Posted by Fergus on Jun 30, 2011 in
General Looks like the results are coming out soon!
CFA emailed me this morning to say “We will e-mail your June 2011 Level II CFA exam results to you on Tuesday, 26 July 2011, no earlier than 9:00 am ET. Please take a moment to ensure we have the correct e-mail address on file for you”
So that means it won’t be long! I hope I pass. Of course, if you do fail, they allow registrations for the next exam starting 27 July 2011. Good luck to all candidates!
PS: I had a weird thought when I received the email though.. If they sent this notification email via email, and if the wrong email address is on file, how would you have known they notified you?
Tags: Finance
Posted by Fergus on Jun 27, 2011 in
General As of yesterday, I finished 4 weeks of the Tim Ferriss Slow Carb Diet program. And thus, for the next phase, I will be including the exercises (Kettlebell swings, myotatic crunches, cat vomit and glut activation) he mentioned progressively. I should probably be including pullups also.
So Monday, the first day of the next phase. I used the Groupon voucher for a 1 month gym membership that I bought last week. I was actually intending to use the swimming pool for simple cardio, as well as to have icy cold water for temperature lowering. However, the pool was pretty underwhelming. Probably only suitable for waddling around, but that’s probably pretty much expected for a hotel swimming pool. However, the good news is, they have bosu ball and sandbells! I had originally wanted to buy a kettle bell, and was out looking for a cheap one since a brand new 20kg kettlebell cost about S$130. My friend suggested I try sandbells, which is essentially a neoprene disc casing, where you can fill it with sand and metal inserts. The additional benefit compared to a kettlebell is that there is no rounded grip, so you have additional grip training.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zAkYWo_4ts
I tried to do the prescribed 75reps of kettlebell (sandbells in this case) swings in 1 set, but it was tough! I used a 40lbs sandbell and it took me 5 sets to get to 75! (20, 15, 15, 15, 10). Myotatic crunches was not as easy as it looks, probably due to the unfamiliarity of doing it on top of the bosu ball. The gym also had foam rollers! So I did a bit of myofascial release on my back due to the injury earlier in the month.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWPl1uhuSB0
All in all, quite a good workout! I didn’t expect 75 reps of kettlebell swings to be tough enough to sweat!. Let’s fight again tomorrow!
Tags: 4HourBody, Diet, Fitness
Posted by Fergus on Jun 25, 2011 in
General It’s done! I’ve done 4 weeks of the diet. I have to say, it was comfortably easy to do. So much so, that I decided to scrap the plan I mentioned last week.
I was saying I plan to do a 3-4 month stint thing, were I’ll do 1 month of SCD, followed by 1 month of velocity diet, then back to 1 month of SCD. However, I have a bit of a lower back injury and bruised ribs, so I decided not to do the velocity diet because it requires 3 times weekly of strict gym. I decided I’ll probably do 2 months of SCD, followed by 1 month of ‘geek to freak‘ by Tim Ferriss, and maybe 1 month of velocity diet after that.
Anyway, Quick Recap,
Week 0 : 80.6kg, 24.6% BF, total inches of 268cm
Week 1 : 78.7kg, 24.5% BF, total inches of 260.4cm
Week 2 : 78.2kg, 23.4% BF, total inches of 261.9cm
Week 3: 77.5kg, 23.3% BF, total inches of 260.7cm
Week 4: 76.7kg, 23.1% BF, total inches of 259.6cm.
So thats a loss of 3.9kg (80.6kg to 76.7kg), 1.5% of body fat (from 24.6% to 23.1%), and 6.2cm off the waist (90.5cm to 84.3cm). Pretty decent for a program that requires no exercise. I highly recommend all overweight people to do this program. Central adiposity is really a health risk.
For the next month of SCD, I will be phasing in his recommended exercises. That is kettle bell swings of 75 reps per time, 3 times a week, myotatic crunch, cat vomit and glut activation raises. These shouldn’t take more than 15mins a day. As mentioned earlier, I also signed up for a 1 month gym membership using groupon. The good thing is that the gym comes with a swimming pool, sauna and the works.. Thus I will be trying to do some light swimming in the mornings, in line with cold temperature exposure advocated by Tim Ferriss.
