I just spent over 30 minutes looking for a specific picture of myself, but because I was usually careful not to let those photos be taken of me, I couldn’t find one in my album, so here is a substitute.
Now I want you to use your imagination a little bit and mentally replaces the chopsticks in the photo with a cigarette, and the styrofoam bowl with an ashtray – that would be the picture I was looking for.
Yes, I used to smoke quite regularly. It wasn’t something I was proud of, but it was an addiction that I enjoyed despite knowing the health risks associated with it.
On the 31st of December, 2010, along with a few close friends, we kicked the habit once and for all.
The first 2-3 weeks was the most crucial. The urge to pick up a stick was always hovering right on the shoulders, you had to fight it with pretty strong determination to stay off the smoke.
The good news is, I am now no longer a smoker, and among the handful of friends who decided to quit, only one went back to the habit. Over the past couple years, I’ve also picked up more exercise routines, cook at home more, and generally try to live a healthier life style.
So far it’s been working pretty good, and I urge you to do the same.
For those who are interested in making a new habit or kicking a bad one, Great Eastern comes up with a mobile application that can help you get through the first 21 days of change. The theory is that if you do something for 21 days straight, it becomes a habit. I believe this is very true, and as far as quit smoking goes, after 3 weeks, not smoking became the “new habit”.
The application is available on Android and iPhone from Great Eastern free of charge. If you use one of these smartphones, click on the links to download. I think you will find it useful.
In a nutshell, the application lets you declare an intention and make it a promise to someone important to you (or even yourself), then track the progress for 21 days. You can set notification and get reminder if you miss a day. Of course, you can share your progress on facebook and twitter too (nothing like adding peer pressure)
On the Great Eastern website there is also a nifty Wellness Profiling tool that you can use to help you find out how healthy you are in a variety of areas. Simply answer some questions with honesty and you’ll find out your risk level score. Below is mine, and it seems like I have some improvement to make in the “work and daily routine” section.. ermm.
For more information and other tools/tips, check out Great Eastern website, and for the 1% of you who does not have a facebook account, there’s a phone number you can call to contact Great Eastern Life Planning Advisor at 03 4259 8877.
Live long and prosper!
I think it goes without saying that car insurance is not only necessary by law, but by common sense too.
Take it from someone who has claimed a pretty good sum of money for car repair after the, luckily, not-too-tragic accident just 2 years back (no human was harmed in the process).
Now traditionally, when it is almost time to renew our annual road tax, we would go to the car insurance company, meet up with the agent behind the desk, and get everything sorted out. This sometimes requires taking half a day off, get stuck in the jam, spend half an hour looking for parking space, spend another half an hour in queue, etc etc.
If you’re the luckier bunch, you might do it over the phone, but that necessitate another meeting with the agent’s runner to collect the cover note, and most of the time you need to tell the agent your credit card details over the phone for the transaction, not exactly a very safe thing to do.
I used to do mine over the phone, until the person in charge resigned, and then I wasn’t called to be reminded about my expiring policy. As a result, I was driving with no insurance for something like 2 weeks until I realized that my road tax expired.. luckily nothing happened in between, gah!
Enter HSBC Car Insurance (aka the 21st century)
That’s pretty simple and straight forward now isn’t it? Check out HSBC Car Insurance now, there’s even a cute little video demonstrating the old aunty’s frustration in renewing car insurance.
If you are one of the few readers who are familiar with this blog, it wouldn’t be wrong if you think that I have a particular liking for some really unhealthy food. The fact that there’s a lard tag and another intestine tag is a subtle evidence.
Restaurant B & Best fish noodle, with extra lard!
Lard is such yummy thing, aren’t they? Look at the bowl of kueh teow with red grouper, sambal, and an extra serving of lard, that was what I had just a few days ago at Restaurant B & Best, PJ SS 4.
pork noodle with intestine, liver, and of course, extra lard
And if fish noodle with lard is bad enough, what about a bowl of yummy pork noodle with pork, innards, and even more lard? Two of my favorite pork noodle places – Keat Fatt at PJ SS3, and Hong Cha at OUG both offers pretty much unlimited lard for the taking.
Human physiology is such a contradiction that more often than not, the things that are good for the taste buds are exactly the things you aren’t supposed to have (in excessive quantity I guess). If I had to argue against evolution, that would be my main and probably only argument. 
Life is of course, precious and everything, and when you have love ones who wants you to stay around for much longer than all this kinda lifestyle necessarily permits, self preservation must take a slightly higher priority.
All these lard (and plenty of other unhealthy stuff I eat) has a high correlation to increase in heart disease, high blood pressure, and a lot of other undesired health problems.
Hence I don’t eat pork noodle with extra lard every single day. I do put in a day of futsal every week and walk close to 4-5 KM on weekdays since I usually take the LRT instead of driving to work.
That is of course, not all we one can do. With the escalating medical costs, it is also important to have yourself covered just in case anything happens – be it a serious illness or accidents. That is where insurance comes into play.
Medical insurance is something that everyone should look into, and it is even more important to start young. Premium is lower when you are younger and medically fit. As for myself, I opted for a combination of medical with investment plan from Prudential, the best of both worlds in my opinion.
