Mary Chia: Intensive Weight Vaporizer Treatment

Not long ago, my bridal studio have launched a new gown collection (anyway, they launched it twice a year if I never remember wrongly) and they were having the facebook liked & share giveaway. 

I joined in the give away for fun as there were Mary Chia treatment vouchers to be won. I was 1 of the lucky winners to walk away with the treatment vouchers. I didn't really expect it. I went down to collect it asap as the vouchers were expiring on 15th December. 

I get to choose between Customized Face Spa or Intensive Weight Vaporizer. As I'm going for facial really soon, I don't see any point in getting the Customized Face Spa. I find it weird to do a face spa without doing extractions and etc. Logically, it should be done after a facial. No? Yes? That's how I feel anyway.

So I went for the Intensive Weight Vaporizer. I chose the treatment to be done at Jurong Point since it's near my place. I'm pretty skeptical about all this type of slimming treatment whenever I see their ads on TV. I've always wonder to myself "does it really works?" Now I was give thechance to try it myself for free! :) Not that I'm not satisfy with my body or what, it's just out of curiosity. 

I've actually booked the appointment on Wednesday but on Tuesday, I decide to pop in after work and see if they are free and yup they are wiling to do the treatment for me even though it's counted as walk-in. They have enough manpower and what's more, Intensive Weight Vaporizer treatment is mainly done by machine. So not much monitoring is needed from the staff's side. 

The outlet manager explained to me what to expect in every stages before bringing me in. 

Before I start the treatment,  they brought me to chang emy clothes. There's lockers to put my belongings and the locker can only be opened via your index fingerprint. Cool! They also provide me a disposable underwear and also a robe to change into. They took my weight before the treatment so as to see the difference after the treatment.

Intensive Weight Vaporizer treatment is separated into mainly 4 sections.

1) Air Pressure Slimmer

I was bought to try the Air Pressure Slimmer after changing.

I never took any pictures during the process because I was walking everywhere around the place and I don't have a pocket to put my phone lol.

The Air Pressure Slimmer machine comes with a flatten air bag, and I was required to tuck my legs in as though I'm wearing a pants.The staff came to zip me up into this flatten air bag. 

Sooner or later, the air bag is being pumped up and seriously, I felt like a pumped up doll. It's as though you are taking your blood pressure, but this time round it's your whole body! When it reached the maximum, I can totally feel all the blood in my body squeezed into my brain. I feel as though I'm bursting.

The Air Pressure Slimmer serves the purposes of compressing and relaxing your body. It's to help improve the circulation of your body. The whole process took 15 minutes.

2) Sauna

Next, I was brought to the Sauna station. But first, they got to apply the fat burner cream onto my body before I enter the Sauna room. The fat burner cream serves as a purpose to help better burn your fats away. 

It's been very long since I stepped into a Sauna room. It has 2 levels of wooden bench inside the room. The bench on the higher up level is hotter than the lower level. So if you are not able to take it, you can shift down to sit below. The sauna session is about 15 minutes, and it's probably the longest 15 minutes in my life. I did think of taking up hot yoga at one point in my life, now I'm doubting myself.I really can't stand the hotness lol.

Though it's a Sauna room without the steam, which means dry sauna but it's still really hot. I was sweating like mad. Anyway, they should install tv inside the Sauna room so that their customers can watch while waiting. It's really boring.  Running seems to be a much better choice for losing weight rather than getting roasted in the Sauna room.

They came to change my towel on my head pretty often. I'm quite grateful for that. There's a down side of this treatment, the sauna room is not entirely yours. There are others who are also doing the treatment will come in to sit too. Hence, there's no privacy and your whole body will be seen by the others except the crucial parts which are properly covered.

3) Special Vibration Bed

Last but not least, it's the Special Vibration Bed. 15 minutes on the machine burns the same calories as 45 minutes of vigorous exercise I'm like SERIOUS???!! lol. Got so easy ma??!

