Have you ever burnt RM100 before? (Part 3 of 3)

Continued from Part 2...

People were quiet in the lines. I bet they were confused and struggling on what is going to happen soon: Watching own hard-earned money to catch fire and burn to ash!

Looking at the doubtful crowd, I knew I've made a decision: No matter what happens, I WILL NOT BURN MY MONEY! I have full control and am held accountable for my own money, and thus my finance, and hence my own life for that matter of fact. Nobody is going to change, or can change, that. I know what I want, and I know what I am responsible for. I will not simply follow what other people will do without questioning the logic, feasibility and suitability for my own good. What good will it do to me if I burn my money? I am a hero? What benefits or values will I get in return? Does it help me to increase my wealth or other thing? NO! I'm just mere stupid and dumb if I do that...

Someone in the line was ready to burn his RM100 note. Everybody was holding on their breath...

"OK. Stop! Now everyone go back to your seat and sit down. This is just a hoax!"

Wow… the crowd cheered with mixed feelings. After everybody had been seated, the speaker asked if anybody would like to share how they felt before and after this exercise. Many people put up their hands, but due to time constrains, a few were being picked. Some people said they were confused. Some said they changed the RM100 note to smaller value when asked to burn the money. And some were excited about it.

"You will never ever burn your money," said the speaker. "Here are a few lessons we learnt in this exercise," he continued.

"First is about honoring. Money is just like a person. You respect money, just like you respect other people. You don't put anybody into fire and burn it. You don't burn your money either."

"Second is about the burning. This is a metaphor. If you would burn the money just now, you will be burning your money easily in your daily life too. That is, you spend money with no control. Rich people use money to invest and for their education, not burning."

"Next is about responsibility. You're responsible for your chosen choice. Don't blame other people for what you're today, if you are not wealthy yet. You should be responsible for your own financial account. If you wanted to burn your money just now and you always wonder why you are not rich yet, now you know why."

"The fourth lesson is about proving. Why did you choose to burn your money just now? Were you trying to prove to other people for something? Were you trying to show off? Because other people were going to burn their money so you wanted to prove that you could afford that too? They will be broke, and you want to be like them too?"

"Last but not least is about your integrity. Some people changed the note halfway. We are not burning our money in this exercise. But if you changed your note halfway, you broke your promise to yourself. You will be chickened out whenever something happens."

What have you learnt?

I was on wheelchair!

I really have no idea what is going on to me this month. First my right knee, now my left foot. Anyway, I'm still alive, gee gee gee!

It happened at Track 5 in my regular Tuesday's BodyCombat class, and I had chosen Girlfriend to be played. In this track, during the chorus section of that song, the two opposing teams will run toward each other and do a Plyometric Jump before moving back to where they were. This jump is a jump by lifting both knees up towards the chest and then land soft to the ground. The song was nearing the end, and I was moving around the room and giving few members double high-five when we jumped. Everything was smooth and fun, until I went to a makcik and jumped for double high-five. I landed before her after our jumps. Well, maybe I looked extra adorable on that day, or maybe she was just too excited seeing me, she actually jumped toward me and then landed her feet on my left foot!

Ah~~~ I felt the pain instantly and I nearly cried it out! But I knew I was in the midst of a class, so I just moved away from her to finish on the rest of that track. The song ended, and I went back to the stage and allowed the class for water break. While walking to the stage, I knew I had sprained my left foot. Before I continued the class, I told the class that I might have sprained my foot, but the class will still go on. I carried the second half of the class in great pain. During the cool down, I nearly fell off when doing the single-legged standing quadriceps stretch on my left foot. I dragged myself out from the studio with one leg, and walked that way until I reached home. Passersby at the shopping mall were staring at me when they saw me walking like a cripple.

I applied hot compression to my sprained left foot at night, hoping that it could help to promote the blood circulation. However, the pain didn't subside but extended to my ankle! I couldn't sleep well throughout the night with the tingling pain.

