I tried eating regularly but exercising a lot, it still didn’t work. Incorporating a lot of fruits and vegetables into my diet didn’t work either because I was still gorging on too much carbohydrate. I even tried eating slowly by chewing my food 20 times before swallowing it, but it did not work because I grew tired of counting. I tried Atikins for a while, no carbohydrate just protein. It worked for a while, but I went back to my old eating habits. Then recently I tried a cross between South beach and Atkins, that is no carbohydrates but more on vegetables and lean meat. I did this for 3 months by I lost a measly 7 kilos and after several weeks it seems that my weight has plateaued   for a while. (At least I maintained it at that level) There’s got to be a way to break the monotony! So I read some books and I came across a diet they said will really work and that is the Fast 5 diet.

The Fast-5 Diet is a diet system conjured by medical doctor Bert Herring. The diet system is so simple as it only consist of one rule and that is your eating window should be limited to only 5 consecutive hours each day.

Now this really caught my attention. I prefer a simple diet system. I consider calorie counting or watching out for carbohydrates as somewhat complicated because you don’t know if you have violated the rule as some stuff you eat you thought does not contain carbohydrates might contain some. Fast 5 simply requires you to count 19 hours of continuous non-eating and then follow it up with continuous 5 hours window wherein you are allowed to eat. (When I wrote this post I wrote “5 hours of continuous eating hehehehe , that is not required just a 5 hours window wherein you are allowed to eat)

I’ve read that fasting is very beneficial for health reasons, so I was convinced of the diet. The 5 hour window where you are allowed to eat could be at any time. It could be from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. or 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. or even 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

According to Wikipedia, the Fast-5 diet was developed based on the personal results of medical doctor, Dr. Bert Herring. His basis for the diet is the eating schedule of ancient hunter-gatherer humans who ate without benefit of food storage or refrigeration. His scientific basis for the Fast-5 Diet is that “. . . adipose tissue (fat cells) cannot burn fat as fuel at the same time it is storing fuel produced by digestion of food. The restriction of calorie consumption to the five-hour window is intended to increase the time when the digestive tract is empty so no fuel is being provided by digestion. In this fasting phase, insulin is at low (nadir) levels and the body is dependent on the release of stored fat and glycogen for energy. . . ”

The 5 hour window is not a license to gorge, although at first you might be tempted to compensate for that considering the 19 hours of continuous non-eating. But if you do gorge based on what I read online you need not to worry because your body will adjust to it and you will soon eat regularly.

So does the Fast 5 diet really work? Did it work for me? Well, it remains to be seen as I am on my second week of doing it.

The first week especially the first day was really hard because my body had to adjust to the 19 hours of continuous non eating. During the first week I decided to place my 5 hour eating windows from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. To stave off my hunger I drank lots of fluids. I drank wheat grass and put regularly placed it in my family initial drink coaster. Wheat grass is alkaline based.  This counters the acidic grinding of my stomach which will prevent me from getting ulcer. I didn’t feel any stomach ache but I felt light headed, no headaches though. I don’t recommend this diet to anybody who has ulcer or a stomach problem. Drinking several glasses of wheat grass while on fasting mode also helps cleanse and detoxify my body. On next days I sort of have adjusted already, however during the first week, there was really a temptation to gorge during the 5 hour eating window.

A week has passed and I stepped up the weighing scale. There was no weight loss. This is normal because generally based on my research online the rapid weight loss comes after 3 weeks. Some people though loss some weight even before 3 weeks. While most lost about a pound or more per week after 3 weeks. The average weight loss is about 20 lbs in 3 months time.

Somebody held a party on the eighth day during lunch time, so I had to adjust my eating window from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m, and this is what I’ve been following for the past 4 days now. My wife says this is so much better because I’d been doing a sort of after 6 diet without the breakfast as opposed to gorging in the evening. On the second week, I started loosing a kilo. Now I’m down 3 kilos. My eating during the 5 hour window has become regular. I hope this continuous. At the end of the third week I’ll give an update you if the fast 5 diet really works.

The Plank is also known as the front hold, hover, or abdominal bridge. It is an isometric core strength exercise that involves maintaining a difficult position for extended periods of time. It has several variations. The most common of which is the front plank. Other variations include the side plank and reverse plank.

The most common plank is the front plank which is held in a push-up position with the body’s weight borne on forearms, elbows, and toes. The front plank is done by doing push-up position and holding the position for as long as you can with the body’s weight borne on forearms, elbows, and toes. This type of exercise strengthens the abdominals, back, and shoulders. A 68 year old Australian man currently holds the Guinness World Records for doing the Plank position. (33 Minutes and 40 seconds) (Wow ! I can barely do 2 minutes !)

