The plastic fats: Trans Fats (Part 1 of 2)

The FATS family has many members, such as saturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and monounsaturated fats. Some of them are good, while others are bad; Some are natural fats, while others are simply artificial or man made. Trans Fats, or Trans-Fatty Acids, are largely artificial fats (a small amount of trans fats occur naturally in meat and dairy products) , and they are real bad fats! Trans fats are made by a chemical process called partial hydrogenation, where hydrogen atoms are added to liquid vegetable oil (an otherwise healthy monounsaturated fat) and converted into a solid fat. In short, it transforms liquid fats to become solid fats at room temperature. This makes what seemed an ideal fat for the food industry to work with because of its high melting point, its creamy, smooth texture and its reusability in deep-fat frying.

Because of its altered and enhanced properties, trans fats extend shelf life of food. They also add a certain pleasing mouth-feel to all manner of processed foods. Think of buttery crackers and popcorn, crispy french fries, crunchy potato chips, creamy frosting and melt-in-your-mouth pies, cakes and pastries. All these foods owe those qualities to trans fats.

Hydrogenated fats were initially seen as a healthier alternative to saturated fats: using margarine was deemed better for us than using butter, yet numerous studies now conclude that trans fats are actually worse. True, saturated fats raise total and bad (LDL) cholesterol levels. Trans fats do the same, but they also strip levels of good (HDL) cholesterol, the kind that helps unclog arteries. Trans fats also increase triglyceride levels in the blood, adding to our risk of cardiovascular disease. Basically, the more solid the fat at room temperature, the more it clogs our arteries.

Continue to Part 2...

(Words Count: Approximately 293)

BodyCombat™ 36

BodyCombat™ 36 celebrates the superior fusion of many of the world’s finest Martial Arts, blending them seamlessly. Karate, Boxing, Capoeira, Kung Fu, Muay Thai, Tae Kwon Do and Kick-boxing all make an appearance. Fittingly, the theme for this release is MMA – Mixed Martial Arts.

It’s a workout that has low-complexity choreography and maximum intensity – again designed for the newcomers while still being a challenge for the loyal instructor and participants.

The music has a great global appeal and is in keeping with the Les Mills Tribe theme of the amazing 2008 Global Summit. Ooze the same charm and expression as the man himself in the James Bond Theme, be fierce and driven in Born To Be Wild and celebrate the workout with your tribe in the Cooldown Track, World In Union 95.

Rock out to the old-school sounds of Bad in Track 6. This track is a perfect example of the MMA theme, featuring Boxing, Kick-boxing, Karate and Capoeira.

Look forward to a new move in Track 2 – the Hammer Fist to the groin – and watch out for the Conditioning Track. This is one of the hardest abdominal tracks you’ll ever do in BodyCombat™ and is guaranteed to produce rock-hard abs!

BodyCombat™ 36 will give you a deeper understanding and connection to the world of Martial Arts – challenge yourself to be all you can be!

BodyCombat™ 36 Track List:-
1. Walking In Memphis / James Bond Theme [Warmup]
2. Born To Be Wild [Rear hammer fist]
3. Magic Touch (Squad-E Mix) [Double uppercuts! Double uppercuts!]
4. Zombie [Claws!]
5. Don't You Wanna Feel [La la la la la la la!]
6. Bad [I'm bad, I'm bad, You know I'm bad!]
7. Party Non Stop [Muay Thai]
8. Good To Me [Oh my shoulders!]
9. Gonna Fly Now (John X Remix) [Abs! Abs! Abs!]
10. World In Union 95 [Cooldown]

(Words Count: Approximately 330)

Overall, how would you rate this BodyCombat™ 36 release?
(1 star being the worst --- 5 stars being the best)

Is low-fat diet better? (Part 5 of 5)

Continued from Part 4...
(Start from Part 1)

Since the past few decades, both the nutritionists and medical doctors have encouraged us to consume less animal oil or fat, including lard, butter, and chicken skin. However, this argument is debatable. It’s not wrong that many chronic diseases are caused by high consumption of oil and fat, but this is due to over 80% of the oil and fat that people consume today are those of bad oil and fat. Animal oil or fat is bad, but it’s not the worst. Many of us are unaware of this fact, thus avoiding animal oil or fat like the plague, but consuming other bad oil and fat in massive amount, and at the end continue to suffer from chronic diseases.

