When you are on a low-calorie diet:

Rule #1: Eat your meals on time. Don’t skip meals.

Rule #2: Eat plenty of vegetables and lean protein, minimise your carbs, and avoid processed foods.

Rule #3: Drink plenty of water in between meals.

Rule #4: If you MUST snack, have healthy snacks on hand — fresh fruits, dried dates, raisins, toasted nuts.

Rule #5: If a supplier gives you 4 boxes of chocolate, give 1 box to your assistant and 1 box to the driver, but keep the box of plain milk chocolates for the kids (knowing how they hate nuts in their chocolate) and keep the box of chocolate-coated macadamia nuts to share with your mom.

Rule #6: If you find yourself with a splitting headache at 6.04pm due to low blood sugar level because your last meal was lunch at 12.38pm, you are allowed to open the box of macadamia nuts. But you can only have ONE piece.

Rule #7: If, after having one piece, your headache still hasn’t gone away, and you are trapped in a massive traffic jam on the highway due to a heavy downpour, you are allowed to eat just one more piece of the macadamia nut only. Set aside the milk chocolate coating for the kids later.

Rule #8: If you find that macadamia nuts taste rather plain without the milk chocolate coating (kinda like how strawberries just don’t taste as good as they do when dipped in chocolate), you are allowed just one more macadamia nut with HALF of the chocolate coating for flavour.

Rule #9: Once you realise that you may just have exceeded your caloric requirement for the day before even having had your dinner, then make a date with the treadmill tonight even if today’s supposed to be a rest day.

Rule #10: Write a self-deprecating blog post to make yourself feel better and to keep your hands mind off the chocolates. And try to remember what Dr. Pat said about getting rid of the extra inches the hard way instead of looking for quick weight loss solutions.

Ahh….Why are the best things in life fattening? :(

I got tag from Tikki (who, incidentally turns 19 today — Happy Birthday, Tikki!), which I couldn’t help but do because it’s so much fun and so darn simple.

The rules are:

a) answer the question below, do a Google Image search with your answer, take a picture from the 1st page of results, do it with minimal words of explanation; and

b) tag 5 people to do the same once you’ve finished answering every question.

Here goes… (Sorry if this takes a while to load. I couldn’t get WordPress to align the pics and text properly unless I used large images.)

1. The age you’ll be on your next birthday:

Hrmm… am I really that old ‘on paper’? As far as I know, I’ll always be 22 years old :D

2. Place you want to travel to:

I want to travel around the world!

Next on my list: South Africa and South America! So that I can say I’ve been to all the continents in the world hehe.

3. Your favourite place:

Home sweet home.

I’ve been to 60 81 cities in 19 countries but there’s just no place like home.

4. Your favourite food:

Chocolates!

‘Nuff said ;)

5. Your favourite pet:

Siamese cat.

This pic reminds me so much of my favourite pet. She died of old age and remained faithful to me to the very end. She’s buried in our garden.

6. Favorite color combination:

Black & white

Easy to match, goes with anything, just change the look with accessories.

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I chanced upon this little guy this morning, right after a quick run on the treadmill.

He looked so miserable, with a smudge of blood beneath his right eye and his tail no longer attached to his body. He was staring at the sky, motionless and pitiful, not even twitching a muscle when I moved in close with my Nokia N82 to snap his pic.

If lizards can talk, I swear I could almost hear him say, “Why me?”!

The twins are so much better today, thanks be to God! They seem to be responding well to the expensive new medication prescribed to them by their paediatrician. As proof of that, for the first time in days, they slept through the night last night. I was shocked to wake up before 7 am and realise that I, too, had some 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep :D

Feeling totally energised by my 7-hour recharge session and the fact that the twins were still sleeping at 7 am, I immediately grabbed the opportunity to have a short run on the treadmill while listening to the radio. As I scanned stations, the deejays in Mix.FM caught my attention with their topic for the day: if you could turn back time or go back in time, at what point in time would you like to go back to?

Now that really got me thinking. But it didn’t take long for me to come up with an answer. If I could go back in time, I’d definitely like to go back to the time when I was in university. The reason is simple: I made many life-altering decisions and choices — both direct and indirectly — at that time. My choice of major (a.k.a. concentration), for instance, eventually determined my career choices.

I’d also want to go back to that point in time just so I could change my relationships with people, to be nicer and kinder to anyone and everyone. I’d force myself not to feel so shy just because I was a probinsiyana (budak kampung) so that when people reached out to me in friendship, I could and should have reciprocated their gesture. Yes, I was shy, mahinhin, di makabasag pinggan (Tagalog, literally: ‘can’t break a plate’), pijak semut tak mati (Malay, literally: ‘an ant wouldn’t die if I stepped on it’) and all that. But I’ll save that for another post sometime :P

So…what about you? If you could go back in time, at what point in time would you like to go back to?

This is Lancel’s Balconnet Croco Pattern Leather handbag. Its recommended retail price in France, including VAT, is €699. In Malaysia, it retails for RM4,980. But remember the Malaysian Mega Sale that I was telling you about in a previous post? Well, thanks to that sale, plus the fact that Lancel just opened a new shop in Suria KLCC, this beauty is on sale for RM2,499. And it’s on sale until this Sunday only.

I especially love the chain link accent at the front of the bag, with the crocodile pattern a close second. The colour is black with a tinge of deep maroon-brown, so it can easily match any colour outfit, but is not as drab and boring as regular black.

The Lancel Balconnet is designed as a bucket bag with a drawstring, thus it can look small and slim when relatively empty, but it can also expand and handle a lot of things should one decide to stuff it. A long removable leather strap is included, should one wish to wear it across the body, such as when travelling.

Photos from www.lancel.com

Lancel is a luxury brand with roots that go as far back as 1876, founded in Paris, France. Its most historic boutique is located at Place de l’Opera and its largest display window is on the Champs Elysees. However, being relatively new in Malaysia, Lancel is not as well-known or popular as Louis Vuitton, Gucci or Coach. Which is exactly what I want — individuality and uniqueness. You see far too many LV’s and Gucci’s and Coaches in every street corner these days, knock-offs from China and Korea included!

This, on the other hand, is the Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens. Its recommended retail price in Malaysia is RM3,188 but it can be had for around RM2,500 if you shop around (yes, Virginia, that’s the price for the lens alone!). I’ve tried this lens when we went to Bintan recently and I was in awe of the resulting crisp, sharp, crystal clear images such as this one of Twin2 at the pool of Angsana Bintan Resorts & Spa (click on the photo below to see a larger photo).

This photo had no Photoshopping whatsoever other than a slight lightening using the Fill Flash.

Assuming I had the RM2,500 cash right now OR would consider using my credit cards 12-months interest-free instalment payment plan to purchase either item, I think I might just possibly be the only woman in this planet who’d forgo a designer bag on sale — at 50% off, no less! — in favour of a piece of glass. And I’m not even a professional photographer.

Am I weird or what?