I’ve heard about this form of exercise from another lawyer, who said this is more effective than doing crunches. I’ve tried it out. Haven’t seen the physical effects but I’ve felt that it really works the muscles. The first time I did a 1 minute plank, I almost blacked out. I’ve been doing 1 minute planks, 3 times in the morning and 3 times in the evening together with other abs exercises.

Why not give the plank a try today. Instead of doing the crazy planking fad (People better stop doing this otherwise some people might think they need roadside assistance hehehe):-), do the plank instead and get some exercise ! Doing this is so much better than getting interest only mortgage advice. See the results for yourself! Here is a youtube video on how you are suppose to do it.

It’s such a pain to have water stuck in your ears for several days. I’d rather be configuring a bluetooth barcode scanner than have water stuck in my ear. But anyway I am stuck with the problem. I got advice ranging from the most ludicrous and insane to the most practical. Some people said I should fill my ears with warm water swing my head to the other side and then jump and down with my head tilted to one side draining water from my year. Others said to gargle some water, get the gargled water out and place it in my ear then tilt my head to let the water out.

None of the advices worked. So I searched the internet, and I found some practical tips to get water out of my year. In fact I found a very informative an instructional youtube video on how to get water out of your ear. The topic “how to get water out of your ear” must be such a particular topic because there’s even a somebody who registered a domain for it. (Couldn’t believe it!) I searched Google trends and other SEO tools and found out that the keyword “How to get water out of your ear” is a high traffic very low dense keyword with an average global monthly search of 18,000+ per month. (I can’t believe how many people in the world have water in the ear problems ! Well with more than 6 billion people in the world, what can I say) I just could not resist optimizing for this keyword (Evil grin)

Anyway, this post is not mainly about optimizing about the keyword “How to get water out of your ear” (evil grin again) but mainly to disseminate information about how to get water out of your ear. I’ve had this problem for several days, and I don’t want you to suffer the same fate.

So here’s the instructional youtube video on how to get water out of your ear:

By the way after watching the youtube video and after reading all I can about the subject how to get water out of your ear. Nothing worked for me. So I went to see my mother who is a doctor. (Best advice I got out of consulting the internet) She looked at my ears and said that wax was stuck in my ear ! (I can’t believe this, I make a habit of getting earwax once a week) The water was trapped in the wax. She told me not to use cotton buds anymore because what I was doing was I was pushing the wax deeper into the ear. If I were to use cotton buds, I should use it only in the surface of my ears. According to her, the ears have this natural mechanism to eject the wax out by itself. So she got the most of the wax out and flushed my ears with water. My ears opened up. Unfortunately because the ear wax was so hard and my ears bled on the inside, I have to use antibacterial ear drops for a week so again I will have to suffer for a while. I hope you don’t have to search for how to get water out of your ear in the internet as I did. To avoid the problem in the near future, I got myself some ear plugs which I will be using when taking bath and when I will be swimming.

The reason is quite obvious with the high percentage of our younger population suffering from diseases that is suppose to show up only during ages 50s and above no doubt it would seem that traditional western medicine has failed in its primordial calling of being an “art of healing.”

Enter another natural herbal food supplement that is said to be very good for your health – Flaxseeds.

Consumption of flaxseeds for health purposes is not new at all as far as 5,000 BC, Flaxseeds were used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. It is even said that some people worshiped flaxseeds for their said “magical properties” as flaxseeds can supposedly heal the intestines, skin conditions, improve energy, and improve overall health.

It is only recently that the consumption of flaxseeds has been strongly recommended by health professionals. Medicine and herbal companies are taking advantage of these findings and are starting to commercialize the use of flaxseeds.

My wife found out about flaxseeds when she was listening to a Dr. Oz program which talked about the incorporation of flaxseeds in one’s diet.

Flaxseeds are said to contain lignans and Omega-3 fatty acids. Lignans are said to benefit the heart and possess anti-cancer properties. Omega-3 nourishes the brain and gives skin and hair a healthy glow. The composition of flaxseeds is 30% fiber and 40% healthy fat. Because of flaxseeds high fiber content, flaxseeds helps improve hypoglycemia and diabetes conditions and decreases the risk of heart disease, coronary artery disease, and strokes. Omega 3 added with Fiber helps gets the body’s metabolism burning at a higher rate, hence helping the body burn fat. Kind of like drinking nature’s Solo Slim.

What I like most about Flaxseeds is that it is very cheap unlike the very expensive “food supplements” that are being marketed today. In Cebu City, we buy flaxseeds from Fair Trade located at the YMCA building Jones Avenue. They sell 10 grams of flaxseeds for less than P 400.00! (This is about 1 to 3 months consumption for 2 to 3 persons depending on the flaxseeds intake) The flaxseeds they sell are of good quality and are supplied by Northern Lights Flax of Canada.