Image Source: www.groupego.com

Okay, the bed somewhat look like this. You lie on it and the whole machine will shake vigorously for 15 minutes. It's hard to fall asleep inside also. So, I was bored again. But at least it's much better than what I felt in the sauna room. It's much more cooler outside :)

4) Body Wrap

I was bought to do the Body Wrap. I've to keep the wrap on for 30 minutes to 2 hours. I should have worn long sleeve and jeans because it's a full bodywrap. They can be easily seen, especially if you're wearing sleeveless or dress. I opt to have it wrap till my thighs and as for my arms, I wore my cardigan home. So it's not obvious at all that I'm being wrapped up.

Movement is kind of restricted and you really got to be careful when removing the body wrap. If not, you might cut youself unknowingly.

So now the important question is, how much weight did I lose after the whole treatment. I lost 0.5kg! Honestly speaking, I think it's due to water loss in my body. 

I would prefer exercising/eating clean to lose weight. I've only tried 1 time, so I can't comment much about its effectiveness but there's another 2 girls I saw undergoing this treatment too while I was there. Seems like it's pretty popular.

For more information of the Intensive Weight Vaporizer treatment, you can click here for a better overview. 

Thank you Mary Chia for having me and also Louvre Bridal for giving me this vouchers! :)

You can view my weight loss entries at here if you're interested:

1) Weight Loss Journey Part 1

2) Weight Loss Journey Part 2

Last two sports events of the year...

I've signed up for my last two sports events of the year! Gosh, they are all back to back 1 day apart. Maybe I should just take a day off after that to rest since I've still got some annual leaves left ti clear after my November BKK trip. 

Anyway, first up I've signed up for the Amore Women's Day Out! The previous time I participated in Amore Women's Day Out was in 2008/2009.  I can't really remember because I was so unfit then, 1 hour of kickboxing make me feel @.@. No Joke.

This time I've signed up for the 9-10am slot. I'm intending to rush back to pioneer for my exercise lesson at the stadium by 11.30am. No idea if I'm able to make it because if I'm not wrong I would need to collect my goodie bag after I completed the Exercise Fitness @ Amore Women's Day Out. I shall see how then! Very xiong weekend! 

Honestly speaking. the event bag is what attracts me to sign up. LOL. Really quite chio ma, very useful somemore :) The registration is still open so do sign up if you're interested. The link is here.

 I've also signed up for the Great Eastern Women's Run 2013! It's one day after Amore Women Day's Out. I'm running 10km this time. My first ever 10km race, wish me luck yea? I've started my training and really hope that I'm able to make it though I think I'll feel my legs breaking after the run. Whatever it is, just do it. I don't want to live in regret when I grow old. After 10km, I shall challenge myself to a half marathon next year! :) 

No idea what motivates me to sign up but probably cause I wanna look good for my brother wedding. If you may think I'm mad because it's not my own wedding yet, but that's because I don't want relatives to start thinking why my brother is so slim and he has a fat sister. -_-". #thestressofbeingborntoaslimfamily  #fact. And yes when I was 10kg heavier back then, everyone think that way. Plus I would like to really achieve something before 2013 end! 

Keeping fit is a choice that I've made and I'll stick with it till as long as I can go. The sense of achievement can never be found elsewhere. Just keep going on because the sky's the limit! 

For more information on Great Eastern Women Run 2013 click here! 

Just keep running!

Weight Loss Journey Part 2

If you're wondering why I'm typing about weight loss, do read weight loss journey part 1 because that's the starting point of this weight loss entry. :)

In the last entry, I ended off with

"Control your calories and exercise"

What is calories? 

Human beings need energy to survive -- to breathe, move, pump blood -- and they acquire this energy from food.

The number of calories in a food is a measure of how much potential energy that food possesses. 

A gram of carbohydrates has 4 calories, a gram of protein has 4 calories, and a gram of fat has 9 calories. 

Foods are a compilation of these three building blocks. So if you know how many carbohydrates, fats and proteins are in any given food, you know how many calories, or how much energy, that food contains. 

Souce: howstuffworks

How much calories does a person need daily? 

