Meiji Collogen Promotion!

Good news for collogen avid fans! Sasa is having promotion for Meiji Collogen buy 2 free 1, only available sasa online, click here to visit site. 

Reviews for this product were quite positive. Only valid until 31st May 2013. 

Lennox Firm Up Promotion!

Good news for those who love collagen drink. Buy 2 @ 1 price!!!!

WHAT

Lennox Firm Up now at buy 2 at 1 price (meaning buy one free one) 

50ml x 25s

HOW MUCH

RM145.00 

(so only RM72.50 per set of 50mlx25s, normal price per set is RM145. Good deal!!!)

WHERE

At guardian online store (online.guardian.com.my) or click here

NOTE

• Limited to 1 set per customer.
• Limited 100 set only. Hurry!
• Enter code 3SGW6OA8YA4T during check out.
• ONLY limited deliver to Bangsar, Bukit Damansara, Month Kiara and Hartamas. Too bad they not deliver to other area at the moment :(, they will expand the areas in future. Lucky for those who staying in above mentioned area.

Description of the product:
Get all the skin-beautifying ingredients in one bottle of Lennox Firm Up, which is a natural & potent beauty essence ad rich in synergistic food based ingredients like Aqueous Marine Collagen, Coenzyme Q10, OPC (Grepe Seed Extract) & Vitamins for firmer and more radiant looking skin.

The Aqueous Marine Collagen used in FirmUp is 100% water soluble with low molecular weight and excellent diegestibility. Unlike Conventional Collagen which has high molecular structure that will not easily dissolve completely and not well-absorbed by the body.

Who is FirmUp for?

For someone who desires to get noticeable improvement from their damaged skin to a firmer and bouncy looking skin. FirmUp is your ultimate choice of collagen drink.

Direction for use:

First time user:

Take 1 bottle daily at night for 10 days.

Repeat users:

Take 1 bottle every 2-3 days at night.

I did some research on this product (I never use it before), the reviews are quite good. Except for the news that batch number F1104001 of Lennox Firm Up banned by the Health Ministry due to contaminated, check out the government site for more info - here is the link. If you are concern - do more research, what I read from other blogs is that - other then the batch F1104001, it should be safe, check out the government website to verify. 

Green Tea

I am a fan of green tea because of two main reasons:

1. I like the taste. 
2. Because of the benefits of green tea.

Some of the long list of green tea benefits:

(credit to dailymail.co.uk)

• Helps burn fat 
• Protects against heart disease 
• Can help lower blood pressure 
• Can help protect against diabetes 
• Can help prevent food poisoning 
• Can prevent bad breath 
• Guards against hepatitis 
• Can protect against cancer 
• Can help prevent arthritis 
• Improves your immunity 
• Can protect against Alzheimer's disease 
• Can help fight allergies 
• Good for the skin

The list can go on and on...

Some of the green tea products that I am taking:

Powder Type

This is purchased from Cosway for around RM35.00 if not mistaken, can't remember exact price. It's powder type 50g per bottle. Origin from Korea. Click Image to enlarge picture.  

The packing, most wording in Korean Language.

The cover can remove.

This green tea powder is very convenient, no need hot water also can. The taste is nice, put too much of it will taste bitter. I found this effective in reducing weight (I am taking this along with herbalife diet plan). 

Tips: 

• Mix it with vanilla ice cream and instantly get a green tea flavor ice cream.  :D 

• Add ice cubes for little extra kick to boost metabolism. 

Tea Leaf Type

This is purchased from tea shop, 250g around RM45.00, origin from China.

The packing

I use this mini tea pot to steep the green tea leaf

Press the red button to release the green tea to the bottom after steep the green tea leaf inside the small compartment. Bought the mini tea pot for about RM35.00 during promotion. The taste is more like Chinese green tea flavor, compare to the powder type above tasted more like Japanese Korean green tea. 

Tea Bag Type

NH Detoxlim Natural Cleanx Tea is purchased from Watson around RM24.00 for 20 sachets. 