Then on yesterday, a beautiful and sunny Wednesday's morning, I drove myself to a private hospital for consultation and treatment. When I was dragging myself to the main lobby of the hospital, I was greeted with a wheelchair! The guard must have seen me walking lamely, thus offered me a wheelchair. I didn't accept his offer. I told him that I can still walk. So, I dragged myself to the emergency ward asking for treatment and X-rays on my left foot. The attending doctor examined my left foot, and lessoned me for using hot compression and thus making the left foot swelled. (The first treatment for any sport injury should be COLD compression, never ever apply hot compression unless we want the condition to get worsened.) He wrapped my left foot with bandage, at the same time teaching me how to do it myself at home for upcoming days. Then I was sent to radiology department for X-rays on my left foot. He said I have to restrain my left foot movement as much as possible, I have no choice but to sit on a wheelchair, first time in my life! A nurse pushed me on wheelchair to the radiology department. (I took the picture on my legs on wheelchair while waiting to take the X-rays.)

Because it took about 20 to 30 minutes to get the X-rays film to be developed, I asked the doctor if I can go for my lunch. He asked a nurse to push me to the hospital cafeteria, but I said I can do it myself. So, I rolled the wheelchair with my hands and there I went, ha ha!! I went to the cafeteria, ordered my food, ate my lunch, all on a wheelchair! I even made a phone call through public phone on the wheelchair as the battery on my handphone had run dry. (Forgot to charge the battery on the night before.)

The X-rays result came out and there was no fractures on my left foot. The doctor said it will take me over two months to recover if there were any fractures. "What about now?" I asked. "About two weeks," he replied. He then issued me a one-week MC.

My sexy and gorgeous left ankle on X-rays

Lessons learnt:

• I was a lucky and happy person on earth! Luckily the member only stepped on one of my feet and not both. It is great to be able to walk. And I'm still standing tall like always. Oh yes!

• I've never taken myself as a victim no matter what happens. I have never felt sorry for myself either. Some people might take this incident as being bad luck or whatsoever. But I don't take it that way. Remember this: Everything has no meaning until we give it one. And that meaning shapes our doing and being in our life. If you think you are great, you are. If you think you are not, then you probably are not. Think about how we want to live our life.

• It would be fun if the wheelchair was electronically controllable. I would have cruised around the hospital and have some fun then. Ha ha!!

• The hospitality service at the hospital was excellent. I was treated like a VIP guest. Well, I had been to private hospitals for countless of times, but those were all for visiting. This time being a patient by myself, it felt differently.

Have you ever burnt RM100 before? (Part 2 of 3)

Continued from Part 1...

"Guys, you rule money and money doesn't rule you? Talk is cheap! Show me you really mean it. You are going to burn your RM100 cash, one by one. Tonight! Here! Now!"

Wah... The crowd started to make some disbelieved noises.

"You're going to line up one by one, holding your money in your hand. When it's your turn, burn it!"

Wow... The crowd again expressed their mixed feelings. Burning real cash! Is that real? When we were still sitting there talking about what is going on, further instructions continued.

"Hold your money at one end while burning another end. Drop the side of the note that is going to catch fire lower than the side that you're holding. This way, the money can burn faster."

"When the fire has burnt about 50% of the note, drop the remaining part into the pail of water. Move away and allow the next person to burn his or her money."

"Because of some oil stains, older bank notes release black smoke when catching fire. Don't be alarmed. Continue to burn your money until at least 50% is burnt. Drop the remaining to the pail of water then."

"As you can see, our staffs have fire extinguishers ready by the sides. In case anything happens, they can help."

Oh! I'm going to burn my RM100 cash! Honestly speaking, I've never ever thought of burning my money before. Call me cheap. Although RM100 is not a huge amount nowadays, it's still money. I admit that from time to time I do spend money on unnecessary and useless stuff. But burning money? Am I out of my mind or what? Don't talk about RM100, even if just for RM1, if you ask me to burn it with fire directly, I doubt if I would do so. That's just mere crazy. I suddenly realized that sometimes the ways how I spent my money, it was actually no difference from burning money with fire directly. How many times have I actually spent on unimportant stuff? Those money, if not spent unnecessarily but use productively, such as invest into unit trust to grow more money, would have been more worthwhile. At least at the end, my money is working for me, and I'm that much richer than before. But if I've spent the money stupidly, I would have nothing at the end.

"OK guys. On your feet now. Line up and walk towards the fire. Let's burn some money!"