The number of calories each person needs varies. It depends on your height, weight, age, gender and activity level status. What do I mean by that? In general, males would require more calories intake than female, a athletic would require more calories intake than a desk bound clerk, and etc...

A male would need on average 2500-2900 calories per day and as for female would need 2000-2500 per day.

In order to lose a pound of weight every week, the person would need to cut down 500 calories in take a day. 

How to cut down calories intake? 

1) Have a good breakfast, light lunch and even lighter dinner. Human's metabolism rate is higher in the day than in the night. Hence, as the saying goes "eat supper will cause one to fat". 

Breakfast - I personally have normal breakfast, breads from breadtalk or four leaf (all settled by my mum). I'll have just 1 small bun or sometimes big and I'll leave half for tea break later on. 

Lunch - Yong tau fu soup only (with no noodles), Teochew style porridge(from cai fan stall). 

I had them each very often from july 2012. After shedding the kgs, I do continue to eat them on and off, if I had a heavy breakfast or sinful dinner the night before. 

Dinner - Subway is definitely a good choice and it's filling enough. I do ta bao porridge from cai fan stalls for dinner too. 

I had fruits after my lunch or fruit juice, and as for dinner, I make my smoothie juice as often as possible as I ta bao dinner home.

It helps make me feel fuller with the light amount of dinner. If you wonder how I make my smoothie juice, and what type of juice I make, do read here :)

2) If you feel hungry in between meal times, take in biscuits/snacks that are of low calories. Do make the effort to check out the nutrition label on the food packaging before buying them. 

I recommend Oat Krunch (chocolate chip flavour) biscuits and Jacob's Oat Wheatmeal biscuits. 

These 2 are currently my favorites. Low calories + filling and they are yummy too. 

Fruits are highly recommended for a tea break or after dinner snacks.

A point to note: 

"Don't ever skip any meals in the day so as to cut down the calories in take daily. Your body needs time to slowly adjust. Cut down on your food intake but not drastically. You can opt to have lesser rice/noodles for lunch/dinner. Just don't ever skip meals."

3) Fast food, potato chips and soft drinks are definitely a NO NO when you wish to lose weight. The amount of calories in a normal MacDonald meal can scare you off. 

Do let yourself indulge in this kind of food for 1-2 times a month if you were a big fan of such food before. I understand humans do have cravings but don't ever overuse this excuse to keep eating high calories food.  

Exercise to burn off calories

There are many ways to burn off the extra calories, even when we are sleeping, calories are being used up but it's minimal. Doing household chores, climbing the stairs, all these actions requires calories. Hence we do need the minimal calories per day if not our energy level would be too low and will start feeling tired and grumpy.

My exercise regime is not that hard to fulfill each week. I exercise 2 times every week (before i signed up for marathons). I run on 1 weekday evening for 30 minutes and I go for my cardio toning lesson on sat morning for 60 minutes. That's all.

After I've signed up for marathons, I run 2 time per week, sometimes 3, and also continue my cardio lesson on Saturday. As tired as it may sound like, but I think the results are worth it! My legs are toner now (see the last picture of the post), and I look leaner as compare to previously.

My beauty consultant who did facial for me didn't see me for 2 months or so, when I went back just not few days back, She said that I lost weight again. But actually I didn't! My weight was quite constant and the most it drop 0.5kg from the last time I seen her.

It's because I've increase my time spent on exercising which helps me to look leaner and healthier :)

So people, weight is just a number, exercise definitely helps to make one looks MUCH better than one who simply diet and lost weight.

A pictures speaks a thousand words so here it goes...

Feb 2012 - CNY

March 2012 - Transformers Cybertron Exhibition

May 2012 - BKK Trip

July 2012 - MBS Stay. Already started to lose weight. Probably 1-2 kg kind. Can't really remember. That point of time I kept to a strict healthy diet. 

July 2012 - STGCC 2012

Sep 2012 - KL trip with Esther.

Dec 2012 - Face sharper but still flabby arms, flabby legs.

