Glass after glass, your best friends at your side through thick and thin and the sheer thrill of feeling like you’re utterly invincible — there are plenty of good things to be said about partying hard, but your body can only take so much. If you don’t chill out once in a while, your huge nights out on the town will become the kind of horror shows that only end in tears.

Know Your Limits or They’ll Limit Your Fun

Nobody is trying to harsh your party mellow, but there’s definitely a down side to having too many big nights out. It’s all fun and games until someone loses their lunch in the back alley behind some filthy pub, and that’s not even the worst of it.

In reality, the harshest side effect of trying to pack too much fun into an insufficient amount of time is that it leaves you with less time for other things. Relative no-brainers that you’re usually on top of, like eating other meals besides 3 a.m. Macca’s and actually going to the gym once in a while are easy to forget when your schedule is fully packed with clubs, pubs and parties.

These basic lifestyle choices really add up, considering you tend to forget that you made them if you’re getting pissed on a regular basis. Before you know it, however, your doctor will be lecturing you about your overly high cholesterol and nagging you to start working out more. If you’re smart, you’ll take steps to avoid these unpleasant conversations by cutting back a bit now.

Hidden Health Risks

In addition to the obvious liver problems that you’ll have if you don’t try to take it easy, your horrible habits can also have effects that you might not anticipate. Although people say moderate alcohol intake is associated with positive health benefits like stroke reduction, no studies have ever definitively proven how this works to the satisfaction of the international medical community. Most merely suggest possible mechanisms. On the other hand, there are numerous accepted reports that demonstrate precisely how alcohol overconsumption is linked to various forms of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and other chronic conditions.

Alcohol and drug addiction are huge risks that can really mess up your life before you know it. Nobody plans to become an addict; it’s just that many people do not take the time to plan for otherwise. It’s pretty easy to decide that you’re going to take a break once every week or so, but if you’re just going with the flow all the time, you’re pretty much dooming yourself from the start.

Increased Financial Burdens

Party-related health problems might not kill you, but their financial ramifications will certainly make you wish that they had. Party more in a short time period and you’ll wind up with less and less energy. Sure, you probably won’t get fired if you keep showing up to work on time, but you’ll definitely get passed over for promotion in favour of someone else who actually has their head in the game. So much for that raise.

Also remember that lazing around is a major detriment to your health, and that’s pretty much what most of partying consists of. Even if you’re one of those heavy stoners who likes to get high every time you mountain bike, surf or participate in your weekly sport of choice, your choices definitely have an effect on your brain. The chemical processes that tell your pituitary gland and hypothalamus to produce endorphins get played out after a while; your physical and psychological health can only take so much.

Regardless whether you take this advice to heart or not, remember that the things you do now will catch up with you later and that the myriad side effects of partying all the time can be expensive from a healthcare perspective. Even though you might not feel like it’s an issue today, take a second to compare health insurance online. Have your fun in moderation, and stay protected by checking out different policies to find the best rates.

It used to be that when we were younger, we eat anything to our hearts delight, stay up until we can, with very little exercise and still have a healthy vigorous body with no flabs at all. But when you hit your 30s, you realize you’ve got to take extra care of your body to look as buff as before. Here are some changes in one’s discipline to stay fit and healthy at any age.

1. Change in diet. Low in carbs, low in salt, low in sugar, more natural, less junk, whatever diet you choose, the discipline here is to have any food in moderation. It also helps to have more fiber (mostly from eating more vegetables and fruits) and more water into your diet to help speed up metabolism.

2. Get sunlight at the right time. Protect yourself if you’re going out between 10am and 3pm. Cover using a hat, or a good sunscreen.

3. Exercise! Not only will it make you healthier, it will also make you feel better, think better and gives you more energy. Now there are workout programs to help you burn out fat and build muscle even right inside your home. (Bonus: when we exercise regularly, our body burns calories even when resting. Awesome, right?)

4. Have a good night sleep. Sleep is needed for your body to regenerate cells.

These changes, no matter how little or gradual you do it, will help improve your health and fitness.

More and more people are choosing to go organic whether for food, personal hygiene and cleaning products. And why not? Food not only tastes better, you know that you’re getting the nutrition from every bite sans the chemicals. (Organic food has longer shelf life too.) Even restaurants are becoming more aware of the advantages of using organic food.

As many of us are aware of, pesticides have been linked to cancer. Going organic reduces our risk of having cancer. That is a reason good enough to choose organic. Plus, we’re helping reduce the chemicals (pesticides) that go to our water resources. Organic agriculture protects both us humans and the environment.

I also can’t rave enough about organic shampoos and soaps. My skin feels smoother and healthier. My hair is shinier and healthier too. (And yes, I found organic toothpaste too.) So you can take care of your body inside and out.

