Ways to help reduce your sugar intake

I recently bought my kid an amateur microscope. It is a simple apparatus, with some magnifying lenses at the end of its arm. We had fun putting various household objects such as sugar, salt and leaves under the microscope to see what the basic shapes of such household items are. 

Sugar, when put under the microscope, looks like small little "cubes", oblong and slanted at the ends. But at the end of the day, have you wondered what exactly is sugar, and why is it bad for your body? 

What is sugar? 

If we want to get really nerdy, the white stuff we know as sugar is sucrose, a molecule composed of composed of 12 atoms of carbon, 22 atoms of hydrogen and 11 atoms of oxygen. Sugar in fact occurs naturally in all foods that contain carbohydrates, such as fruits and rice. So, you cannot avoid taking in some sugar in your day to day life. As such, the more important thing to understand is what kind of sugar is alright for your body, and what is not. 

Is there bad and good sugar? 

Yes! Eating a right amount of food that contain natural sugar is alright. Some of these foods, such as fruits, have a high amount of fiber, antioxidants and other vitamins that is good for you. While you are eating these foods, you also consume other stuff that is good for your body. 

What is not good for your body is added sugar, that is sugar that is added to make the food and drinks tastier. Based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline, our sugar consumption should be about 25 grams, or six teaspoons, of sugar a day. Considering that a can of soft drink contains about 40 grams, or about ten teaspoons of sugar, we seriously need to reduce our intake of sugar every day. 

Why is sugar bad for you? 

Firstly, a high consumption of sugar increases the risk of diseases such as obesity, heart diseases, diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Hence, when you consume lots of sugar, you are also indirectly taking in a slow poison for your body! 

Sugar is also bad for you because it contains a high amount of calories, which causes weight gain. While we do not aim to have the figure of a supermodel, it helps to boost your self esteem and self confidence if you look good and feel good. In fact, the more you consume sugar, the more you feel like eating. Scientists have found out that one of the components of sugar is fructose, which increases your hunger and desire for food. By reducing your sugar intake, you are also reducing your overall desire for food. Hence, reducing your sugar level has a multiplier effect if you are determined to reduce your weight! 

Finally, do you know that sugar is not just bad for your waistline, but also for your skin? A lot of skin problems such as acne and eczema are exacerbated by sugar intake. And if it is aging skin that you are worried about, we have bad news for you. Diets high in sugar accelerate skin aging by increasing the breakdown of collagen fibers in a process called glycation. 

Ok, so how do I reduce my sugar intake?

Here are some tips to make it easier for you to reduce sugar intake

(1) Make it convenient

Humans are lazy creatures. The easier it is to do something, the more we will do so. The first thing to do if you wish to cut down your sugar level is to re-stock your refrigerator and kitchen with healthy food, drinks and snacks. Stock up on nuts, seeds and dried fruits in your refrigerator so that the next time you are hungry and wish to reach for a snack, there are only healthy choices in your home. 

(2) Make it tasty 

In order for you to feel like eating healthy food, such food should ideally also be tasty and appetizing. For example, I used to love sugary drinks and find it extremely hard to not reach for a sugared drink during most meals. After a while, I realised that if I switch from taking a sugared drink to drinking coconut juice, the switch will not be that hard to make. The good thing is there is an explosion of good and tasty choices in the market, so it is a matter of experimenting with different food to see which suits your taste buds. 

(3) Make micro changes in life

In order to make changes in life habits, start with a version of the habit that is easy for you. For example, if you add a teaspoon of sugar to your coffee every morning, use half as much sugar each week until you can cut it out completely without even noticing.  

(4) Make your own meals

If you cook your own meals, it will be much easier to control the sugar level and ingredients that go into your food. If you commute to work every day, take a salad for lunch and add lean meat to make it a tasty and healthy meal. There are also some good websites out there that teach you how to make good meals with little sugar intake. For example, I hit on this I Quit Sugar website that teaches you how to make tasty desserts such as Raw Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake without the use of sugar.

As the saying goes, a little goes a long way. Take small steps to take charge of your own health now. Your body will definitely thank you ten years down the road!  

5 Tips to cheer you up in less than the time it takes to say “Hullabalolooo”

You may not think it from looking at me, but I am a person that constantly slips into a downward spiral of thoughts.

In a way, it is normal to do so. Every day, millions of thoughts cross our brain. When one negative thought enters our subconsciousness, it sometimes feels great to “feel sorry for ourselves”. One negative thought leads to another, and quicker than we know it, we are spiraling into a deep abyss of sorrow.

The good thing is, it is possible for you to train yourself to recognize that this pattern of thought is happening. It is also possible to re-direct your thoughts into a more cheerful mode in less time than it takes to say “Hullabalolooo”.  