This is actually not 100% green tea because it is mixed with three other ingredients (Folium Cassia Angustifolia, Folium Nelumbo Nucifera and Herba Mentha Haplocalyx)

Description on the packing: 

Natural Clenx Tea is a natural detox tea made from 100% organic green tea and herbs. It works gently to restore bowel movements and reduce body weight. It helps you to enhance your health in a healthy way and easy way!

The taste is a bit like Chinese medicine tea, not so enjoyable  to drink if too saturated, but I found it effective to reduce weight (I am taking this along with herbalife diet plan).

Signing off for now... 

Weight Loss (Part 6) - How to boost metabolism?

Hi all...

As promise here is post on how to boost your metabolism.

1. Drink Iced Water

When you drink ice water your body burns calories warming it to your body temperature. More than 90% of chemical reactions in your body occur in water. Therefore drink plenty of water, don't be lazy. 

2. DON'T SKIP BREAKFAST

Don't skip breakfast, eating breakfast will make sure your metabolism gets cranking early in the day. Eating first meal of the day at 11 a.m. will slow down your metabolism for the whole day. Best to eat breakfast at 7-8 am or before 10 am.

3. Consume Protein

It is recommended to eat 10 grams of protein by 10 a.m. Protein help you control appetites and calorie intake. Protein help build and maintain lean muscle mass, muscle burns more calories than fat does, even at rest. One egg has about grams of protein.  Herbalife F1 is high protein, if you tend to eat unhealthy fast food break fast or have a hectic life no time to make healthy breakfast or simply too lazy, Herbalife is a good option for breakfast and help your diet plan. 

3. Exercise and Build Muscle

Exercise and raise your heart rate and sustain the activity for approximately 30 minutes. Muscle burns more calories than fat does even at rest. Do weight training exercise such as dumbbells barbells etc   The Herbalife F2 helps build and maintain body muscle.

4. Drink Green Tea

2 to 4 cups of green tea  per day may burn extra 50 calories. The compound called ECGC in green tea promotes fat burning. I personally drink green tea with ice cube to boost metabolism. Caffeine drink such as coffee also help increase metabolism. Because caffeine increase your heart rate.  

5. Consume Low Fat Yogurt or Dairy Products

Calcium helps your body metabolize fat more efficiently by increasing the rate at which it gets rid of fat as waste. 

6. Spice Up

Eating about one tablespoon of chopped red or green chilies boosts your body's production of heat. It will result to a temporary metabolism spike of about 23%. So spice up your food. For those who have don't like spicy food, you can skip this and try other options that suits you.

7. Iron (Tips for the ladies only)

During your menstrual, your iron level is low and this slow down your metabolism because iron responsible to carry oxygen to your muscle. If your muscle don't get enough oxygen your energy run low and your metabolism affected. So take high iron food during your menstrual such as broccoli, spinach (bayam in malay) and bok choy. 

8. No Alcohol

Two glasses of wine or two bottles of beer puts the brakes on fat burning by a whopping 73%. Because your liver converts the alcohol into acetate and starts using that as fuel instead of your fat stores. 

9. Get Enough Zzzzzzzzzz

Sleep is important. When you sleep less than you should, you throw off the hormones that help regulate energy use and appetite. 

10. Choose Organic

Researcher in Canada found that chemicals found in pesticide stalled your metabolism. Organic food is usually expensive, if you find it expensive use food purifier - I personally use Cosway food purifier. RM19.90 (about USD6.70+-) per bottle if I remember correctly. It is made of chitosan which is food base and safe. Effectively removes various types of contamination commonly found in food, can use for vegetables, fruits, meat, seafood, rice, grains etc. 

11. Eat Every 3 Hours

If you eat more often you speed up your metabolism. It is recommended to have your 3 meals a day plus 2 healthy snacks. Pistachio and dry peach is great snack. Also refer my post on snack between meal earlier. 

6-8 am Breakfast

10 am Snack

12-1 pm Lunch 

3-5 pm Snack

5-7 pm Dinner

Don't eat after 8 pm

12. Take Zinc

Zinc reduces hunger by increasing your level of leptin a key hormone that alerts body when you're full, so you don't keep eating when you're no longer hungry. 