Are you also standing up now? Are you ready to burn your RM100? Are you set to go?

I stood up. The line was starting to move. Everybody was waiting for their turn to burn their hard-earned money...

Continue to Part 3...

Have you ever burnt RM100 before? (Part 1 of 3)

I attended a 3-day seminar called The Millionaire Mind Intensive over the weekend, co-conducted by speaker and trainer, also the author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Mr. T. Harv Eker. The crowd size was enormous: a whooping 4,800 participants, with people coming from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, The Philippines, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Bangladesh, Australia, France, United Kingdom, and many other countries. It was a real nationality fest!

This 3-day seminar was, as its name suggested, intense! It started on Friday's morning at 9 AM and finished after 11 PM. Then on Saturday, it started at 9 AM again and ended after 10 PM. It ended slightly earlier because the next day, Sunday, we continued at 8 AM! (The seminar concluded at about 8 PM on Sunday's night.) Although I didn't get enough sleep for two consecutive nights, with less than 6 hours of rest per night, my mind was still able to stay awaken and clear during the day time. See, human mind can really do wonders when we want it to do so. Another thing I found out was that my body got dehydrated awfully fast at sleep for those two nights. On usual nights, I normally loss about 7.5% of water at sleep, even with urination in the middle of the night. For those two nights when I had lesser sleeping hours, I lost as much as 9.43% of water at sleep, and I didn't even wake up in the middle of the night to urinate. Scary!

OK, let's get back to the question: Have you ever burnt RM100, your own cash, your own money, right in front of your naked eyes, in your life before?

One of the topics that we talked about during the seminar was to realize our attachment to money. Is money important to you? What is the relationship between you and your money? You work for money, or money works for you? You are the master to money, or the slave to money?

(You can ask yourself about these questions too and see what are your answers before continuing reading.)

Because we were there to learn more about money, 4,800 of us agreed on the statement that "I rule money, money doesn't rule me." (I guess nobody would want to say or admit that they are slave to money and money is controlling or ruling them, right? What about you? Do you agree on this statement?)

Then, we were asked to bring out our RM100 bank note on the spot. (We were told to bring a RM100 bank note to the seminar beforehand.) We didn't know what happened at first, so we just reached out to our wallets for the bank note. Some people didn't have one RM100 bank note (hardly see people using RM100 bank notes nowadays), so they took out two pieces of RM50 bank notes instead. When we were doing so, we saw the staffs of the seminar showing up around us, some holding lit candles, some holding pails of water, and some with fire extinguisher in their hands!

Huh, what is going on? We looked at each other and asked. Are we going to burn our money?

Continue to Part 2...

Life starts at 30...

One of the most unique birthday cards that I had ever received was that from the gym that I first joined years ago. It was just a normal card in fact, nothing fancy. When I first received it, it read "A man's life starts at 30." I said to myself that I wasn't 30 years old, and thus didn't give it much of a thought. But when I looked further, the number "30" wasn't referred to the age but the waistline! Wow, I was impressed!

As years went by, this phrase has become my personal motto in fitness. Every time I workout, I always have it in mind. Some people drop out from exercising because they see no direction to where they are going. However, when we have a goal or direction in doing what we do, it'll keep us motivated and going, and combating, ha ha!!

Many of today's civilized diseases, or what we called "wealthy diseases" in life insurance, are caused by overweight or obesity. High blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and triclycerides, almost all of these diseases can be avoided or reduced by watching our weight. These diseases are not fatal by themselves. For example, no one dies because of diabetes itself. However, it's because of diabetes, if not treated, people become blind, suffer kidney disease, undergo lower limb amputation, have nerve damage and suffer heart diseases and stroke. Any one of these complications requires long-term financial support. To stay alive, one has to take consistent and regular medication and supervision, and this involves money. That's why we sometimes call them as "wealthy diseases," for we need to be wealthy in order to live together with them.

Many people that we know are overweight or obese. Are they lazy people? Or are they immune to all these diseases? For me, I don't think so. Look at them. They work hard everyday in the office. When we are exercising in the gym or sleeping at night, they are probably still working in the office. To them, they have different priority in their life. They want to earn money, earn more money, and earn much more money. They say we don't work hard. We say them workaholics. Who is right? Who is wrong?