Tags: 4HourBody, Diet, Fitness
Posted by Fergus on Jun 24, 2011 in
General Simply amazing.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niugcrHxbzc
I have these things at home, and trust me, it doesn’t look anywhere that easy!
Tags: Performances, Youtube
Posted by Fergus on Jun 23, 2011 in
General I had a shock this morning while checking my emails when I saw an order delivery email from iHerb since I didn’t order anything from them recently. However, after reading through the rest of the emails, I realized that there is a social media department in iHerb and they saw my blog entry on iHerb where I talked about where you can get supplements cheap and fast.
One of my most commonly ordered product is the Omega 3 fishoils which I think everybody should be taking and iHerb actually sent me a bottle for free! So a big shout out to Abby and the rest of you guys at iHerb for the pleasant surprise!
Till date, I have did numerous orders with iHerb and all the experiences have been pleasant. Hassle free ordering process, cheap shipping starting from US$4 to Singapore, and relatively quick delivery times. Using express delivery which costs more but would make sense for big orders takes only 3-5 working days, and international airmail takes slightly less than 2 weeks.
Most of the time, the supplements available are at least 20-50% cheaper than retail shops in Singapore, and thats including shipping to your doorstep! Even some of the weird supplements like those used in the Tim Ferriss Slow Carb Diet (The 4 Horsemen of Fat Loss) can be found there cheaply!
Besides those points mentioned above, go check out the 10 reasons to make iHerb your number 1 choice!
Tags: Health, LifeTips
Posted by Fergus on Jun 21, 2011 in
General Definitely the right title for it!
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqZHNjfRKHM
Interestingly, I can draw a number of parallels to pole dancing (keeping toes pointed, a strong emphasis on body weight workouts, high degree of flexibility and core strengthening) as compared to traditional gym work.
Tags: Fitness, Youtube
Posted by Fergus on Jun 20, 2011 in
General Group deal sites have been around for the longest time, and I actually signed up to receive updates for quite a few. However, I have not found any deals attractive enough to buy them. Mostly, the deals just didn’t seem all that attractive. Some of the deals are discounted off retail price, such that when you compare it to prices you can get at the shops, it’s only marginally cheaper. In other cases, the locations are not exactly the most convenient, so you usually won’t go or do that event on a wimp and would require a bit of schedule planning. I prefer a little bit of spontaneity in my life 
But I finally did it! I bought the $35 for 1 Month Club Membership + 60 min Health Assessment + 4 VibroGym Sessions at Lifestyle Fitness (Worth $645) deal from groupon.sg. Essentially, this is not significantly cheaper than most commercial gyms. At some point of time, California Fitness or True Fitness were going at around $30-45/month for a 1-2 years plan. So at $35, its within that range. The main reason why I did buy it is because of 2 main reasons. 1) I’m on a diet/fitness regime now, and 2) the location is right opposite my office! Best deal ever
Will I buy more groupon deals? Perhaps.
Deals like, $6 for 1 Manhattan Fish ‘n Chips at The Manhattan FISH MARKET (Worth $13.90), $3.25 for Any 6-Inch Sub (Worth up to $6.50) at 7 Subway Outlets or $5 for 1 Main Ramen or Rice at RamenPlay (Worth $10.80) does seem cheap and worth it. But seeing how 10,000 to 30,000 coupons for each has been bought, I wonder how the shops can cope with it and also if QC will drop. For 30,000 coupons, and with a typical validity of 6 months, that means they would have to serve additional 5000 purchases at a heavily discounted price. Do note, groupon does take a cut of the coupon price, which means more retailers might suffer a loss or just barely breakeven.
Anybody has any group deal experience to share? And also which other sites have you used before?
Tags: Fitness, GroupDeal, LifeTips
Posted by Fergus on Jun 18, 2011 in
General It’s finally the 3rd week of the Tim Ferriss’ Slow Carb Diet. My experience up to date has been pretty pleasant. It’s really quite an easy diet to keep to, as compared to the V-diet (or also known as the velocity diet) I did quite a few years back. I actually plan to have a 3-4 month long program, where I would do 1 month of the Tim Ferriss’ Slow Carb Diet, while slowing phasing in exercise, followed by 1 month of the Velocity Diet, and another month of the Slow Carb Diet. Velocity Diet is a protein intensive, highly controlled, heavy gym work diet regime, whereas Slow Carb Diet is more of a cleaning up and detox type diet with minimal exercise. In a way, both should complement each other.