And now you can go organic for your home too, such as upholstery, carpet and rug cleaning. Especially for us moms, we wouldn’t dare expose our family to harmful chemicals cleaning our house. We want safe and effective way of maintaining our house. The good news is now these services are offered at a very reasonable price.

The husband, as I have previously blogged, has started training on swimming. He also has started running to build endurance. He skipped biking (swim-bike-run), as he is still saving up for a good bike. To be honest, I think he is still contemplating if he wants to be a triathlete or just do competitive swimming. According to him, he even prefers motocross bikes over road bikes, so he’s still reluctant to do the “bike” part in the triathlon. In fact, just the other day, he was browsing online for Fox Helmets. Hmm, maybe I can just give him that as his Christmas gift, if he suddenly buys a motocross bike instead of a road bike.

I used to dance. Yes, “used” because it’s been ages that I last danced in front of an audience. This is the reason I dared myself to be active in our company dance group again.

Wrong move.

Why?
Because Saturdays to Tuesdays, my whole body aches.
I also realized I’m too old for hiphop.
And because of the exhaustion (and age?!), I can’t keep up with the routines.
Ugh.
Old.
Tsk!

My husband and I try different places for our monthly massage. And for this month, it was this particular spa near our place. To be honest, I was happy with the service but turned off by the staff. They were talking loudly about us, who were just as they called “walk-ins” and they were ranting why we were accepted (we arrived at 5pm and they were leaving at 8pm). One lady in a lab coat, who I think was the receptionist, was particularly loud. They were complaining among themselves, which we can hear, that they were heading to the mall and needed to leave at 8pm. It was very obvious that they wanted us to hear it.

I didn’t want to ruin the experience so I just shut my mouth. I was just wondering, if they really wanted to head to the mall, why not take a day off? Customers pay for massages to take away the stress. And hearing these rants didn’t help.

I didn’t disclose the name of the spa as we will come back once more just to give them another chance. But I will blog again if the experience will be as bad. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m not sure why but in this pregnancy, I often forget that I am indeed pregnant. First, in my dreams, I’d party with friends (the funny thing was, the friends in my dreams are also pregnant in real life) when I was about to drink, I will then remember that I am pregnant. Then in real life, I often get excited to hear vacation plans then I’ll remember that it would be physically impossible for me to join because of my baby bump. Or I get excited about weight loss stories and would like to try it soon myself then I’ll suddenly remember. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been wanting to be pregnant again for like 3-4 years now.

Dreams, they say, speak of what you feel deep down. So maybe, I miss having drinks with friends (it wasn’t night in my dreams, it was afternoon and it felt like we had just gone out shopping)? Since in my dream, I was with pregnant moms like me, so I guess, I miss going out with my friends who are also moms like me. There you go! Geez, I’m so good at this!

A friend texted, inviting us for a jog inside the nearest university. Well, it would be walking for me while they jog. Their usual target is to circle twice so I can walk circling it once while they jog circling it twice. This friend was telling us about oxyelite pro results, its effect on him when matched with proper diet and exercise. But we have to decline to his invitation. My back still aches just by going down the stairs. I have to pause midway every time. I was sure it would be very much harder for me to even just walk miles with my baby bump.

Invite me again sometime October.

I had a terrible cough for two weeks. Thank goodness the cough’s gone just today. You see, I took care of the little girl when she had cough with slight fever. Somehow, I had this confidence that my resistance is as good as I was when not pregnant. But it wasn’t. After just a day or two, I started coughing along with my daughter.

She recovered after taking mucolytic and anti-bacterial medications. Well, as for me, as I was not allowed to take any cough syrup, I was just prescribed to double my Vit C intake. So I tried working as much as I can, even if it was so hard for me to be in front of my laptop, taking pauses once in a while, e.g. when running scanner software on documents downloaded from the sharepoint.

But after a week of sleepless nights and incessant barking, I was finally prescribed an antibiotic (Zinnat) 3x a day, and was told to nebulize (Ventolin) 2x a day. I’ll be honest. If only the cough wasn’t making me miserable, I wouldn’t take any antibiotic. The only downside was the antibiotic taken every 8 hours, was making me dizzy for about 3-4 hours, meaning I have 4 dizzying hours and 4 “well” hours alternately. So yes, sleepless nights for 2 weeks! Thank goodness it’s over.

I’ve been reading about weight loss success stories, and hoping I’ll have mine too. Maybe not now, but someday.

When I had my gall bladder removed, I thought I’d lose more weight because I will have to limit my fat intake. But I also read that even if there is not as much bile, there is enough to allow the digestion and transfer of fat. So there’s no need to limit my fat intake at all.

And unlike few people who had their gall bladder removed, I do not suffer from diarrhea, which could have helped in losing weight. But I’m good. I still prefer I do not have diarrhea instead of weight loss. Haha.