13. De-stress

Stress raise the amount of cortisol in your body, which is hormone that tells the body to hold onto fat in case of a stressful situation. Clear your mind and de-stress the healthy way. 

14. Up your Vitamin C

Calcium and vitamin C is partners in crime. Calcium speeds up metabolism while vitamin C helps absorb this mineral. So eat a lot of fruits, avoid banana if possible as banana calorie is high. 

15. Eat Fish

Fish such as Tuna and Salmon contain oil that increases leptin hormone responsible to control appetite. Also the omega 3 in it will help to make your metabolism more efficient and feeling full. 

I will continue the subject on weight loss once I have a new sub topic. So stay tuned. 

Weight Loss (Part 5) - What is metabolism?

What is metabolism?

Metabolism simply mean when our body converts the food that we eat into energy (or the rate your body burning your body fats / the calories you consume).

Metabolism 101:

On the next post I will post more tips on how to increase your body metabolism. Stay tuned!

Weight Loss (Part 4) - How does our body dispose of excess calories?

So have you been following my post on Weight Loss? some of you might not be interested in following the tedious calculation of calorie in my post for the calorie deficit subject, but it actually very helpful for you to understand how the whole things work.

It will definitely benefits those to who are seriously wanted to loss weight. Anyhow if you are confuse you may try this link to help on have a quick glimpse of how much calorie you should take to achieve your goal or refer below table (table guidelines below is for women, for men the number is usually higher) which is a general guideline to your maximum calories needs according to your height: 

(LBM stand for Lean Body Mass meaning everything in your body except fats, above table LBM is in pounds; RMR  stand for Resting Metabolic Rate meaning the number of calories your body consumes at rest): 

What does the term calorie mean? (if you don't already know)

Calorie is unit of energy, for example when you see label on canned food at the Supermarket written 250 calories, it means 250 is the unit of energy your body could get from eating or drinking it. 3,500 calories equal to 0.45kg (1 pound).

Your body needs calories for energy, but eating too much calories and not burning enough of them through activities can lead to weight gain. Yes! extra calories stored as fat. 

So now that you roughly know how much is the maximum calories you need, try to stick to it or if you enjoy eating so much try to burn the extra calories to maintain / achieve calorie deficit which can help you to loss weight. Below info is calories burned by walking a flight of stairs:

There are many other activities that can help you burn calories such as cleaning the house, cooking, walking, running etc. Do which ever activities that you enjoy and start burning calories.

To help you to be motivated to your journey to weight loss, set a target of your ideal weight. There are many applications online that you can utilize to help plan your diet and keep track of your weight loss journey, if you have a smart phone even better as now days they have application that you can download to your smart phone and use for free. You may check out this link.

Stay tuned for next post on weight loss subject. Anyeong!

Weight Loss (Part 3) - Snack Ideas under 100 calories

Hungry in between meal time? eat frequent small meal and count calorie that you need for weight loss.

1. Yogood muesli bar (97 calorie per bar)

2. Hard boil egg (78 calorie)

3. An Orange (60 calorie)

4. 8 baby carrots with low fat dressing (100 calorie)

5. Half cup sunflower seeds (100 calorie)

6.  3/4 cup honey dew (50 calorie)

7. 20 pistachio nuts (80 calorie)

8. 3/4 cup cereal & 1/2 cup low fat milk (98 calorie)

9. 1 cup pumpkin boil mashed with salt (60 calorie)

10. 1/2 cup vegetables mix salad with low fat dressing (40 calorie)

For more ideas and count calorie in food check it from here. 

400 calorie of mix vegetables fill your tummy, and 400 calories of chicken not filling your stomach even half:

Weight Loss (Part 2) - Calorie Deficit

In the previous post was a general overview and introduction of Herbalife weight loss program. 

After reading the first post some might be thinking, wow I only got to eat one meal a day, and think that it will be difficult. Well you can actually eat frequent small meal when you feel hungry. Don't starve your self and call it diet as it won't actually help you to loss weight. I will write another post on this later part. Today I will write about calorie deficit and weight loss.