Last day of 2012

CNY 2013. I prefer my shorter hair look. :) 

Btw I started exercising more often since the start of 2013. At first it was to look good for CNY but now for marathons. 

I think I do look quite different from my last day of 2012 picture till now, and I'm not referring to my hair!

Mar 2013

Taken at the end of April 2013 :)

Looking good is not about how big your eyes are, how sharp your nose is, it's all about your personal well-being. Though setting a target weight as a goal may seems essential,  when there's no action of maintaining what you've achieve, you will see yourself bouncing back in no time. As scary as it may sound like, it might be faster than the time taken for you to shed that weight off.

It's a life long journey to stay fit and healthy. There's nth as 'enough'. There's only keep doing it, it's all for yourself and no one else :)

Review: Shake n Take Personal Smoothie Blender Part 1

I've received my Shake n Take blender last week via registered mail and thank goodness Derp is at home to help me collect it if not I would have to make a trip down to singpost and queue to collect. The singpost at JP always have long queue and damn bloody slow. 

It's time for a healthier life style and this blender allows me to explore more ways of mixing different fruits with yogurt, milk or yakult (my favourite) :) 

I've all along use a normal fruit juicer(bought by dad), I won't even call it fruit blender because I got to slowly clear the leftover debris of the fruits from the fruit juice. It's troublesome max, Okay maybe it's my fault for not peeling the apple before throwing in hence all the apple skin are lying there waiting for me to clear it after I'm done. Now I got to peel it liao la if not my blender will blend the apple skin together and I got to drink it down . sounds yucky!

I bought it from Gmarket and the delivery was fast I would say. I chose the 2 bottles version instead of 1 considering the fact that I could make another 1 for Derp if he wants to try

I tried a variety of combination last week but I didn't took photos of it. I experiment with apple + orange(my all time favourite), orange + strawberry. I would say all is nice! Though I didn't try blending it with ice because all my fruits are cold enough, I do think it's possible just that it might taste a little diluted. 

Btw, do add 100ml of water or so if you find the smoothie is too thick. I do face this problem quite often, maybe I'm too greedy or what, always putting in too much fruits and not adding any water because I'm afraid it taste too diluted, but overall is fine la :)

Some photo of the combination I try lately and yes I did remember to take photos of the whole process this time round.

Red apples + Grape Yakult - My favourite combination and I learned this combination from a fruit juice stall in AMK market near Jubilee area. I tried it and I always order tihs combination from them. Now I shall try it with my blender. I've also tried red apple + the red flavor Yakult too, it's also nice. Basically anything with Yakult is nice la! 

Ready to blend! I put in half of the apples because there's another space to put more. Wait till it's blend properly then I'll put the rest of the apples in. I used a total of 2 apples and 1 Yakult :)

I didn't cap the bottom cap tight enough and hence some Yakult came out and I got to wipe the whole table. If I've never spotted it, I think I got no Yakult left in my bottle even before I blend. that's damn sad. 

Ta dah done within 1 minute and you will need to press and hold the button above the shake n take words  till you think it's ready to be drink. It probably take less than a minute and it's done :)

Me drinking my apple yakult smoothie after my exercise lesson last sat. 

I tried orange + strawberry combination on sunday night after dinner. It's not my first time trying it and I used 1 orange + 3 strawberries only. Decided not to be over greedy this time round.

Fruits all ready...

And here we go..

Orange Strawberry smoothie.

How does it look? I find it super yummy and filling.for my stomach. I'm gonna try out more combination soon, I've even bought carrot because got once I drink orange + carrot, taste not bad le. 

You can get your shaker at gmarket or those deals website that you can easily find now. Just probably buy from deals might take sometime for them to send you, all the redemption thingy. Overall it's a nice smoothie blender, easy to use, easy to wash, totally fuss free! Do consider getting it if you're heading o a healthy lifetyle hehe. 

Check out the part 2 of the review here :) 

Weight Loss Journey Part 1

I've long wanted to type this post out just that I need some time to piece up everything together. Friends and relatives have been asking me how I managed to slim down and etc. Especially those who do not have my Facebook or have not seen me for more than 1 year, they'll probably have the impression that i'm still fat and start to realize I look different when they see my photos or met me in real life.

