Stop Gap Update On My Health

I’ve been awfully quiet last month. As soon as I came back from the Train The Trainer program in Singapore, I spent most of the next three weeks staring at the bedroom ceiling. Stomach pains and intensified nausea feeling.

My business partner Khai Ng and the rest of Musemancer had to continue running our online business and while I am thankful for them being around, I still feel frustrated over the fact that I DID ALMOST NOTHING for three weeks.

As soon as I came back to PJ, my 3 year old PC broke down and since it’s been to the repair shop quite a few times already, I decided it was time to get a new computer.

So I bought an iMac.

It was also about the same time my BlackBerry phone’s media card is damaged and two shops later, it still couldn’t be repaired.

So I bought an iPhone 4S.

Add these unexpected expenses to my medical bills, and altogether it was a slight financial  set back last month. These funds could very well be going to paying for a ton of traffic to my websites, and some entertainment no doubt. 🙁 But such is life and surprises.

 

In spite of my frustrations and being restless, my priority was to get my health back to tip top condition. After visits to a traditional Chinese physician and a Western doctor (which didn’t help my stomach pains), I decided to haul ass to a hospital and see a gastroenterologist.

It was already weeks of little improvement in my health and I wanted an end-game to it: I insisted on an ultra scan and endoscopy test, even though I was afraid of having a tube shoved down my throat!

Good thing they sedated me and I remembered nothing about the process 🙂

The doctor reported nothing serious about my stomach condition – I have Eosinophilia and an allergy to some foods, albeit still unknown.

In short, my choice of food has been narrowed: no nuts, no seafood, no cheese, no spicy / hot foods, and no dairy products.

As I am writing this, I am still on medication although on the road to recovery. I would have loved to go skydiving again but my doctor advised against it for the time being; high altitude may do something to my stomach. Would hate to vomit mid-air, haha.

The ordeal cost me valuable time, money and 2 precious kilos. I have to work out my way again to get back my lost weight and the muscles to show off again 😛

Now that I am back in action, I am playing catch up for all the lost time and pursuing a new business direction for my online business which is into the seminar, training and consulting road. More on this next bout! Feeling real fired up now.

Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2012

This was to be my first official 10KM run in 10 years.

When I was 16, I trained for many cross-country runs and represented school. After I left SMKDJ prematurely for a ‘one heck of a ride in my lifetime’, I trained less and less and gradually stopped running altogether.

It was only a month and a half ago that I started training for the run again, after so long. Although my gym training focuses on building muscles, I still ran a casual 5KM twice about a week up until Race Day.

Waking up real early in the morning (as early 3:30 AM), driving to Dataran Merdeka and waiting at the starting line until the gun shoots at 6:30 sharp – they sure bring memories. I joined quite a number of notable runs like PJ Subang Half Marathon and Penang Bridge run back then, and I regret not taking any photos to savor those moments.

This time it’s 10.6 KM – I joined the Open Men Speed Category. And I finished in 1 hour 11 minutes. Not bad for a come back! Also considering that I took a toilet break at the 4KM mark – lost about 3 minutes there. I reserved my energy for the run and overestimated the distance, having not run for so long.

Even though I’ve trained and gotten back to my prime again now, I realized a big difference between now and myself a decade ago: I felt bulky when I run. I’ve put on 8.1 KG since 10 years ago (55 kilos when I was 16; now I am at 63.1 kilos) so when I run I felt my movement was bulky.

There’s good and bad to that – that is why I am settling to gain up until 65 kilos and then I’ll maintain from here on. Any more than that and not only will it be expensive to maintain in terms of food consumption and training time, it won’t do good to my speed and agility.

With some more training, I should be able to reduce the time to a clean 1 hour on the next run. 🙂

On another note…