I’ve started to incorporate flaxseeds into my diet. I put flaxseeds in my oatmeal and in my juice. The instruction in the box says that you can use flaxseeds as a substitute for cooking oil. However we have not tried this yet.

Is flaxseeds good for your health? Most certainly! Try incorporating flaxseeds in your diet today ! (You might want to do more additional research on flaxseeds yourself and consult with your physician if you have an allergic reaction to flaxseeds)

The seaweeds not only tasted pleasant, it kind of acted as an appetizer as it made me want to eat more rice. (This is not a very good thing for me since I wanted to limit my rice consumption to loose weight)

Since that time on, we started looking for different variety of dried seaweeds. With globalization creeping in our neighborhood, we seem to have no problem finding a lot of variety of seaweeds. Most grocery stores now carry products from our neighboring Asian countries, including the delicious dried seaweeds.

Most Filipinos are not fond of eating dried seaweeds, although I heard that people from a certain part of Luzon (I think in Albay), do regularly eat dried seaweeds. The most prominent country that features dried seaweeds in most of their meals is Japan. Most people from Oriental countries, who live in the coast, do have some form of seaweeds dish.

My research tells me that seaweeds have so much health benefits to offer. In the book Vegetables from the Sea, authors Seibin and Teruko Arasaki details the health benefits that seaweeds has to offer. This includes calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, iodine, iron, and zinc. Add to this are the trace elements in seaweed that includes vitamin A (in the form of beta-carotene), B1, B2, B6, B12, niacin, vitamin C, pantothenic acid, and folic acid.

Aside from the minerals and vitamins that can be derived from seaweeds, it is also used for beauty. Seaweeds feeds the shafts and the ducts of the scalp. This improves the health of the hair. They say that because seaweeds is so much a part of the Japanese diet, most Japanese women have a rich, black and lustrous hair. Other “beauty benefits” of seaweeds according to Carlson Wade’s book Health Secrets from the Orient includes “hormone regulating properties of seaweeds, enriching the bloodstream, assisting in metabolism, promoting a youthful skin color, and helping to warm the body to promote mental youthfulness.” Seaweeds are also considered as the best acne treatment found in nature.

Seaweeds have also been known to have medicinal properties. This is a common knowledge among the Orientals. More research is still underway to fully exploit the medicinal properties of seaweeds.

Lately, I’ve discovered a new brand of seaweeds that I like so much. Although it’s a bit expensive, (P 90+ Philippine peso / $2 U.S per 50 gram pack) I really like this seaweeds product both as a snack and with my main meals.

I am not paid to do any kind of review on this, but I enjoy this seaweeds product so much that I decided to write about it (Not to mention ambushing or hi-jacking the keyword “seaweeds” hehehehe If you are a guerilla blogger you will understand what this is). The seaweeds product I am talking about is Tae Koi No seaweeds. This seaweeds product is manufactured in Thailand and is the best dried seaweeds product I could find. The seaweeds they produce is clean, fresh, crispy and has a natural delicious taste. It comes in 4 flavors, classic, hot and spicy, Wasabi and Tom Yum Goong. (A flavor indigenous to Thailand)

As far as I know in Cebu this seaweeds product is only available in Gaisano Metro Ayala in Cebu. Drop me a comment if you know any place in Cebu where I could buy this delicious seaweeds snacks so that I don’t have to go Gaisano Ayala just to buy it.

I believe eating dried seaweeds as a snack is a much better alternative to eating the conventional snacks that we regularly munch on. So starting right now, no more potato chips, or other chips for me give me my seaweeds snacks!

Medical journals, the media and even some wine companies have been carrying this “good news” to wine lovers. The news is true. In fact for the last 5000 years, wine has been used medically to treat people. It has been used as an antiseptic, as a tranquilizer or sedative, and as a hypnotic. But before you start popping the cork and stocking your wine rack with the finest wine that money can buy, consider the following first:

1.) Take note, that what has been studied to be medically beneficial is not just any wine. Specifically, it is drinking red wine that is really good for your health. – The reason for such is that red wine red wine is made using the skin and seeds of the grapes. Among all the other wines, Red wine contains the highest concentration of anti-oxidants which helps fight off cancer. It also contains “Resveratrol” which keeps your arteries clear of plaque thereby reducing the risk of having heart disease.

2.) You should only drink two standard glasses of wine a day. – Drinking red wine beyond two glasses increases the risk for high blood pressure, potential damage to the heart, liver, kidneys and brain.