Oil can be divided in term of good and bad. If it’s good oil, it’s good for health even if we consume slightly more. However, even if it’s good oil, if we use it wrongly during the process of making or cooking, the good oil will turn bad oil. Many oils turn bad after high temperature cooking, like deep frying. Not only its property changes, it also releases toxins. Therefore, the question is not about how much oil or fat do we take, but rather in the consumption of good or bad oil.

How to tell which oil is good, or bad? Ha! See you next round!

(Words Count: Approximately 234)

Is low-fat diet better? (Part 4 of 5)

Continued from Part 3...
(Start from Part 1)

Many of the diabetic or high cholesterol patients, under the order by their medical doctors, are practicing low-fat diet, and their problems have become more and more serious at the end. Why is this happening? For diabetic patients, although they have reduced the consumption of both oil/fat and meat, the ratio of starch or carbohydrate in their diet has increased, thus controlling of their blood sugar level becomes even more difficult. For patients with high cholesterol, despite their meat consumption has reduced, they take in more pastry, kueh, biscuits, and so on, unawarely taking in more trans fat and free radicals. This makes their bad cholesterol level (LDL, or low-density lipoprotein) to increase even more than just by eating boiled meat in water.

Compared to the olden days, the days when our ancestors, or great great grandparents, or great grandparents, or grandparents, or even our parents, lived, we are eating better and more food now. Just do a simple Internet search, or visit some of our friends’ blogs, chances are we can find endless postings on what to eat and where to eat, and even how to eat. As such, our fat intake has also increased considerably when comparing to those olden days. In the olden days, oil, fat and meat were scarce and expensive items. People only ate them during festive season like New Year, for example. But today, we eat meat and oil every day. Because of this, many of the chronic diseases, like heart attack, stroke, diabetes, allergy and obesity, that were hardly heard of in those days, have become our very closed friends today. According to some researches done in the United States, many of these diseases are linked to our diet, especially related to the intake of “oil” in the food. The higher the consumption of fat and oil, the higher the chances of suffering from chronic diseases. This means chronic diseases are equivalent to fat and oil now. Animal oil or fat is ever being regarded as the prime culprit of chronic diseases in the medical industry.

Continue to Part 5...

(Words Count: Approximately 355)

Is low-fat diet better? (Part 3 of 5)

Continued from Part 2...
(Start from Part 1)

Low-fat diet is unnecessarily healthier. You see, fat is a very important substance to our body. Many of the body's building structure and physiological functions require fat. When fat intake is insufficient, our emotional will become unstable, immune system becomes weaker, blood sugar turns unstable, and consequently suffer from endocrine disorders, thus endangering our health. On top of that, reducing fat also reduces fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K to the body. This creates deficiency and many side effects will come by.

The problem with oil and fat is not of high or low consumption. Rather, it’s of the intake of good or bad fat/oil. If it’s of good fat/oil, it doesn’t harm as much even in larger intake (moderation is still preferred). On the other hand, we should stay as far as possible if the fat/oil is bad.

The problem with Anne in our example (refer to Part 1), or anyone of us who is on low-fat diet, is that, although she doesn’t consume much fat and oil, she consumes high amount of starch (breads, pastry, etc). This makes her gets hungry faster, and the tummy also gets bloated easier. The emotion also fluctuates with the rise and fall of the blood sugar in the body. All of these signs are that of a typical pre-diabetic state. For fat and oil, although she might have eliminated in her diet, she has in fact unawarely consumed large amount of trans fat when she takes her breads and biscuits. This makes her prone to future cardiovascular and chronic inflammatory diseases.

(Don’t worry if you don’t understand some of the terms like starch, blood sugar, trans fat, etc. We’ll look at each of them in the future. Remember, one step at a time.)

