Matilda Rozelles... Remembering Her

I can smell the crisp air of July and that excites me!

The many visits to the nearby park for a walk leisurely allows me to admire the many pocket gardens landscaped beautifully and replete with various colorful flowers and greens. We frequent this place on weekends and never fail to have a taste of Tropical Hut’s classic burger and spaghetti while reminiscing the life she had. We both agree that afternoon spent unhurriedly and unmindful of the time is a relief from this urban jungle.

Sitting on the driveway and looking admiringly at the Christmas lights is another past time we find relaxing. We stay there for hours inattentive to the mosquitoes that seem to be craving for our attention, with the antiquated anahaw fan to shoo them away. Gazing up, we figure out the stars dispersed all over the vast sky while enjoying stories of valor, love and struggles from the past.

These are some of the activities my great grandmother my cousins and I love doing. She is now gone; yet my memory of her will forever be an indelible part of my life and ingrained in my mind. On July 11th, she would have celebrated her 109th birthday; nonetheless, living a life for 101 years is a blessing from God. Not only do I smell the crisp air of July but the curry dishes she cooks lovingly for the family!

Please God If You Can't Make Me Thin Make My Friends Fat

This photo has nothing to do with my entry though it made me giggle and grin. I think the caption is hilarious and the picture endearing. As I further dwell on the words, I smile to myself because I am infrequently guilty of this thought. On a more serious tone, the society often thinks this way, competition-wise. Most do not know how to play the game fairly and wishes the other bad luck. It is all over us! But if being fat and if looking as adorable and cuddly as this kitten is not that bad, right?

For many weeks now, I have been contending with my health issues. It is pure common sense, I know, yet, I fail to follow these simple rules: listen to your body. Eat in moderation and slumber at least 7 hours per day.

My sleep-and-wake cycle have been distorted and is in a sporadic occurrence lately. My body clock goes haywire especially on my days off when I try to keep up with the normalcy of my household's lifestyle. I do this to reconnect with them, to keep me sane from the almost robotic manner of communicating when at work and manage to still have an adult conversation while consciously unearthing my vocabulary.

Eating moderately and veering away from junk food is almost always what I hear my mom telling me especially when I am binging. I can fore go a meal in replace of a big pack of Lay's Kettle Cooked (my addiction these days) and dark chocolate. However, I deprive myself of the real stuff and feel literally weak due to my sugar level decreasing towards my end of shift. Yes, moderation is the answer and changing a lifestyle permanently than dieting is the key to a healthy body.

Sleep and proper diet are essential to every person. However, due to commercialism, peer pressure, and a contorted perception for the sake of a slimmer-body-to-die-for, my connotation to the words is altered.

Reverting my ideologies to the fundamentals of achieving wellness, I succumb to the long-term benefits of doing so. On hindsight, it's never really a sin to wish my friends to be fat if, no matter how hard I pray, God can't still make me thin!

Health Tips

If you exercise or engage in any activity that makes you sweat, you need to drink extra water to compensate for the fluid loss. Drink an extra 400 to 600 milliliters of water for short bouts of exercise. During long bouts of intense exercise, it's best to use a sports drink that contains sodium, as this will help replace sodium lost in sweat. Continue to replace fluids after you're finished exercising!


You'll get the body you want faster by doing 10 slow repetitions of crunches instead of 20 fast ones. Moving slowly — two counts up and two counts down — allows you to use more precise form, which can stimulate your muscles better and make them stronger, says Rodney Corn of the National Academy of Sports Medicine. (The faster you go, the more likely you are to use momentum instead of your abs.) Your muscles should feel tired in 15 reps.


Want Jennifer Aniston's bod? Celeb trainer Kathy Kaehler says:
1. Eat! Severely cutting calories slows your metabolism and makes you feel deprived.
2. But, eat slowly. After each bite, put down your fork and count to 10. This allows your brain to tell your stomach, "Enough."
3. Try this must-do move to target your thighs: Place 10 playing cards on the floor. Squat, pick up one card, and shuffle four paces to the right. Squat; put the card down. Shuffle back to the pile, pick another card, and repeat until all 10 cards have been moved to the right.