3.) The more expensive the red wine, the more antioxidants and Resveratrol it contains. – The reason for this is because the more expensive red wines, the richer the fruit it contains.

4.) Drinking red wine compounded with exercise produces more health benefits – A study referred to in a recent Times magazine issue reveals that “people who don’t drink at all and don’t exercise had the highest risk of heart disease. People who drink moderately and exercise had a 50% lower risk. People who exercised but did not drink wine had a 30% decreased risk, as did moderately drinking couch potatoes.”

5.) Consider your age and other health issues before you start drinking red wine – The same study referred to in Time magazine indicated that alcohol does not do “any coronary good until you reach the age at which heart disease becomes an appreciable risk.” The Researchers of the study further continues that there is absolutely no proof of a preventative and protective effect before age 45. Drinking red wine even in moderation is also not advisable for younger women who have a higher risk of breast cancer and those who have a history of family alcoholism.

It is estimated that the weight loss industry is worth around $60 Billion Dollars in the United States alone. Products range from traditional diet pills, diet regimens, exercise machines, weight watchers programs, and even surgery.

Now here is another weight loss pill that claims to help in loosing weight. Phentermine is said to be the “most sought after prescription diet pill on the market today.” A company claims that it ranks #35 out of the top 200 diet pills that was reviewed based on Value, Ingredient Quality, Customer Feedback, Safety, Company Reputation, Reorder Rates, Customer Service, Product Sensation, Packaging, Long-Term Benefits, Product, Convenience and Weight-Loss Potential.

This product may or may not work for you. Try it for yourself and drop me a comment on your experience.

I wanted to get a laser surgery, not because I don’t believe glasses are cool. In fact wearing glasses today looks cooler than it was when I was still a teenager. Before when you wear glasses, it is said that you don’t fit and you are typically labeled as the dork or the geek next door. (Although I never minded it. I was never conscious of being with the “in” crowd. I always had my identity intact)

But now that geeks gave us much of the cool hi-tech and electronic stuff that we enjoy today, being a geek is just so cool. (Not to mention that geeks today are the world’s richest people) Besides most people think that people who wear glasses must be very studious. (They forget the fact that some people wear them because their eyes got destroyed by watching to much television or spending too much time pounding on their computer eager to win a 12 hour counter strike competition)

The reason I wanted to get laser eye surgery is because most of the times my glasses limit me to do stuff that I like to do. For example, I will have a hard time playing most sports because of my glasses. I also cannot enjoy the beauty of the scenery of the beach when I go swimming because I can’t see clearly. (Now I am not talking about the scenery you have in mind. .. naughty naughty naughty)

I told my mother (who happens to be a medical doctor) about it. However she objected to it. She said that there is still no long term study conducted on laser eye surgery and the percentage of long term complications might still be too high.

She was right. During that time, laser eye surgery is still at its infancy so to speak. When you talk about surgery there are always complications. LASIK is not free of complications. The good news is that the rate of complication has lowered as the years went by. Now they say that the amount of long term complications is less than half a percent. I hope that in the years to come the amount of long term complications will drop much more lower, probably by that time I will avail of the procedure. (Hopefully the cost of the surgery will drop too!)

Good advice, I just hope I will have the discipline to be consistent in doing it.

I used to have a tread mill before. It was a cheap $100+ tread mill. I only got to use it for several times and then I have to sell it to the local junk shop. (It broke down in just a few months of use) I vowed to myself that the next time I buy a treadmill, I will buy the more expensive, electronic driven treadmill.

But now that I have a stationary bike, (and I got it for free) there’s no need for me to buy another treadmill.

I’ve always wondered which is more effective in burning fat, treadmills or a stationary bikes?

I searched for information on the internet and I came across an article by Jim Stoppani written last Sept 2004 entitled “From lab to gym: treadmill vs. bike”

According to him, British scientists recently tested the difference between a treadmill and a stationary bike as to which can burn fat more easily. They found out that the subjects of the study burned the most fat when they jogged on a treadmill at about 70% of their maximum heart rate.

The article continues that “This burned about 40 grams of fat per hour of exercise. Going above or below this intensity burned significantly less fat, as did pedaling on a stationary cycle, regardless of the intensity.”

Quite interesting hugh ? So should I junk my bike? Of course not, anyway I got it for free. Hopefully I’ll pedal my way to loosing weight, perhaps I could prove that the study is incorrect.

However for some people, they need a “catalyst” in order for them to be motivated to keep the weight off.

If you like this then you might want to try out Anoretix, purported to be this year’s hottest weight loss supplement. This weight loss pill has received a positive review for almost every single fat burner review.

As I said, weight loss pills may work for some and may not work for others. But who knows? This weight loss pill might just work for you.