This is something that I personally think we should ponder from time to time. If you can't strike a balance between health and wealth, what good if you've lost your health and can no longer work for your wealth? Which company is so kind to employ a kidney failure patient who needs to go for dialysis 3 times a week and can thus work only limited hours in a week?

I've witnessed many cases where people work hard for more money, but at the end using that hard-earned money to pay their medical bills. Is that what we want? Is that why we work, working to pay future medical bills?

We are all lucky earthlings. There is no day in our life we ever need to worry if we have food to eat for that day. Rather, we are scratching our head as to what to eat everyday. We eat good. We eat sumptuously. But have we eaten right and balanced too?

Losing some weight is no longer a cosmetic issue. It's more of a health and well-being matter. I always say I'm fat because, well, because I'm fat. Yes, I'm fat and I'm fat, and I want to stay exercising.

I suddenly feel that this post sounds very heavy. I was supposed to make it read lively! My purpose of writing this post is to remind myself that being another year older is not an excuse to work lighter. And with you reading my humble blog, I know I don't walk alone on this road.

A little congratulation to myself for having a blog posting on my birthday at 12:00 midnight sharp, ha ha!

The right knee pain...

It has been more than a week and my right knee pain is still there to stay. Actually it is not very serious. I don’t feel the pain even when I walk briskly or walking up staircases. However, I will feel a light pressure on the right knee when I’m walking down the staircases. Yesterday when I did my class, I felt uncomfortable even when turning the heel up when doing some punches. Went to see western doctor and he only gave me pain killer. I guess I’ll have to see Chinese sensei if condition persists. I also hope that this weekend when I’m away from classes, I can get my dear knee some rest.

Due to the unexpected joint problem, and absence from classes for a weekend, I guess I'm unable to keep up with my average daily 800+ Calories burning this week. Sigh!

I still believe that it was the treadmill that caused my knee pain. Ha ha! Will avoid using the cardio machines for long long time! It's safer exercising in a class than on the machines for me, gee gee gee!

Fitness Basics

I believe nobody is born fit naturally and can remain fit without doing anything throughout his or her lifetime. Fitness requires persistent training and commitment. We will continue to enjoy the benefits of exercising if we stick to it. Once we stop, all the benefits will be gone. Age doesn't matter. It's never too late to start exercise.

If you've decided to start exercise now, or if you're new to exercise, here are some fitness basics that you might want to know:

• The best exercises for fitness are the ones that we can exercise continuously, those that are least likely to injure us and the ones we enjoy the most.

• We become fit by exercising vigorously enough to increase the circulation of blood. It makes no difference to our heart how we increase our circulation. We work harder at higher intensity, we become fitter.

• The best exercises for fitness use our legs because the blood vessels in our legs are so much larger and thus able to circulate far more blood to our body than other body parts. Arm exercises make us tire earlier because most people have weaker arms.

• Some exercises require a great level of fitness just to start. For example, to jump rope, we must spin the rope more than 80 times a minute to keep it from tangling. Many people can't jump 80 times a minute. So, choose exercises that we can take control of.

• For starters, the safest exercises are low-impact aerobics, walking, swimming and pedaling a stationary bicycle. Running causes lots of injuries, because the force of our feet striking the ground can be six times of our body weight, which can damage muscles and bones. (Read my post on Deep Impact on Knees for more information.) Choose appropriate exercise wisely.

• Exercises that don't keep us moving may be fun, but they won't make us fit. For example, the average tennis player spends 80 percent of their playing time waiting for the ball. (Read my post on Are all exercises the same? for more information.)

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Deep Impact on Knees

For those who have been joining my classes since last Friday, I did mention that my right knee actually hurt a little. Not sharp pain or persistent pain, just a little sting on and off. It alarmed me for the need to look after my joints and not to overwork. The pain is gradually subsiding now. If you have been checking every part of my blog, you would have noticed that at the bottom of the page, there is a section about my weekly calories burned. Because I'm fat, I want to make sure that I burn at least 800 Calories per day on average. This requires very strong discipline. Such as when I knew that I couldn't burn up at least 800 Calories on last week due to class cancellation, I ran on treadmill to make up the deficit. I suspected it was the run that hurt my knees. BodyCombat doesn't involve constant and prolonged running and jumping. And after doing BodyCombat for years, we have learnt how to avoid injury. So, the culprit that first came into my mind is the treadmill, ha ha!