Say what?

Yes, you heard it right. Being silly is one of best way to get yourself out of negative thoughts. Let me share the techniques that work for me.

1. Think of a happy image

When you feel your brain going down this familiar path, force yourself to focus for a moment on a happy image. For me, I try to bring up the image of a fat, jolly Santa Claus with a twinkle in his eye. I close my eyes, and focus on making this image as sharp as I can. I focus on picturing the twinkle, how fat his tummy is, and how jolly his laughter is. After a few minutes on focusing on this image, I always feel myself getting much happier.

2. Chant a "spell" for yourself

Similar to the concept of a happy image, you can think up a word or phrase that have no meaning at all except that it sounds funny.

The word could be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, from Mary Poppins, if you can’t think of anything else.

Or it could be a totally imagined phrase like “Kawabunga Alibaba”.

Repeat it a few times to make sure it rolls well on your tongue. Then whenever you are feeling that downward spiral, force yourself to chant this phrase as fast as you can, for at least 3 times. It is your very own self-made “spell” to “exorcise” the negative thoughts.

3. Music to soothe the soul

As the saying goes, music can heal the wounds which medicine cannot touch. When you are sad or blue, play your favourite songs on spotify or youtube. A growing body of research attests that music therapy is more than a nice perk. There is evidence that listening to music reduces anxiety and agitation, and to some extent may even help to reduce physical symptoms such as pain or nausea!

4. Move!

OK, this is a bit cliché, but moving really helps. But when you just want a quick pick-me-up, sometimes it may not be so possible to put down everything and go for a 5 km run. Sometimes, I also get depressed when I am working in the office (they say office can be one of the most toxic places on earth… haha), and I cannot just tell my boss that I need to be excused so that I can do some yoga stretches. So, what do I do?

It feels silly to share this secret, but what I do is I excuse myself to go to the toilet. When I reach the toilet cubicle, I will do some stretching, fist clenching and booty shaking - whatever I can within the small confined space of the cubicle to get my body moving. Trust me, this works!

5. Compare yourself… against the worst person

This goes against the usual doctrine of popular positive psychology, but hey, I never claimed to be a real expert. This blog post only writes about the techniques that work for me.

When I am feeling depressed about myself, sometimes I compare myself against a person in a worst circumstance than me.  It could be someone I know that is out of job, not in touch with his family or is a toxic person that people really hate. I compare myself against this person, and feel a rush of gratitude that I am at least not in that state. I then think about the things that I have – such as friends or family, or a nice roof over my head – and I feel much better.

There you have it. 5 tips to cheer yourself up in less than 60 seconds! 

I am back!

Wow, this is amazing!

After 4 years of not touching this blog, I am amazed that blogger did not just shut this blog down. Thank you blogger for this!

I am going to restart this blog. Watch this space!

Bliss

I lay on a swimming deck chair. A small coconut tree shields me from the glare of the tropical sun. I can still feel the warmth of the sun on my face. Its warmth is just nice. Not too hot, and not too cold. The occasional breeze caresses my face. 

I can hear the sound of the waters from the nearby Jacuzzi pools. Laughter from kids far away punctuate the warm air from time to time. My own daughter is swimming happily under the careful guidance of an experienced swimming coach. 

I have no where that I need to go at the moment. No need to nag at my kids to brush their teeth. No errands to run. I can totally relax.

I ask myself to relax even more. Relax my facial muscles. Feel my cheeks and jaws slacking. Relax my hands and legs. Take deep and natural breathes. Total relaxation.

It feels so wonderful to be able to relax like this. Once in a while, we should take the time to be with ourselves. No need to rush, or compete, or achieve. Just be.

This is bliss.

How to turn a group of strangers into a community

Last year has been a tough year for my team. A few colleagues left us for greener pastures, and the remainder of the group struggled with the workload that we had to cover. 

This year, we are going to rebuild the team, one person by one person. 

As the leader of this small group, I feel that I have the personal responsibility to ensure that we have this group up and running as soon as possible. If you think about it positively, this is also a (mostly) fresh chance for me to build up a new team all over again. So how do I make the best use of this opportunity to build the best performing team? 

What is a dream team, anyway?

For me, I think that a dream team is:

• Close – We spend lots of time together, so we have lots of shared memories. We are good friends who laugh together, and understand each other well.

• Positive and Energetic – We understand that our work is difficult, but we also understand that there is meaning behind the work. As such, even through the tough times, we are positive and energetic all the time.

• Able to Value-add to one another – All of us have different skillsets, knowledge and temperament. However, as a team, we value-add to one another. Maybe one person loves numbers crunching and all the “techie” stuff, and another person is good at presentations and “salesmanship”. Let us all work together in the areas that we are best at, and help one another out as well. 