Continue to Part 4...

(Words Count: Approximately 306)

Is low-fat diet better? (Part 2 of 5)

Continued from Part 1...

Losing weight is always the ever-popular hot topic nowadays. Turn on the TV, or just flip through the newspapers and magazines, there are endless messages telling us that to look good we must lose weight. This weight-losing phenomenon has been changing the way we live, and it has even impacted the young generation. My skinny niece, who has just entered primary school, sometimes refuses to eat because she says she doesn't want to get fat. Scary!

Many people assume that eating lesser fatty and oily food can reduce the fat in their body, and thus practicing low-fat diet. They don't take food like chicken skin, fatty meat and even butter. This makes their face to look pale, emotionally unstable, and some even suffer from depression. On the other hand, some people are worried that they might suffer from chronic diseases, thus become very cautious with oil and fat. They believe strongly that low-fat diet means something good for their health.

So, is low-fat diet good? The answer is NO! No! No! No! Read with me: Low-fat diet is unnecessarily good. Why? OK, let's go on to find out the facts behind low-fat diet.

Continue to Part 3...

(Words count: Approximately 201)

Is low-fat diet better? (Part 1 of 5)

For the last couples of years, the body weight of Anne has been increasing every year. Compared to the time when she just started working, she has gained a massive 10kg over the years. Besides her colleagues reminding her about it, she also realizes that her body is going out of shape. Some of her friends tell her that this is so because she has taken in too much fat and oil in her diet. For this, Anne decides to get away from fatty and oily food. Hamburgers, deep fried chicken, french fries, pisang goreng, char kuoy teow, nasi lemak, curry, everything is now out of her diet. In deed, she takes only vegetable salads, breads, biscuits, pastry, cookies, or sushi in daily meal. Half a year passes, however, not only her tummy is getting more bloated and bigger, her emotion has also become unstable. She gets irritated and hot tempered easily on even the smallest matters. And when she is hungry, her hands and feet are feeling cool, and headache also sets in.

What is going on? Have I eaten something wrong? In the mind of Anne, there are simply more and more question marks...

Continue to Part 2...

(Words count: Approximately 199)

Heart at exercise

A healthy heart is so strong that it is never a cause of tiredness during exercise. Tiredness during exercise comes from our muscles, when they are running out of fuel or out of oxygen. Skeletal muscles use both fat and sugar for energy. When our muscles run out of their stored sugar supply, called glycogen, they cannot contract and function adequately. We will then feel tired, our muscles hurt and we will have difficulty coordinating them.

On the other hand, our heart muscle gets energy directly from fat and sugar in our blood and even from a breakdown product of metabolism called lactic acid. It is virtually impossible for the heart muscle to run out of fuel unless we are starving to death. It is also impossible for a healthy heart to run out of oxygen. Oxygen comes to the heart through arteries on its outside surface. If these arteries are not plugged up with plaques, they are large enough to supply all the oxygen that the heart can possibly need. However, fatty plaques in arteries can block the flow of blood. When the heart does not get enough blood, it will hurt and can start to beat irregularly.

Exercise can't hurt a healthy heart. If we develop heart pain during exercise, something is wrong and we need to check with a medical doctor immediately.

(Words Count: Approximately 225)

The map is not the territory

This incident took place two days ago on Tuesday's evening…

My side of the story:

"Members had swamped the entire exercise studio for BodyCombat class. There wasn't much space left for them to move freely actually. As this studio had no platform or stage for instructor to stand on, the distance between the members at the central front row and myself was less than one meter. I knew that all of us would have very limited space to move around when the class starts. I asked if there is any first timer to the program. A lady to my left put up her hand. I asked again and saw no more hand putting up. After doing a brief introduction, the class was started.

Halfway through the warmup, I noticed a guy who stood at the central last row. He appeared excited with the moves, but had not been doing the moves quite right. Apparently, he must be a first timer to the program. I was wondering why he didn't raise his hand when I asked about it just now. So I looked at him and tried to show him the moves. He looked at me, but showed no response. I looked at him again and talked to him directly for him to follow my moves and direction. This time, he just smiled but changed nothing. Worried that he might hurt himself, and possibly others, by not doing things safely, I wanted to get to him to show him the moves. But the class was sardine packed, I just continued the class and hoped that he would change later.