In the post of Are all exercises the same?, we have learnt that exercises are different in terms of the capacity in conditioning our heart and lungs. Now, same question again but in different context: Are all exercises the same, this time in terms of the exertion of pressure or impact on our joints, especially the knees?

You have actually known the answer even without me telling. Yes, you are right: Different exercises or activities give different degree of impact or pressure on our knees. We know when we jump, our knees have to absorb more pressure than, say, climbing stairs. But have you ever wondered how strong is the impact actually? Or how much pressure are our knees absorbing?

Human body is such a marvelous thing. Our knees, being so small and look so fragile and vulnerable, have to support our full body weight when we are standing. And when we are moving, they have to, and are capable of absorbing pressures few times greater than that of our full body weight. Here are some examples on how many times our full body weight is put on our knees when we are performing different exercises:

^ Climbing: 3 times the body weight

^ Running: 6 times the body weight

^ Jumping: 9 times the body weight

For example, if we weight 50kg and we are running on the treadmill, our knees have to absorb 300kg (6 x 50kg) of pressure each time we stride! And when we jump and land, that pressure would become 450kg! Wow! Don't play play oh!

Now we know how much pressure our knees are taking with different exercises, we must then learn to appreciate them more. Give them good care and look after them properly. Know our own limits, and obey them whenever possible. Don't do things that will make us regret in the future. If we are overweight, do shred the extra weight off to give our knees lighter load. If we have knees problems, do engage in exercises that are more knee friendly. For me, I make sure myself exercise very regularly, so to maintain the body weight and body fat. What about you?

In a nutshell:

Our body can withstand pressures few times greater than our body weight. However, that doesn't mean we should take it for granted. The heavier we are, the higher the pressure and force our knees have to take. Do exercise some understanding on how hard our body is working, and do something to reduce its load in order to maintain better health and fitness in the long run.

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One-leg stand

When we stand with only one leg, have you ever wondered why some people have better balance than others? Try stand in Tree Pose (Yoga), or do a standing quadriceps stretch (the muscles at the front of the thigh), why some of us cannot control our balance and stand steadily but falling here and there?

Tree Pose

Standing Quadriceps Stretch

Someone told me it's because of our toes! To be precise, it's the length of the second toe. People with better balance when standing on one leg normally have longer second toe than their big toe. That is, if our second toe (the toe next to our big toe) is longer than our big toe, we can gain better control and stand more steadily with one leg. On the other hand, we will move here and there and find it difficult to stand still with one leg if our second toe is shorter than the big toe.

It seems like with a longer second toe, it can actually grip the floor firmer and stronger, thus grounding ourselves more steadily and provide better stability.

OK, before we continue, without looking at your own feet and/or toes, do you know if your second toe is longer or shorter than your big toe?

Once you've known if your second toe is longer or shorter than that of the big toe, stand on one leg in any pose that you like, Tree Pose, Aero Plane Pose, Dancer's Pose, stretch your quadriceps, anything. Can you stand steadily with control?

Now, write about your finding by posting a comment here. Is your second toe longer or shorter than your big toe? Can you gain your balance standing with one leg?

Just want to see if this "length-of-second-toe-determines-balance" thing makes sense.

Of course, through practice and technique, all of us can gain balance standing on one leg. For instance, focus or lock our eye sight at one particular point in front of us when we're performing any of the balancing pose. And, don't close the eyes!

OK. Let's go. Your turn to write now!

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Are all exercises the same?

Many people do exercise. Some play badminton with their friends, some jog in the park or in their taman, some work out in the gym, and so on. All of these are exercises, as they involve moving our muscles. But, all they all the same? Do they give us the same benefits?

All exercises offer benefits, but different exercises produce different benefits to different body parts. Some types of exercise or activity will improve the condition of our heart and lungs if they are brisk, sustained and regular. The higher the intensity of the exercise, the more it conditions our heart and lungs. Low-intensity activities do not condition the heart and lungs much. But they can have other long-term health benefits.