Sleep keeps important weight-loss hormones in balance (without it, ghrelin rises, so you're hungrier, and leptin is suppressed, so you're not as satisfied by what you do eat). If you don't have enough time to sleep at night, try to schedule at least a short power nap during the day. If anxiety is keeping you up, practice relaxation techniques before bed: Organize a to-do list for the next day so you know you have everything covered. And don't stay up watching back-to-back episodes of Entourage. Try getting calm by reading instead.
Get enough z's: Too little sleep is bad for your health and your image; it can make you ineffective (it impairs performance, judgment, and the ability to pay attention), sick (it weakens your immune system), and overweight. In fact, women who slept five hours or less a night were a third more likely to gain 33 pounds or more over 16 years than women who slept seven hours, according to a Harvard Nurses' Health Study.


Slow down at dinner — the longer you take to eat, the sooner you'll feel full. And focus on whole grains. It takes more white rice than brown to make you feel just as satisfied. That's because white rice contains no fiber, a food component that helps you feel full.


Abs need rest and recovery: It's only during rest that your muscles build. "Three to five days a week of consistent, dedicated abdominal training should get you strong, sleek abs," says Kathy Kaehler, trainer and author of Kathy Kaehler's Celebrity Workouts.


People who wear casual shoes burn more calories in a day than people who dress up, according to a recent study by the American Council on Exercise. Wearing comfortable shoes daily could burn an extra 6500 calories a year, thanks to the extra walking you'll do, says study author Katie Zahour, M.S., a clinical exercise psychologist at the Southwest Florida Heart Group.


Can stress make you fat? The link has been tough to prove, but after a recent study at Emory University involving the eating habits of female rhesus monkeys, Mark Wilson, Ph.D., concluded that chronic stress could wreak havoc on appetite-control systems, either by dampening levels of leptin, the satiety hormone, or upping levels of ghrelin, the hunger hormone.


After the age of 30, your metabolic rate slows down and you lose bone density. This exercise can help reverse the effects of aging: Lay your forearm down on a countertop or other flat surface, and bring one leg up behind you, squeezing in your abdominals. Do 30 leg lifts to the side, and then 30 to the back.

Source: Marie Claire

Wonders of Banana

Yes, you read it right. Banana!

The adage, “an apple a day keeps a doctor away!” is exceedingly true to bananas after reading a forwarded email by my former supervisor at CAP College, Rey de Leon. This informative and timely article changed my outlook on this magical and dynamic fruit I often take for granted.

Since I was a little girl until this very day, our house abounds with bananas! I see everyone eating it with gusto especially my Lola who never gets tired of it. She connotes it as the poor man’s fruit for obvious reasons. It is cheap and affordable. Also, it is available the whole year round and is obtained both in the market and supermarket.

Did you know that this fruit is a great remedy to illnesses and an energy booster too? I swore to myself that I will include this to my daily diet. Read on and benefit from it.

It help overcome or prevent:

Depression:
According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS:
Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia:
High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure:
This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power:
200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation:
High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers:
One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn:
Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness:
Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites:
Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves:
Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

Overweight and at work?
Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and crisps. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs.. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar le vels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers:
The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control:
Many other cultures see bananas as a "cooling" fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD):
Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking & Tobacco Use:
Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress:
Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes:
According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine, eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!

Warts:
Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!

Thus, grab a piece or two now and like me, your opinion about this fruit may change too!

A Touch of Ingenuity

Incorporating buttons as well as transforming an ordinary bag and bangle into an exquisite, expensive and extraordinary piece of accessory was the pragmatic idea of Pinky.

Pinky, a housewife after her marriage to Jun was formerly a print ad model of Triumph in the late 80s and early 90s. With her extensive exposure to such industry, her creativity flourished as well as her inclination to arts compelled her to be even more experimental. With tough times and the value of the peso deteriorating, she ceased from buying impulsively, questioning herself further and examining the mileage of such purchase as to whether she can do without.

With her adept entrepreneurial capabilities, not to mention her innate ways to transform an item into a fabulous, intricate piece of ornament is the birth of her new baby! These can now be bought in bazaars at a very reasonable price. For inquiries leave me a message.