, badminton, or even running on treadmill.
You don’t want a couple weeks of bad weather for you to lose your momentum.

3. Participate in team sports or find partner(s)
Individual sports offer flexibilities on schedules, but at the same time it also allows the less determined individuals to easily skip the routine. With team sports, you not only foster extra friendship with people you play with, but there is a certain expectation to be there and at least make the number every week. This in turn indirectly forces you to work out, brilliant isn’t it?
A partner to go to the gym or jog together works wonder too.

4. Use an application to track your progress
If you are a smart phone user, there are a number of sports tracking applications available for your usage, and most of them are free too. These applications helps track your progress via manual entry and even utilizing the phone’s GPS to track your biking/running trail. I use Endomondo on my phone and keeps track of every workout I do.
Since mid of June (when I started using Endomondo) till mid December, I’ve registered 77 workouts and spent some 35,000 calories. That’s equivalent to some 64 burgers consumed.
5. Make it your New Year resolution
With 2012 just around the corner, make a new year resolution that counts and stick to it. Your body will thank you.
Good luck and stay fit (or start changing that A between F & T to an I).
P/S: Do tune into 1 Sihat Malaysia to get more health tips on eating habits and healthy living. The program is hosted by Fahrin Ahmad and features stories from the local celebrities. Head to gayahidupsihat.my for more, this post is brought to you by Ministry of Health.
A couple months ago when I was on the futsal pitch:
The ball was on my left leg, and I passed it to the right, I did a bit of a side step, got passed one defender. Now facing the goal keeper who was charging ahead of me, I fired the ball with my right leg, it went.. straight to his knee and bounced right back …. INTO MY LEFT EYE.
It hurt like crap, I think my head was spinning a little bit. The game went on, I substituted myself out, and immediately noticed something wrong. The vision out of the left eye was blurred in a way that was almost but not quite like having a faulty air conditioner in your car during heavy downpour resulting in a fogged wind shield.

My vision was fine the next day, but by night time the foggy condition came back. It was actually quite scary, so I did what everyone suggested (mostly over Twitter, follow me @kyspeaks if you haven’t). I went to the Tun Hussien Onn National Eye Hospital to get it looked at.
Among the well wishers and people who showed concern, there were quite a lot of people who joked about the injury (it’s all good, I would do the same, making fun of other’s misery is one of the greatest joys in life).
A few days later, Cheesie developed this red scar thing on one of her eyes, so I took her to the same hospital to get it looked at. The doctor said it was an allergic reaction to the colored contact lenses, she said it was the karma from laughing at me. I kinda agreed with her, hehe.
After a few weeks of putting eye drops and a return to visit the good doctor, my eyes are feeling good now. Thank goodness it wasn’t something serious.
I have a health insurance policy, so at least I didn’t feel too stressed about being able to pay the medical bill, but this incident made me realized the importance of being covered should anything more dramatic found it’s way to me (touch wood).

Coincidentally, PruBSN engaged me for this advertorial just right after this incident.
The product is called PruBSN Takaful Health.
To be honest, before this, I had no idea what takaful meant. I’ve seen them on highway billboards, and maybe even on newspaper, but the only thing I knew was that this has something to do with being consistent with the Islamic believes.
So I read up on what this is all about and found out a few things about Takaful, especially PruBSN Takaful Health
One other thing that makes PruBSN stands out is their NCB (no claim bonus) feature. The graphic above demonstrates a 30 year old male certificate holder with a Takaful Health TH200 plan who pays an annual contribution of RM 1,032 being able to get RM 300 in NCB if he did not make any claims the year before. Pretty neat huh?
Get yourself covered. For more, check out PruBSN’s website.
We’re doing it every Thursday night from 10 to 11pm at the Futsal Sports Center at Section 19, PJ. The place is also known as the “pusat perabot” since the front of the facility spots a furniture store instead.

when tired, be the goalie
This has been going on for the past few months. We have been consistently having anywhere from 9 to 15 players at a session. It is a futile attempt to pinpoint the number of participants with the commitment (or lack of) from guys these days. So if you are a dude interested in sweating it off, come join us!
On a related note, Nike Football has set up the interesting Jangan Togel site that is dedicated to street football (not exactly futsal, but close enough). The flashy site spots a comic like design, with some wallpaper, music, and videos free for view or download.

this screen is better than my picture above. :/
In case you wonder what is “Jangan Togel”, it comes from the Malaysian tradition that the team which conceded the first goal has to play the remainder of the game with their top off. We initially tried to implement this old rule, but somehow there are always some sissies who prefer to not show their tiny nipples.. or something.
Incidentally, this is also one of the websites that utilizes flash in a non-annoying way that is actually interactive and interesting. I can’t wait for the short films to be on, check out the site for yourself.

good shoes, bad shoes, and a weird dude
Proper futsal shoes aren’t the pair of ADIDAS you wear to One-Utama for dating, as horny found out. The shoes evolved a mouth after playing for the 2nd time and had to be fed to the bin, but somehow the fella was still all smile, weird. Get a real pair of futsal shoes already.
By the way, we play futsal on thursdays night, usually 8-9pm at footy futsal next to Ming Tien in Taman Megah. Organized by the hooligans at Hantu Bola, Eyeris is the head hantu. Let me know if you are interested to join us! We’re playing tonight too.