(click to enlarge image)

In average women need about 2000 calorie a day, if however she consume less calorie, it is call deficit calorie and will lead to weight loss. Deficit calorie is when the food of amount energy / calorie you consume is less than the calorie you use. Below is guide to calculate calorie deficit, below is the example:

Height     : 5'1"

Weight    : 110 lbs 

Age          : 33

Gender   : Female

Step 1

Figure out your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) or TDEE (Toral Daily Energy Expenditure). BMR is the number of calories your body burns within 24 hours by just being alive (breathing, sleeping, digesting etc) This BMR calculator will tell you how many calorie you need per day by doing absolutely nothing. The calculator will ask for your height, weight, age and gender. For me, my BMR is 1260 calories per day. It is not recommended to take less than 1200 calorie per day for women and not less than 1500 calorie per day for men. 

Step 2

Now that you know your BMR, calculate how many calorie you need to eat per day using this calculator. Enter all the information requested, you need to fill in info of exercise level, select the options from doing little/no exercise etc and you will find out the calorie needed. For me would be I do exercise 3 times a week, so my normal calorie needed / maintenance is 1571:

Maintenance:  1571 calories per day

Fat loss : 1257 calories per day 

Step 3

Find your calorie deficit. A calorie deficit is when the amount of food energy calorie you use is less than the the total calorie you use. Take the total calorie you consume per day and subtract the TDEE (calorie you burn by doing nothing). My TDEE is 1260 (doing nothing), my normal calorie rate to consume per day is 1571  including my activities. 

1571 - 1260 = 311

Then take the calorie you burn if you work out, add it to 311.

Let say if I burn 400 calorie for 45 minutes of exercise. Thus:

-400 + 311 = -89

Thus my calorie deficit is -89. This is the calorie I burn throughout the day. 

Step 4

Every pound is 3500 calories. So if you just want to loss one pound, you have to burn 3500 calories. 

-89 (my deficit calorie) x 7 (7 days a week) = 623 calories

So I am burning 623 a week assuming I eat 1571 calorie a day and exercise 45 minutes.

If you  divide 623 (calorie burn per week) by 3500 (calorie per pound) I got 0.178 pound, which is the amount I loss per week. 

(source from about.com)

To check the calorie of food you eat, use this calculator if don't already know one. 

Stay tuned for post part 3 coming soon. 

Suzy's Miss A Skin Care Secret

Suzy Miss A revealed her skin care secret in Get it beauty, it is no other than the famous double cleansing method. I am so impressed by her 10 minutes cleansing routine. Her skin is flawless and she is just 19 but no skin problems such as acne which teenagers usually experience at her age. For those who don't know who Suzy is - she is a well known Korean star. 

Now her 424 face washing routine is famous, wanna get clear skin like her maybe you can try this routine. 

• 4 minutes massage using cleansing oil
• 2 minutes washing with facial foam cleanser
• 4 minutes washing with water (warm water then cold water to minimize pores)

The cleansing oil is to ensure the dirt and make up is thoroughly washed off your face, work it from your chin to forehead. If you have oily skin I suggest to use milk cleanser instead of oil cleanser. Bubble wash for further cleansing only for 2 minutes, longer than that will dry up your face. Wash your face with warm water first then cold water to minimize pores. 

Another tip from Suzy is - never dry your face with a towel, gently tap your face - this allow your face to absorb moisture.  

Please consider your skin type whether this method suitable for you or not. Over washing can be drying to skin. 

The Face Shop BB Cream Review

Anyeong~

The Face Shop was having buy one free one promotion so I purchased the BB cream Clean Face since it is oil free cons is no SPF like most BB Cream have, in the same range though they have Oil Free Sun Cream SPF35 PA++... This range suitable for oily skin or acne prone skin. So it's RM46 for two bottle of these, other wise without promotion would be about RM40+ per item.  