Then came track 2, then track 3, but he was still not following well. He was either standing with the wrong combat stance, or performing moves much slower than others. I tried several times looking into his eyes to catch his attention. He looked at me, smiled again, but not following. Since I couldn't get close to him, I planned to stand next to him at track 5 when we would be doing a split-room track. I would be able to lead him by then.

Halfway through track 4, he left the class. I saw him walking out, and felt bad for not doing my part to keep him. I must not have been doing good to keep a new comer to the program. He must have felt frustrated and disappointed..."

His side of the story:

"I was excited to join the class. The room was flooded with people, but I was still able to get a spot in the central back row where I could see the instructor easily. I saw the instructor started talking. I guessed he must have said something funny, because I saw other people laughed. I hoped I understood what he was saying. After awhile, the instructor started moving, and other people in the room also moved with him, so I followed too. I saw the instructor doing some punches, other people also punched together with him, and so I punched too. I saw people punching at almost the same time as the instructor and could follow easily, I guessed they must have known the moves very well.

Minutes later, the instructor must be trying to say something to me, or trying to show me something, because I saw him looking at me directly and lifted his hands for something. I didn't understand what he was trying to do. Maybe he was welcoming me to the class, so I smiled to him in return. He looked at me eyes to eyes a few times, each time trying for something. I wished I knew what he wanted.

The room was getting warm and stuffy and everybody was sweating heavily. I couldn't catch my breath. I had not been doing this kind of exercise before. Not sure how long would this class take, but I knew I had to leave to get rest. When I walked out, I saw the instructor looked at me again. I wanted to let him know I had reached my maximum efforts. But I knew I couldn't, because I'm both mute and deaf..."

...

My heart sank and broke, and my body shivered when he "told" me that he is both mute and deaf. I felt so terribly guilty and sorry. I sincerely hoped I had done something better for him during the class. Eugene Lim, you mindless fool! Shame on you! Should have banged your head to the wall!!

(When the class ended and I was on my way out, I saw him standing outside the studio. I walked to him to check if he was alright. He moved his arms, lifting one of his hands to his mouth signaling he can't talk, and pointed both hands to his ears signaling he can't hear! He told me that he left the class because it was very hot in the studio and he couldn't breathe well. I suggested to him that next time he can stand next to the entrance to the studio, as the doors are open and thus better ventilation. We shook hands and I patted him on his shoulders for his courage. I wasn't sure if he got my message. I wanted to apologize to him too for my ignorance and not being tactful in class. I wished I knew how to express it...)

The map is not the territory

Our ability to interact with the external world is greatly influenced by our very restricted knowledge on the subject matter in our inner world. We give judgments based on our personal experience. Therefore, no two people ever have exactly the same map, or view, of any part of the external world. Everyone has their own personal views of the world, their own 'maps of reality.' Given the same piece of information, everyone has their own interpretation and understanding.

We need maps to guide us through unknown territory, but we must also be aware that even the best map is only a very rough guide to the landscape it represents:

• A Word IS NOT the THING it describes
• A Map IS NOT the PLACE it depicts
• A Symbol IS NOT the THING it represents

The truth is that our knowledge, on any subject we care to name, will always be incomplete. Likewise, no matter how much care and thought we give it, we can never be totally accurate in our description of any person, thing, event or whatever.

• Whatever we do or say, it is certain that we will be misunderstood - to some degree.
• Whatever we see or hear, it is certain that we will misunderstand it - to some degree.
• We can never eliminate misunderstandings - but this should not deter us from striving to minimize them.

As children we learn how to construct mental maps as a means of making sense of the bewildering array of experience that we are going though. As we grow into adulthood, some people make as few new maps as they can. Some people pretend to make fresh maps, although they are really only transcribing their existing maps. And a few people make new maps all through their lives, both for the fun of it, and because they regularly seek out new experiences to learn from.