So how it started?

I believe its the photo shoot I had with boy at the end of July 2012. I would call it the turning point.

I'm glad the photos did not turned out as bad as I thought and at least I think I don't look damn fat from my point of view but still fat la!

Back track abit, I was paranoid  after I booked the studio for the photo shoot  because there's no editing to those photos(anyway that's the main point of going to cheezestudio because u take whatever photos you want with no photographers around and confirm no editing la lol).

Whichever pore on your face can be seen so clearly, no airbrush or etc but that's provided if you go right up to the camera and take the photo haha! No one would ever do that i guess, unless they are willing to face the fact that their skin is not as good as those actor/actress in Korean shows. Korean celebrities have what i call 'poreless' skin.

Anyway back to the point, I was worried about "If there's no editing, confirm look fat liao lor. How to hide the arms?Don't wear sleeveless?But if i don't wear sleeveless i dont think I'll look nice leh!" And yup many other questions went through my mind 24 hours everyday.

1 month before the photo shoot I decided to start dieting. Basically eating less, no snacks. I ate only half the normal portion I usually had for my lunch and dinner. Btw when I just know boy, he came over and have dinner with my family, he was surprised by how much rice I scope for myself.

Yup 6 years ago I'm like that, and I continued to eat like that hence that probably explain why there's a need for me to start losing weight. Metabolism starts to slow down, the input is the same, confirm + chop gain weight - fact.

Sad to say, all the eating less didn't really help me at all. For that 1 week I almost died. I'm like in a constantly hungry mode. -_-". I've probably figured out that my stomach size has expanded over the years, if I never eat till the required amount i need everyday, i will be hungry.

If you are wondering I'm one who have the natural fat genes in me, you're wrong. I'm the fattest in my family for the past 3-4 years after I gained weight. I used to look as though i'm a malnutrition kid when I was going through my puberty stage.

Me during my sec 2 days. Tummy-less. I can fit into a 25-26 inch jeans at that point. I'm all along a big-boner if not I could have fit into a 23/24 inch jeans la.  

If you think I never eat during those days because I want to grow up looking slim, then you are absolutely wrong. I can eat down 2 packets of dried mee pok maagie mee at one shot. I'm always hungry and I eat A LOT.

When my female tuition teacher came over to give me physics tuition during the sec 4 period, I opened one packet of Jack & Jills chip and started munching on it while I'm working on the questions. I remembered she told me this "I envy you lor, u eat this kind of junk food yet u so skinny".

Seriously, it all goes down to metabolism rate at different stage of life la.Now is my turn to envy the younger ones who eat fast food nearly everyday and yet they are underweight.

Whenever i'm released early from sch, my secondary sch besties and I would go to westmall foodcourt for lunch. I would definitely have duck rice! Super good life hor? lol. We chose not to eat the canteen food cause we got sian of it.

During sec 4, my principal want us to have 2 canteen breaks in 1 whole morning. The lunch breaks are at 10.20am and 1:40pm respectively. Wah piang, that time I eat so many meals a day but I'm still skinner than my current size now.

At that time we think having 2 recess break is a waste of money(our parents only give us pocket money for 1 meal, we also never tell them we have 2 recess break lol), we decide to bring 1 big packet of chips to share among the 4 of us (me, esther, yy and claire) during the 10.20am break then we'll have our proper lunch at 1:40pm. This only goes on for awhile only because we eat junk food till we don't really know what to buy liao.

When I was sec 3, first time going JB for some geography educational tour. Nana wasn't inside because she's the only one who took history. 

No idea sec 3 or 4 but that time 流行 go Sentosa to suntan. 