The Face Shop Clean Face Oil Free BB Cream Review

& The Face Shop Clean Face Oil Free Sun Cream Review

The packing

Description behind

Swatch of The Face Shop Oil Free BB Cream

Right side with the BB cream, left side no BB Cream

The Swatch of Oil Free Sun Cream

The Oil Free Sun Cream on top and Oil Cream BB Cream at the bottom

Description on the packing for the Oil Free Sun Cream

• Tea Tree Oil
• Aloe Vera Gel
• Blocks both UVA UVB with upgraded formula that leaves skin feeling fresher and matte

My thoughts: The color is white and texture very light, after using it for few hours my face slightly oily. I believe all SPF products have certain degree of oil. Quite decent sun cream for those who have skin problem.

Description on the packing for Oil Free BB Cream

• Chamomile extract
• Quick clear complex
• New and improved quick clear complex treats oily or problem skin more quickly and effectively

The sun cream actually white color and BB cream tinted light brown slightly grayish, the texture is light and coverage very minimal, cannot cover any marks or spots you might have on your face. Matte finish. Nice pleasant smell. This is a very nice BB cream for those who really have a lot of pimples. I rate both 4/5.

Blotting Paper or Film?

Do you use blotting paper based or blotting film based? Here is a review on the Body Shop blotting tissues versus Clean & Clear blotting film (Clean & Clear under Johnson & Johnson brand).

Blotting tissues or film is highly absorbent type of paper or film, it is used to absorb excess oil and excess makeup residues   

Why blotting?

1. To remove excess oil from your face
2. Remove shine due to excess oil from your face
3. Create matte finish on your face

I have the Body Shop blotting tissues and Clean & Clear blotting film, my thoughts on the products...

The Body Shop Blotting Tissues Review

It's actually not the conventional tissues as what you imagine, I would describe it as more of a paper based; 50 sheets per pack at RM11.90. The Ingredients contained oil.. don't be surprise.. it is not oily at all.

I would rate this product at 2/5, don't like paper based blotting tissues, just doesn't feels right on skin, the finish is matte but after a while it the matte finish is gone. I have combination oily dry skin (T zone oily).

the Ingredients 

Clean & Clear Blotting Film Review

This is film based blotting sheets; 60 sheets for RM9.90 per pack. Absolutely love this blotting film, you can see the oil absorb clearly on the sheets, so you can actually differentiate parts of the sheets that still can be used to absorb excess oil, see what I mean from the pictures comparison below. The film also feels softer compare to paper based blotting sheets. Finishing is matte and last long. 

You see the Body Shop blotting sheet after used compare to Clean & Clear after used, I tested this only not long after washing my face thus the oil absorb is not much. I like the Clean & Clear film because you can see clearly the oil on it and you can see the clean part of the film you can identify easily which part of the film you can still use up to blot your face, instead of the Body Shop one, a bit difficult to notice. I rate Clean & Clear Oil Control Film 4/5. 

Avene Face Mist Review

Anyeong~

Last few days I posted a review on the Body Shop Vitamin E face mist, after using it for few days, I found it to be leaving slight cast of shiny finish on my skin, I believe the Body Shop Vitamin E face mist contained some oil based ingredients - see the ingredients on the picture I posted on the review for this product here.

I am quite disappointed, this reminds me that I used to use Avene Face Mist many years back, but some how stop because I was only a student back then you see. I remembered it was quite good. Thus here is the Avene Face Mist review:

Comparison of  the packaging the Body Shop 100ml vs Avene 50ml Face Mist

The Body Shop face mist is in a plastic bottle and Avene in an aerosol bottle.

In a aerosol bottle packing 

The description on the back of the bottle

The Avene face mist packing is cute and price is also reasonable, I bought from Watson for RM35 for 3 bottles (50ml) at discounted price it's about RM11.60 (about USD3.90 per bottle of 50ml) per bottle. Avene is well known as the sensitive skin care expert; and this face mist is actually Thermal Spring water so is high in mineral, unless you are sensitive to water this face mist should be suitable for you. Ingredients is water and nitrogen. Very simple huh. 

I like the dewy finish Avene face mist does on my skin... love this product.