Tag Archives: golf

March Madness All Over Again

19 Mar

March is the month for sports that I enjoy. There’s the golf Iron Challenge at my club at the end of the month which I am preparing for and then, there’s the college basketball NCAA Tournament which has started after the regular season ended.

This is the fourth year I am following the March Madness schedule and putting my two cents worth to predict the winners for both the men and women’s games in the draw.

M1’s university has made it to the NCAA Women’s Division 1 bracket again. For the third consecutive year, six Pac-12 teams made it. And of course, I will be rooting for her school. The first round games start this Saturday.

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On Track

11 Mar

It’s been two weeks on count if I consider 25th February as the official start date of my challenge to shed some pounds. There were temptations and distractions along the way but I stayed focus.

But in order to achieve my goal, I adopted the 16/8 Intermittent Fasting, an interesting and easy diet to follow. I don’t have to eat certain food or avoid my favorites to achieve what I want to achieve.

It basically involves an 8-hours window to eat and fast the remaining 16-hours. The hours one sleep are considered as part of the 16-hours. Not that tough to follow, isn’t it? And there are tons of explanation on this out there on the internet.

So the whole of last week, I brought salad lunches to work and kept to the 16/8 formula and I could see the difference visually – on the tummy and waistline.

For comparison – on Week One, with all those dinner occasions in a row, my weight fluctuated but did not increase because I was mindful. By the end of Week Two, despite a missed gym session, I lost 2.6lbs because of the 16/8. It was very encouraging.

Over the weekend however, I did not follow the 16/8 as I don’t want to be such a stickler with a regimented routine.

During the two days – I had lunch with the family (on Saturday) and a game of golf (on Sunday) followed by the usual after game meal plus some whiskey. This resulted in a slight increase in weight by Monday morning. But I’m not worried because if I stay disciplined, I am on track to achieve my goal.

Tonight at gym, I will continue my weight routine with the ten pounder.

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A Hiccup on the Challenge

8 Mar

It’s unfortunate that my challenge mission was interrupted on Monday. A minor hiccup because work was on a tight deadline. And as much as I wanted to do gym to rid myself more of the guilt than anything else, we couldn’t finish the artwork and get home on time. Oh well…

But I don’t feel so bad because this whole week, I made super healthy lunches for the both of us. Lots of greens, bell pepper, baby tomatoes and chick peas (and tuna was added for two days subsequently). The salad lunch was oil-free, fibre-loaded and enough to fuel us until dinner time.

It may be only a few days but I do feel better and not so heavy. I am sure if I keep at this for another week or so, coupled with gym and golf, I will shed (the pounds) effortlessly. A positive sign and on track on my challenge to lose the extra weight piled on me by the bathroom scale.

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The Challenge Threatened

4 Mar

I seem to be setting myself up for failure. I thought the week before with dinner engagements three days in a row was bad; this past weekend, it’s four days of (three) dinners and one lunch engagements, starting with Thursday right through to Sunday, there’s hardly a breather. Die…

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Thursday’s vegetarian Thai threesome dinner

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Friday’s foursome dinner after golf

But when the opportunity to catch up with girlfriends of yesteryear, golf buddies and celebrating a good friend’s birthday, how could I refuse? Being with these people are important to me and well, I would be silly not to eat because the occasions happened during meal times.

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Saturday night’s dinner (& desserts) for five included a bottle of hand crafted wine

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Sunday’s lunch for eight after golf with half a bottle of whiskey

The challenge to lose weight is now under threat. Tonight I have no choice but to continue with the ten pounder at the gym to work it all off. Die…

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The Challenge Begins

26 Feb

Last Monday, we finally went back to gym after almost a month’s break. Thank goodness I did not feel sluggish after so long. The past month there were all these reasons to skip gym – valid reasons though – M2 leaving for Ireland, preparing for Chinese New Year, leaving town for the Reunion Dinner and all. But now, with all these out of the way, there’s no more reasons to miss gym anymore.

And last night we hit the gym again because last Friday, Saturday and Sunday was packed with dinner dates, making me guilty, so all the more not to skip.

The determination to want to lose that awful added weight made me rather pumped up. And like last week, I used one ten-pounder weight for some of my routines, a big jump from my usual two four-pounders.

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My serious ten-pounder

Although gym session is only once a week, I think I am off to a good start on the challenge especially with the solid program that my trainer has drawn up. Besides working out with her, there’s also golf to burn some calories too. I just need to stay more disciplined with the food intake, after all there’s a whole list of things I avoid due to Endometriosis, then I will do fine. I hope…

Today I am sore to the core and it will be worse by tomorrow. The challenge is on.

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Killer Whales

12 Feb

Actually, carving on Meranti wood is not good for me. While it may be satisfying to channel my energy into it and then feel the joy whenever a lovely piece is completed, the choice of the wood is the culprit that adds to my Wrist Tendonitis woes.

I was carving a lot of Meranti whales in December and they are much bigger pieces than the Gnomes and Citizens, which unfortunately have not increase in their population count. And being bigger pieces, it magnified the Wrist Tendonitis on the left hand because I have been gripping the wood block too tightly, looking back at the situation now. Sigh.

Although I have a vise clamp albeit a mini one, it cannot clamp the block for me to work on. And I have not been using my workbench enough to ease the situation. It is not the repetitive motion that’s causing the flare up because the repetition is on the right hand, the carving hand, and not the left hand – the non-working but gripping hand.

If I am not carving daily, the situation can be contained because with ample rest, nothing gets aggravated and it’s fine. The therapy sessions, which concluded, helped but I must not overdo things that can cause a recurrence. That something obviously being carving, of course. And I guess I overdid it in December. Oops.