In practice, how do you achieve that? 

• All business all the time makes you a weak employee. This is something that I read in the book “The Best Place to Work” by Ron Friedman. As Friedman said, workplace friendships don’t happen when you’re buried in a spreadsheet. They emerge in the spaces between work, before and after a meeting. To build workplace friendships, we have to chat about non-work things during our working hours. Strangely enough, this is one area that I am really weak at. I am a true “worker’s bee”, and am very happy to talk about work all the time. However, to build my dream team, I will work on this weakness of mine, and deliberately open up myself to share more about personal stuff.

• Create lots of time together. Lunches are an obvious opportunity. However, I have a colleague who is a “hermit crab”, who either doesn’t lunch out or eat at odd times of the day. Another colleague has a lunch clique with another division as his wife works there. So lunch ends up not being a good time. Still, I will try to get the team to lunch together more often. Another thing I realized is that sometimes, it is good for a colleague who is not directly involved in a project to join in a meeting for the project. In that way, we get to understand what the other team mates are doing.

• Use humour and positive language. Again, this is an area which I struggle. I think I am getting better at loosening up at work. Still, I have to deliberately remind myself to use the power of humour. As Mark Twain said, “Humour is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritation and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” Be the person who lights up the room! 

Langston Hughes

I have never had the privilege of studying poetry in school. I find poetry intimidating, and a bit headache-inducing. However, once in a while, I will chance upon words with such beauty that I literally feel my heart ache.

One of the poets that I love is Langston Hughes. He writes in such simple terms that everyone understands. Consider this poem that I came across.

Island: Langston Hughes

Wave of sorrow,

Do not drown me now:
I see the island

Still ahead somehow.

I see the island

And its sands are fair:
Wave of sorrow,

Take me there.

–The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, p. 376

Sometimes I find life to be a dreary long road. Yes, there are moments of happiness and ecstasies, and there are moments of sweetness and joy. But beneath it all, it is years of grind, sweat and mundane. So there are moments where I experience a “wave of sorrow”. 

This poem reminds me to stay hopeful. To just clench my teeth and bear with it, and keep the image of the beautiful island in my head. 

Of course, I can’t compare myself to Langston. I am sure that his life experiences are way worse than me, and he still managed to keep his humour and wit. I really love that his poems has a lot of grit in it, and always manages to have that optimism. See another of his poem that I love.

Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor -
Bare.

But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.

So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now -
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Can you see the vivid image of a black mother talking to her son, maybe with one hand on her hip and the other hand pointing to him? It makes for a funny image, somehow. 

Yet, the words have such meaning and power. Who are we to complain, when our older generations have seen worse things than us? They have gone through terrible hardships, and still managed to keep on climbing. 

So let’s keep our complaints to ourselves. Keep smiling. Take risks. And row your way to the island!

How to Sustain Your New Year Resolution

It is the beginning of a fresh new year! As with all other years, I cannot help but start to make new year resolutions. There is something about the beginning of a new year that begs us to re-think our lives. It is as if we have been given a fresh new piece of paper to re-draw our lives. So we make so many grand promises to ourselves. The challenge is, how to we sustain our efforts in them?

For this new year, my resolution is to write a 250-word blog post every week. It does not sound like a big resolution, right? I have been faithfully keeping to this resolution for the past few weeks now, but I can feel my resolve faltering at times. Here are my own thoughts on how to sustain my own efforts at starting a new habit. 

Tip 1: Remind yourself why you are doing it

If you have a very strong “why”, you do not need to worry about the “what”. You have to have a strong reason why you are making such a promise to yourself. When you know the reason clearly in your mind, then you will find ways to do it. 

For me, starting the writing habit has been a long-term wish of mine. I wish that I have the discipline to just continue writing, and maybe, someday, I will make use of my writing skills to become a writer. As the saying goes, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow”. I am planting my little acorn now, and watering it lovingly every week. Hopefully, it will grow up to become a big oak tree some day! 

Tip 2: Start Small 

For me, I am beginning in a very small way. I use a free platform (blogspot) to start a blog. I commit to myself to write only once a week (and not like every day or 3 times a week). And each time I write only a 250 word article. For a start, I also commit to only do this for a month. 

By starting small like this, I know that the success rates are much higher. Every week when I achieve my goal, I feel good at myself, and that sustains my efforts. I learnt this tip from reading the Scott Adams book, “How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big”. 

Tip 3: Celebrate Success! 

Next week will be the fourth time I achieve my goal of writing at least once a week. I promised myself that if I do this consecutively for 4 weeks, I will reward myself. 

I am looking forward to treating myself with something nice. Haha, it tickles me that this little trick that I use on my kids work on myself too. It helps to have something to look forward to.