The table below shows three types of sample activities and how they affect our heart and lungs:

Sample Exercises/Activities and Their Impact On Our Heart & Lungs

Column 1 - These vigorous exercises are especially helpful when done regularly. To condition our heart and lungs, work more than 50% of our maximum heart rate. These exercises can also burn up more calories than those that are not so vigorous.

Column 2 - These activities are moderately vigorous but still excellent choices. They burn lesser calories but still can condition our heart and lungs

Column 3 - These activities are not vigorous or sustained. They still have benefits - they can be enjoyable, improve coordination and muscle tone, relieve tension, and also help burn up some calories. These and other low-intensity activities - like gardening, yard- work, housework, dancing and home exercise - can help lower our risk of heart disease if done daily.

To know how often do we need to exercise in a week, check out my comment on How much calories can you burn?.

In a nutshell:

Different exercises provide different kind of benefits. Know what we want to achieve, and choose the appropriate type of exercise accordingly. Bottom line is, no matter what type of exercise do we choose, do it consistently.

What? Vitamin pills are shortening my life?

It was very shocking when reading this 191-page review, dated 16 April 2008, titled Antioxidant supplements for prevention of mortality in healthy participants and patients with various diseases (file format: PDF, file size: 1.53 MB, click here to download). I believe many of us are taking multivitamin pills daily. Most doctors also take multivitamins themselves and recommend them to their patients. However, according to this review, it seems like we are doing more harm than good.

This review of 232,550 adults showed that those taking beta-carotene, vitamin A, C, and E and selenium gained no benefit over those who took placebos or no pills. "The findings show that, if anything, people in trial groups given beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E showed increased rates of mortality. There was no indication that vitamin C and selenium may have positive or negative effects."

The study was originally set up to see if antioxidant vitamin pills and minerals prevent gastrointestinal cancers. It found no protection whatever. Instead, an increased death rate of 16 percent was seen in those taking vitamin A pills, seven percent with beta- carotene, and seven percent with vitamin E. No increased death rate was seen in those taking vitamin C or selenium.

Most vitamins are parts of enzymes that start chemical reactions in our body. Each chemical reaction produces end products that are changed by further chemical reactions from other vitamins to other products that benefit our body. When we take a vitamin that has been isolated from the hundreds of other substances found in foods, that enzyme causes a chemical reaction that accumulates a disproportionate amount of its end products. If the substance that acts as an enzyme for the next chain of chemical reactions is not available, we can accumulate end products that may be harmful.

And don't forget that most of these antioxidant vitamins, like vitamin A and E, are fat soluble. That is, any unused portion will be retained by the body fat rather than being discharged from our body. When too much of these vitamins are being retained, they become toxic and poisonous, and we will suffer from that.

I visited the vitamins section of Guardian after lunch today and found that many of the multivitamin sold have very high dosage of certain vitamins and minerals. Some even go up to 500% or more than daily recommended intake. Unless we are consuming only vitamin pills and nothing else, can't we get those vitamins from our daily diet?

I've personally stopped taking all kind of supplementary vitamins and minerals for long time. Instead, I got them through natural food. But sometimes when I spot some deficiency, such as very dry lips, then I know I'm in need of vitamin B2, or riboflavin, I'll then pop vitamin B2 until recovery.

In a nutshell:

Try not to depend on pills for health well-being. After all, they are just supplements. Get vitamins and minerals through natural food instead. Otherwise, we might have to say goodbye earlier with this wonderful world.

How come some of us don't sweat during exercise?

Before someone asked me about this question, I actually used sweating as one of the indicators to see if we have worked out hard in class. Sometimes seeing people came into my class in dry outfit and walked out the class dry like a baby diaper (Errr… can I describe the scenario like this?), I really wandered if I had done my part for motivating them to work out harder and sweat a little bit more. My outfit was all wet and dripping in sweat, but how come some people could be so "sweatless" and dry?

Then someone left a comment, posted a question actually, in the posting on "Oh my sweat..." I did some research on it and found out the answer. It was then I realized that I was being ignorant on this issue all this time. Again, I realize the power of this blogging stuff again. I brush up my knowledge by sharing with you what I know, and I acquire new and more knowledge by you asking questions and giving comments. Thank you jeandesign for putting up this question and opened my eyes.