My case is slightly unique, the company I work for allows employee to choose our own insurance and then make a claim of the premium. This allows me to choose my own medical plan. For those who are covered under group policies from their employers, many would agree that a second personal plan is probably a good safety net that is helpful when moving away from the current job.
Take a look at what Prudential has to offer, there’s a variety of plans that suits everyone.
Do you have yourself covered?
I have been accused of being a very unhealthy person when it comes to food, and this isn’t something that I can readily deny, nor is the accusation completely untrue. I love my seafood, meat, and a host of other food often prepared in the ways that aren’t exactly approved by your friendly dietitian.
There is a whole category devoted for Bak Kut Teh, so I suppose I am guilty as charged.
That said, like some of my teachers have demonstrated over the years, you don’t always have to do what you preach. So today let us talk about some healthy food readily available in our beloved country
Vegetarian:
There are actually quite a number of vegetarian places, and one of the better ones would be Restaurant Kuan Yin at Seksyen 17. Though I find eating soy based meat for religious purpose somewhat hypocritical, there is nothing wrong if your reason is based on health choices. The vegetarian char siu there is simply awesome.
no animal was harm in the creation of these dishes
Other choices include Jade Garden at BU Centrepoint, and for Indian version, try Gopala at Briekfield where you can sample the pretty creative Indian Yong Tau Fu.
Porridge:
Teow Chew porridge (or other types) has always been one of my favorite foods whenever I am under the weather. One of my favorite places for a meal of good old Teow Chew Porridge would be Sun Fatt Kee at Taman Paramount, PJ.
Bonjuk at Hartamas – Korean porridge
Another personal favorite with a little bit of a foreign twist is Bonjuk at Hartamas. They specialized in Korean porridge, each set usually comes with a small serving of kimchi and another type of banchan, and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg either.
Healthier Fast Food:
Even fast food has a healthier choice these days. There’s the chicken porridge at McDonald’s, but my recent favorite healthy food served fast would be 1901 Hot Dogs.
1901 Hotdogs
1901 hot dogs differ from other cheaper alternatives in several ways. Firstly, they are made of actual beef/chicken meat instead of machine separated meat (from leftover cuts). Secondly, everything is steamed instead of fried. And lastly, you can’t even order normal soft drinks; there’s Diet Coke, or orange juice to go with your set.
Fast food doesn’t mean unhealthy food.
Chinese Herbal Soup
For good old Chinese food, there are also quite a number of places that serves good herbal soup. One of these places would be Friendship Herbal Soup Restaurant at SS2 where you can find dozens of herbal soup each specialized in curing different ailments. There’s one to strengthen your lung, another to improve eye sight, and so forth. They are mighty delicious too.
Friendship Herbal Soup restaurant at SS2
There’s also herbal chicken soup noodle that I always like (with black chicken especially), and if you’re the cooking type, I have a recipe here too!
So why do I need to do all these?
Well, to stay healthy, duh! I recently attended a health briefing by Prudential in which we were treated with food, massage, and a health check session. I checked out alright, which means I can still eat all my other not-exactly-healthy stuff, but I guess having these healthier alternatives in the mix wouldn’t be a bad idea at all.
I too have a policy with Prudential which I am considering changing to the new PruHealth plans. Staying healthier then actually carries a very measurable advantage with their NCB clause – $$ for being healthy.
Not that being healthy in itself isn’t good enough, but I wouldn’t mind the rebate at all.
We only live once, I always believe that you do what you can to make the best of it:
Live life interestingly, but do cover your butt.
insect cook out at my house, yums!
In the past few years, I can single out a couple things which are worth a highlight when it comes to doing something not exactly conventional, nor were they particularly risk-free.
The insect cook out (with video) was definitely one of them. After tasting the professionally cooked (I use the word “professionally” quite liberally) insects at Bangkok, I decided that it’ll be interesting we do it ourselves. So we did, and as it turned out, my version actually tasted better than those from the land of the smile!
Thank goodness, none of us came down with food poisoning. So cover yourself, make sure the insects are well cooked.
boating at taman jaya lake during chap goh meh, 2006
The other perhaps crazier thing I did was to convince horng to go on a boating expedition with me at Taman Jaya lake during chap goh meh (15th day of Chinese New Year) back in 2006.
What basically happened was that we used a fiberglass fish tank as a boat, with squash racquets our makeshift oars and paddled ourselves to the middle of the lake and collected loads of mandarin oranges. These are oranges with phone numbers on them, single girls looking for partners!
Of course, we did a proper proof of concept at a friend’s in-house swimming pool to make sure the whole idea works and that we won’t drown.
For the more ‘normal’ things in life though, there are still risks and there will be accidents and sickness and things as such. To cover our butt, there is PRUhealth. An insurance plan to cover our butt and better deal with Murphy’s Law. They have the whole NCB concept and you can even claim medical benefits while overseas.
Check out the PRUhealth website for more information.
one crazy photogrpher at grand canyon
However, I don’t think I’ll ever do something as crazy as this photographer at Grand Canyon though!
