Yin Teing’s Health Blog

There are times when I wake up feeling really tired because of active dreams (always seemed to have this problem and can’t seems to find a cure). During these times, I am so tempted to sleep longer- but I know that it seldom helps and I would have to deal with the prospect of a tired and drained out workday.

During these tired times as I dragged myself and my heavy gym bag to the gym, I would feel as if my entire body is made of lead. The first 8 minutes of cardio would seem like an uphill task, with half awake heavy feeling limbs. But as the muscles warm up, I am able to add more intensity to the exercises. Sometimes I would just shock the muscles by suddenly increasing the gradient or effort levels. After a while, they get the message and will wake up.

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“Patience and persistence are vital qualities in the ultimate successful accomplishment of any worthwhile endeavor.” - Joseph Pilates

To me, the best way to lose weight is to do it slow and steady. Follow the tried, tested and proven method of sustained weight loss: exercise and food control.

There are so many short cuts being sold in the market today- some pills are even able to filter out all the fat from your food. So you can eat whatever you want and is supposed to get away with it. But I dread to think of the possible damage on the kidneys and liver.

When I was 15 years old, my weight began to go out of control because I had absolutely no restraint in eating and literally did not exercise. I remembered once when I was required to run for 200 meters, I nearly died of breathlessness. So one day, my mom saw an advertisement on a diet pill that is supposed to slim a person down and she brought a bottle for me.

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Feeling that afternoon slump & exhaustion at work?

Yesterday afternoon, I just felt so tired (I have active dreams for years and tend to make me wake up feeling like I’ve never slept at all). Was supposed to make it to the gym after work but ended up almost falling asleep in the couch.

So I was determined to get to the gym in the today before work. Got up early, crawled to the gym. Felt sluggish at first but after 10 minutes of cardio, followed by abdomen crunch and another 20 minutes of cardio, and good after exercise stretch, I felt energetic.
Then, this is followed by a hair wash and good shower- and I am ready to face the day.

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Since increasing intake of natural food, minimizing sugar and processed carbs, and combining with my usual exerice regime, I have seen the following changes in myself:

• Feel so much more energized and less tired.
• Knee problems had dissapeared. Even though I have done yoga based exerised for a quite, I still had knee pains till I cut off sugar. Then the problem was gone. I can do a full lotus posture now.
• Better control of my temper.
• Run up a flight of stairs and not tired.
• Less hungry (hee hee, coz I am still snacking on healthy food).
• Addiction to caffeine is much reduced.
• No monthly PMS blues- not that mine is bad. But I don’t feel the bloatedness and tiredness that come with it.
• Most processed stuff starts to taste far too sweet for my liking.

But, shed only very little weight- about 1kg off at most (coz I had slagged and just came back on board about 2 weeks ago). Still, the well being I experienced really give me an inner motivation.

And journalling it also makes me want to keep up- after all, this is posted in my blog. Can’t really afford to slack too often, rite?

If you set up to achieve a particular goal, journally it is a good idea, be it via an online blog or in a book. Months or years from now, you can start studying the progress, whats make it work or otherwise.

I feel tired most of the time. Previously, I am assailed with feelings of lethargy and fatique which got worst as I grow older.

I have problems getting up in most mornings- was hardly a morning person since my school days. So for a long time when I reached the office, I was so tired that I do not feel like taking to anyone. It will take me about an hour to ‘recover’. On very bad mornings, I even get snappy with people. Over the years it got worst and I started drowning myself with more and more caffeine (to stay awake and alive), to an extend that it has opposite affect. I can drink double expresso from Starbuck at night and still sleep soundly. But overall, with increased dosages, comes the increased fatique.

So I took up exercising, joined a gym. Because it helped to me to reduce my feeling of fatigue, I am now almost addicted to exercise, which is a good thing

I thought there was nothing much I could do about it- except continue exercising. It cannot take away all the fatigue but it does help a lot. So last Tuesday I overstrained my hamstrings and almost injured my ankles, I have no choice but to stop and rest a few days, or risk having a broken ankle. With the rest day, I took some time to read and stumbled upon a few findings.

I discovered that the culprit to consistent fatigue could be my sweet tooth. My sweet tooth, that could never resist the calling of white bread or chocolate cake. According to many who knows me, including my boss, I do not eat a lot. The only crime I am guilty off is to choose to eat sweet stuffs… sweetened teas, coffees..some small sweet dessert after a meal.
What a shame…

I have been misled all my life. I thought we need refined carbs for energy.
OK, let me explain why taking too much sugar can make you feel more hungry/tired:

• You eat sweet/high carbo stuff- maybe too much of it. Let’s say you have a plate of nasi lemak or a couple of delicious butter buns in the morning.
• The food goes into your digestive system and get converted to blood sugar.
• The higher the blood sugar, the stronger the alarm triggered by your body.
• Your pancreas then releases insulin… to help bring down the level of sugar in your blood.
• When the sudden drop of sugar level, your body gives off another signal- hunger, and that you need even more sweet stuff or carbo- the more sugar/carbo you eat, the more your body gives off that signal.
• Result: you will eat more again to feed the hunger.
• The sugar (glucose) is then converted to glucagon. With the sedentary lifestyle that most city folks are having, the glucagon then gets stored away as fat.

When your body experiences a sharp drop of sugar level, you feel tired and hungry. Over the years, the yo yo effect will destroy your overworked pancreas’s ability to produce insulin. As the results, you get diabetes. And if you get diabetes and don’t control your carbo/sugar intake, it gets worse- numbnes of body. And when a sore/wound developed in the body, the virus/bacteria just feeds on the sugar in blood. As the result, the area gets infected/gangrine and you would need to chop, yes, chop off the part- to prevent further infection. That was what happened to my maternal grandma. She led an active life, mind you but was addicted to having condense milk in her pot of coffee daily. By the time she was 80, she was on a wheelchair with 1/4 of both her legs left. Diabetes is a serious health threat and now, people are getting it when younger.

Cause: As long as you eat refined sugar, you will always crave for more food because of yoyo blood sugar levels. It’s not your fault. It is biology.

Solution: Try to eliminate refined sugar/processed carbo from your diet as much as possible. Replace it with fibre or protein. And if you really cannot help it, then small quantities of complex carbo or sugar free sweet stuff.