OK, sweating during exercise is an "enjoyable" thing. We generally feel very satisfy when we sweat a lot during workout, and often enough will have a sense of achievement for we have worked out hard. The more we sweat, the more we will feel that we have had a better and more productive workout. However, what if we didn't really sweat during the workout? Was that workout a failure? Had we not exercised hard enough for it to be a productive one? Had we wasted our time in the workout? Were our pores "jammed" or clogged and thus unable to perspire? Were we not fit physically anymore?

To clear all these confusions, we'll first look into why we sweat and later, what is going on when we exercise.

Our body is like an engine that never stops running. And like all engines, it produces heat. The more we move our muscles, the more heat is produced. If the body didn't have ways getting rid of the heat and keeping us cool, we would overheat and collapse within minutes. There are four methods how our body uses to keep us cool:

1. The first method is radiation, where heat radiates out of the skin if the air around us is cooler than our body. Factors important in radiant heat loss are the surface area and the temperature gradient or difference.
   
2. The second method is conduction, which is the transfer of heat by direct contact between our body with other objects, such as swimming in a pool of cold water where the water absorbs our body heat. The rate of conductive heat loss depends on the object(s) that the body has in contact with. Water conducts heat away from the body 25 times faster than air because it has a greater density (therefore a greater heat capacity). In other words, we loss body heat 25 times faster inside water than in dry air land. (Now we know why people like to go into water during those hot weather time.)
   
3. The third method is convection, where moving air cools us down, such like when we stand in front of a fan or when the wind blows. The rate of convective heat loss depends on the density of the moving substance (water convection occurs more quickly than air convection) and the velocity of the moving substance.
   
4. The last method is evaporation, where water from our blood absorbs the heat and rises to the surface of the skin through the sweat glands so it can evaporate creating a cooling effect. The heat loss is converting water from a liquid to a gas. Besides using sweat as a way to remove excessive heat from the body, respiration is another way where air is heated as it enters the lungs and is exhaled with an extremely high moisture content.
   

Methods of Body Heat Transfers

Our body produces heat at all time, even when we are sleeping. In colder conditions, we will not need to sweat as much due to the body using radiation to keep cool. In hotter conditions, sweating is the primary method of keeping us cool due to the surrounding air being hotter than our body. But if humidity presents, sweat cannot evaporate as well and that's why we will see sweat dripping off us. Since in these conditions sweat doesn't evaporate, radiation and convection (remember the moving air?) are used by our body to keep cool.

When we exercise in an air-conditioned room like that in our studio, some of us will not sweat as much because the cold air evaporates our sweat faster. It also sets our body up to use more of the radiation method, meaning our body can deal with the heat created by exercise more easily. It does not mean we are not burning as many calories, because caloric burn is determined by intensity and duration of our exercise, not how much we sweat. We are in fact sweating all the time, just that we just can't see it because it is always evaporating. We will sweat more when there are more people in the studio, or when the air ventilation system is poor.

If it were true that the more we sweat, the more calories we burn during exercise, then it would also be true that we would be burning more calories simply by sitting in a hot, humid room so as to build up a sweat. But this is obviously not the case as the sweat we would be seeing is due only to the conditions of the room not allowing for evaporation for cooling the body. That is, staying inside the sauna room and sweat heavily is because our sweat cannot evaporate and run dry, not because it is helping us to burn more calories. This also dehydrates our body.

Everyone has a different sweating pattern. Gender, age, fitness level and environment contribute to how much we sweat. Women seem to sweat less and start to sweat at higher temperatures than men. People tend to sweat less as they grow old and thus cannot take the heat as well as a younger person but declining fitness levels may have something to do with that. In laboratory experiments where both young and old people were of similar fitness levels, there was no notable difference in their sweating process. However, if given same exercise environment, same intensity level, same length of time for exercise, fitter people usually sweat more and start sweating at a lower body temperature. This is because the function of sweating is to cool the body. A physically fit body cools itself more efficient than one that is unfit.