Oh ya last time during secondary sch days, me and my secondary sch mates LOVE seoul garden. We used to helped NKF do donation (compulsory every year) and hence there's voucher for us to use at seoul garden. There's like some 1-for-1 promotion by the voucher. In 1 month we can go 2 or more times. I know is super ridiculous. Jurong point have seoul garden at that time. We can sit there and eat all the way till evening. Our stamina of eating must be damn good at that point of time. WHY THAT TIME EAT SO MUCH ALSO WONT FAT ONE???!!! I was 50/51kg then.

One of the seoul garden trip picture.

As the years goes by, I didn't really care about my weight. Basically I just eat and eat, supper was a norm. I cant really be bothered about gaining weight. Munching chips in the middle of the night or cooking maggie for supper is routine on sat nights.

 During poly attachment days i eat finish duck rice for lunch and i still buy waffle with peanut fillings to eat :). The reality starts to hit in after the attachment. I do feel that I look fatter. To think back, I  think I have atrocious eating habits which shouldn't be tolerated at all.

My weight was around 56kg when i graduate from poly. Gained probably another 4-5kg in poly days.

Still looking good during poly days(before poly attachment). I know you may say not so clear. Below is a zoom in one haha. 

:) Please ignore the face lol. I know the picture don't look like me but its me!

The good old poly intern days whereby i start to gain weight. Can't really tell in the photos but I remember  I attended my poly cca DND straight after my attachment and the picture speaks all.

At the DND with my cca's chairman :) 

With my poly classmates at Sentosa after we graduate. 

Boy's poly graduation in 2008.

Photo of me in 2008 still. That time i'm working before uni starts in august.

I work with this group of accountants before my uni starts. They are all doing great now, Sandy has already become a auditor in big 4 and she's doing well there :)

Boy's passing out parade in Dec 2008. 

I went on to uni and by the time I graduated from uni i'm probably near 60kg. Okay la, 1 year gain 1 kg when i was in uni.

Visit to haji lane :) Vintage was the trend at that time.

By the way this is taken in great world city female toilet. Till date they have the most decorative toilets I've ever seen in Singapore. Hopefully all this toilets are still around, it's a waste to take it down and revamp into normal looking toilets in other shopping malls.

To cut the long story short, I look like that when i graduate from uni. 

Now you would probably figured out why I say i look so diff from the picture i took with my parents during CNY. :)

The real trauma hits me when i started working. I gained 3 kg in less than a year. My peak was 63kg. OMG! That was when I decided to do something about it. To be exact, I gained more than 10kg over the years. No joke, T-E-N KG!

If my weight was shares in stock market, I tell u confirm earn one for this 5 year period. It only rises and never drop before.

Photo taken during uni graduation night. At that time i haven't start work yet.

23rd birthday celebration, I've just started working for 3 months.

And another 3-4 months later, i look like this: 

That's me during my PEAK weight of 63 kg. 

Till date I've lost 9kg. :)

I'm trying to drop another 1- 1.5 kg before I go Taiwan. Currently I'm weighing at 53.5-54kg. I'm even skinner than my poly days! I would not recommend one to totally skip meals to lose weight. It's one of the dumbest way available. The keyword is to control your calories intake and exercise.I'll talk more about it in part 2 and how I did it.

The best part about slimming down is online clothes confirm got my size, no longer having the fear that the zip cannot zip up. And what most impt is, I no longer need to hide my er xin arms during phototaking! Last time when i was 63kg, when i asked boy to take photo for me, I will keep asking him to "eh take nicer angle hor, i dont want later come out my arms look fat". Its as good as impossible and I do wonder how he ta han me all this while.

The journey to lose weight was never easy, the steps are simple but when you really do it is a different story.

I think there's no such thing as "i just want flatter tummy" or "i just want my thighs to be smaller" You can't really choose which part of the body fats you want to lose, your body decides it for you. One can only tone their arms, tummy or whatever parts they want to but not aim to lose weight at those parts. And by exercising doesn't mean you will lose weight instantly, you might just gain weight because you gain muscles. Muscle is heavier than fats - fact :)

I'll be back with part 2 soon :). Stay tuned.

Follow me @ firstl0ve88 on instagram and formspring me at http://www.formspring.me/firstlove88 if you have any questions :)