Then in January as we were busy preparing for M2 to leave, carving took a backseat. But after M2 left, I was back to carving whales full swing AND playing golf before Chinese New Year, double whammy you could say. I felt a teeny weeny set back. Uh oh.

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The whales, cute as they may be, are really killer whales. And I’d better take care especially if I want to play more golf this year. Perhaps I should go back to balsa instead of Meranti or get a bigger vise clamp if setting up the workbench is too much? Something to seriously consider.

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A Tradition of Sorts

7 Feb

We played two rounds of golf this trip. On Monday, we had our golf game and it’s becoming a tradition of sorts to play golf whenever we are back in hubby’s hometown for the Reunion Dinner.

The obligatory selfie before tee off!

My game is improving but I can also feel the pain in the left wrist upon impact in certain situations. The fairways of this golf course are very hard and dry, so I had to constantly adjust to avoid injuring myself again.

Then after the family obligations for the First Day, we played another round on the Second Day of Chinese New Year. This time, I had an even better score, having played on Monday and understanding the course conditions better. We had the golf course all to ourselves and in four hours, completed our leisurely paced game. Enjoyable morning.

Darulaman Golf Club

The Second Day ended with more family time and food, with lunch at the Aunt’s and dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Burp!

Home-cooked spread! So so good.

We head home today, bracing for a long journey ahead. I hope it won’t be a ten-hours drive. We shall see.

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Before the Reunion Dinner 2019

4 Feb

Last Thursday was our last day at work because Friday was a public holiday. And we left town only on Sunday morning, clocking the drive 15 minutes shy of six-hours. I would say this was not too bad despite a crawl along a stretch that lasted 20 minutes and we even had a quick half-hour lunch stop.

The horrid crawl

A flavorful Nasi Kerabu at the Agromall

And this morning, we actually managed to play a round of golf before the Reunion Dinner tonight.

For us, this year’s Reunion Dinner is simply just another dinner with the family. Both our girls are not here for the first time and it feels funny without them. This is something we both have to get used to. Who knows? Maybe M1 will be back for the next Dinner? But M2 certainly won’t for the next few years… Sniffle.

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New Found Freedom

21 Jan

Thank goodness for technology! It’s been a week that M2 has left but we don’t feel that she has left because we connect daily via WhatsApp with messages and video calls. So there’s hardly a moment to miss her despite the physical separation.

As we now have more time on our hands because there’s no tuition run to contend with and time to keep, both of us are doing things together that we enjoy, that is playing more golf. I played my first golf game of the year on Saturday and it was nice; pain-free and responsibility-free but a bit rusty on the approach shots and bunker saves. I’m not worried though, in time these two problems can be fixed with the new found freedom to play more often.

And today-being a public holiday-I am playing my second golf game instead of sleeping in! Gotta make up for all the missed opportunities last year.

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Goodbye 2018

31 Dec

What a year it has been! At the beginning 2018, never did it cross my mind that I would be facing many ups and downs, making it a truly eventful year. Top on the up trend has been my musings and followers, and my carvings for Gigglesville and Gnomie-wood. The cumulative number of 273 pieces carved consists of Citizens, Big Citizens, Monuments, Whales, Ocean friends, Apeach, Dinky the dinosaur, Gnomes and their homes. But there were no increase in the Superheroes count.

And worthy to mention also is my chase on Candy Crush Soda to reach 1000 Days on my iPad. To me, the daily launch just to get the Daily Bonus is an up trend to achieve that number. I just hope the device don’t die on me as I inch closer to my target.

On the home front, my two girls are all grown up with M1 in her Senior year at University and M2 ready for the next exciting chapter in her life, college-bound having completed high school. Time goes by so fast. Too fast I feel sometimes.

On the down trend, there were notable events too that could almost rival the good ones. These are mostly health-related issues and I must say are pretty life changing.

I was diagnosed with Infectious Colitis in February after a Colonoscopy and Endometriosis in April after a Laparoscopic surgery. Not good so I had to change my diet and lifestyle to deal with these issues. I gave up coffee, eggs, cheese and avoid certain food groups but alcohol and chocolate are still hard to resist. I lost weight as a result from this change which was good until recently, I added some back. Oh well…

However my physical problems didn’t end there…

My sports injury exacerbated and the diagnosis turned out to be a Wrist Tendonitis problem due to my constant carving besides golf. When you think about it, subjecting the wrist to the constant swinging of the clubs and hitting the ball is actually too much to bear upon impact with a weakened wrist. And golf is a non-stop 4.5 hours or thereabouts, thus aggravating the problem acutely. Whereas for carving, the time spent on it can be controlled. I can carve for less than an hour or sometimes three to six hours at a pace without pain that can aggravate the wrist.

So I stopped playing golf for ten weeks to rest the wrist, and did treatment and therapy which helped. Carving continued though but only as and when I have time.

An even bigger down trend is my iPhone5S. It is dying. I thought it would at least last until my birthday next year but the situation does not look good at all. The battery drain issue is just so bad, I find myself using the phone lesser and lesser. One charge can only last a quarter of a day if I even use it a little bit. Perhaps in retrospect, this is a good thing to be less device-dependent? Then again, I suspect this less device-dependency will change once I get a new phone. We shall see.

But I should not focus on the down trends to say life was not good in 2018. There were many up trends as well which I should be thankful for. And I have my friends to make me laugh and be happy, my carving to keep me occupied and contented, and my health is actually much better after those two main episodes.

So as I bid 2018 goodbye, I brace myself for 2019 to be an even more exciting year as there will be major changes, positive ones to look forward to. Thank you 2018, another year to remember by and to 2019, I welcome you with open arms.

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