For those of us who sweat a lot during exercise, it is crucial that we drink more water before, during and after the exercise to rehydrate ourselves. I personally consume about 250 ml water before class, 1,125 ml (the size of my water bottle) throughout a class, and another 250-500 ml after class. You guys know I sweat bullets.

In a nutshell:

Exercise helps to produce more heat; more heat produces more calorie expenditure. We produce the same amount of heat whether exercising in a cold environment or a hot one. Therefore, just because we don't sweat as much in the colder environment does not mean our exercise session was less productive. Remember, for more caloric burn, focus in our intensity (heart rate zones) and/or duration of exercise, not in the amount of sweat.

Ice ice water! Ice ice water!

You may or have not heard of it, but drinking ice water, or very cold or chilled water, can really help us to burn some extra Calories!

If you still can recall Physics in secondary school, a Calorie is a unit of energy. Scientifically, it is the amount of energy, or heat, taken to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram (kg) of water 1 degree Celcius (°C). So, when we drink ice water, our body has to heat up the temperate of the ice water to that of our body temperature. In other words, our body has to raise the temperature of the ice water, thus burning calories. If you have doubt, try to drink some ice water and then test the temperature of your urine. Does your urine feel cold or warm?

Now, let’s see how much calories can be burnt when we drink ice water:

• Assume the temperature of ice water at 0°C.
• Our body temperature is estimated at 37°C.
• A standard mug or glass holds approximately 250 millilitres (ml), or grams (g), of water.
• 250 g of water = 0.25 kg of water.
• It takes 1 Calorie to raise 1 kg of water 1°C.

Therefore, to raise 0.25 kg of the ice water from 0°C to 37°C, our body burns 0.25 x 37 = 9.25 Calories!

So, if we drink 8 glasses of ice water a day, which is equivalent to 8 glasses x 250 ml per glass = 2,000 ml = 2 litres = 2 kg of ice water, our body burns 2 x 37 = 74 Calories a day. This figure is actually not very impressive and significant, as it doesn’t even burn off the caloric intake of a tin can of Coca-Cola (143 Calories). Nevertheless, this small effort can contribute a little to enhance our daily caloric burning process. If one day we can burn 74 Calories extra, then that will be 518 Calories extra a week, and 2,220 Calories extra a month.

In a nutshell:

While we definitely shouldn't depend on ice water consumption alone to replace exercise or healthy diets, drinking cold water instead of warm water does burn extra Calories. Take it as an add-on process, not a whole process by itself.

Oh my sweat...

Some of you might have heard me saying in class that my sweat is tasteless or not salty recently. Often enough when we work out so hard in a class, the sweat on the face will flow into the mouth accidentally. (Some of you might say yuck at this moment. But no choice, lah! Instructors need to open mouth and talk, thus the chances of the sweat to get into our mouth is very high! Hey, have you seen our sweat, or maybe saliva, “flying” in a class before? Gee gee gee!!) This is the time when I discover that my sweat is no longer tasty, oops, I mean, salty like last time. This started to worry me as I thought that sweat is supposed to taste salty, right? So, if mine is tasteless, does it mean something is wrong with me?

Anyway, I did nothing about it. Just drink bird’s nest juice instead of plain water everyday. Just live life to its fullest like usual. Then on last week, I got to know a medical doctor who is also joining one of my classes. Yeah! What a golden opportunity to clear my doubt!

“Doc, my sweat tastes like plain water, lah! Not salty at all. Will I die prematurely?”

“No such thing, lah...”

“Huh? You mean no such thing for the plain taste of my sweat? Oh no! I’m going to die then...”

“I meant no such thing for you to die because of the taste of the sweat, lah!”

“Ohhhh... So what is happening to my sweat? Isn’t it supposed to taste salty?”

“Well, this is not a good or bad condition. You see, when you work out so vigorously and sweat profusely, and you're drinking a lot of water daily, the sodium level in your body is getting low and being diluted. That’s why you can no longer sense the salty taste...”

“Oh, I see. So I'm not "ham-sap" lah then. I thought my taste bud is dead already. Is there anything I should do then?”

“No specifically. Don’t worry about it. Just live your life as it is.”

“Thank you, doc! By the way, can I see you hold your boxing guard higher in the class later, ah?”