There are at least three major reasons why a regular supply of new maps is desirable:

1. Maps are always based on limited view of external reality, which is itself in a constant process of change.
2. The longer we use any particular map, the harder it becomes to recognize its shortcomings.
3. The more familiar a map becomes, the harder it is to accept the validity of anybody else's map of the same 'territory.'

Since every map is necessarily incomplete, whenever we create a new map we are forced to be selective about the information we include, a result usually arrived at by evaluating current information in the light of maps we have already prepared.

In a nutshell:

Things are not necessarily what it seems or appears, as map is not the actual territory of the reality. Upon encountering a situation, for instance, when talking to somebody, maybe we should ask what assumptions is each of us making? Are those assumptions justified? What do these assumptions tell us about the other party's mental maps? What could we say to each other that would help each other to get a better understanding of each party's points of view?

Everyone of us is different, as no one shares the same experience for everything. As the map is not the territory it depicts, misunderstandings can be minimized by acknowledging our shortcomings.

(Words Count: Approximately 1,438)

Chewing my food

There was this day I took lunch together with my aunt at her house. Over the meal, we had small talks and blah blah blah. Then out of a sudden, she asked why I eat so slowly. I looked at her and realized that she had finished her food while I still had nearly half of my plate full. She said, "Young man, you should eat fast so that you can compete with others in this dog-eat-dog world!" I told her that I am enjoying the food... (and my job doesn't require me to rush over lunch too!)

All the while I've realized that I eat relatively slow compared to other people. At home, I'm always the last one who leaves the dining table. When I'm eating out with other people, I'm never the first person who finishes the food. Last time when I was employed, it was never a good experience to do lunch with my colleagues. As lunch hour was short, I always had to rush and eat fast. Not only I felt really pressurized when eating, I was fat X3 then. Later years when I started my diet program, I made and brought my own food to office and thus no longer need to rush for lunch.

Why do I eat slow? Well, first of all, because I'm fat, and eating fast can cause obesity (more details on upcoming paragraph), so I eat slow. (Oh oh oh! I know I'm fat, but I don't want to be obese!) Fast eating can cause digestive problems too. And, in many cases, fast eating results in not tasting or enjoying our food or even knowing what we have just eaten. By eating food too fast, we eat more than we might even want or definitely more than we might need. It takes about twenty (20) minutes from the time we begin eating to the time our stomach signals our brain that we might have had enough (our brain's appetite regulator is called the appestat). If we continue to eat too fast, we tend to overfill our stomachs, thus causing possible indigestion and discomfort. This, too, pushes food through our digestive system too fast and may result in improper digestion. As a result, problems such as constipation, heartburn, or diarrhea may occur.

An interesting study from Japan suggests that eating fast is a risk factor for diabetes. Researchers at Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine in Aichi studied middle-aged men and women and found that the faster a person ate, the more likely he or she was to be fat (Preventive Medicine, February 2008). Furthermore, both insulin levels and blood sugar levels were higher in people who ate faster. High insulin and blood sugar levels are markers for being diabetic or at risk for developing type II diabetes. (Source: Eating Fast Leads to Obesity)

You see, one of the problems in our daily lives is that many of us rush through the day, with no time for anything. And when we have time to get a bite to eat, we gobble it down. That leads to stressful, unhealthy living, and causes chronic diseases in the future. And with the simple but powerful act of eating slower, we can begin to reverse that lifestyle immediately. How hard is it? We take smaller bites, we chew each bite slower and longer (I know this is hard! I'm still working hard to chew my food for at least 15 times before I shallow it.), and we enjoy our meal longer. It takes a few minutes extra each meal, and yet it can have profound effects.

Eat slower, enjoy the food and stay healthier. Or, eat faster and let the waistline go wider. You decide!

In a nutshell:

We are more likely to be overweight if we eat fast. Eating fast can lead us to obesity. Slow down our eating speed. Enjoy and savour the food more. Eat slowly and we are on our way to have better health and better life.

(Words Count: Approximately 667)