My results with the Velocity Diet has been better than the Slow Carb Diet, but the motivation required to go through that one was much much harder, considering you had to go gym 3 times a week, and take 6 protein shakes a day. Painful is the word.
Anyway, Quick Recap,
Week 0 : 80.6kg, 24.6% BF, total inches of 268cm
Week 1 : 78.7kg, 24.5% BF, total inches of 260.4cm
Week 2 : 78.2kg, 23.4% BF, total inches of 261.9cm
Week 3: 77.5kg, 23.3% BF, total inches of 260.7cm
I have to say, the PAGG supplement seem to have really helped! The weight loss is more than that of Week1->week2, but conventional logic would say that the longer you did a weight loss program, the lesser weight you would lose.
This week was a mixed bag in terms of food. One of the newest thing I tried was homemade beef patties. I bought minced beef from cold storage, mixed it up with a pinch of black pepper and light soy sauce, then made it into patties of approximately 50g. Instead of storing it raw, I pan-fried all of it with Macadamia nut oil (as suggested by Tim Ferriss), then refrigerated the batch. When I want to use them, I would take them out to microwave. And I have to say, the patties are fantastic!
My PAGG supplements should last me for quite a while. So it is likely I’ll run this diet till Week 5-6, or when the supplements run out, then I’ll take a 1 week break before starting the V-Diet.
I have also started to phase in physical exercise slowly. But slowly is the word. It is likely to involve morning swims (in line with the thermal energy load mentioned in his book), and the few exercises he suggested.
Tags: 4HourBody, Diet, Fitness
Posted by Fergus on Jun 17, 2011 in
General Very nice song, very nice singer, very nice orchestra.
Enjoy!
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bahpaY4PJWY
Tags: Song, Youtube
Posted by Fergus on Jun 16, 2011 in
General 
Marriage is one of the most memorable thing in a person’s life. It marks the start of a new chapter in the lives of 2 individuals when they decide that they are willing to put aside a part of themselves to stand together as a couple. I once heard a quote, and thought it’s really quite true. “Monogamy is when a person decides that staying together is more worthwhile than chasing personal wants.”
However social dynamics have changed significantly in the last 10 years, and one of the things I have been pondering about is marriage. The main reason is actually because most of my peers are starting to get married, and I have attended 8 weddings in 6 months! But that’s not the only things I have observed. I have seen quite a number of shotgun marriages, a number of people getting married for the sake of moving out from parents, and a few divorces, separations and annulments.
From that, I believe in the next 10 years, there will be far less marriages than now. Let’s look at it logically. Since I’m a guy, I will largely present the guy’s point of view. I believe guys get married for 4 main reasons,
Family pride and name
One of the main reasons why guy’s get married is for the family name. This is one of those deeply ingrained asian culture that we have. In India, a person’s choice of a spouse is irrelevant. The parent’s choice is more important. In most chinese, the surname and family name is a very significant thing. Having family culture and future generation was probably one of the biggest concern of our parents and grandparents time. Even for myself, when I was in secondary school, one of my considerations when looking for a girlfriend was if she would be a good mother to my kids. (Okay fine. Go giggle behind my back). This has been diluting a lot these days, where personal desires are more important than family desires. Some couples are not having kids because they don’t find a desire for it. I don’t fault them, because I can understand the reasons.
Intimacy and companionship
Emotional and physical companionship. This is probably one of the reasons why people from kids to teenagers to senior folks get together. People just have a need for emotional attachment, where they can take comfort that someone is there for them. This is really a different feeling from being sociable in a group, or even having a group of close friends. The exclusiveness factor of 1 person with another person probably forms a kind of acceptance anchor where a person realise that at that point of time, the rest of the world doesn’t matter. But just as the broad social dynamics in the world is changing, especially with the way online or non face to face interactions are proliferating, this close companionship dynamics are changing. People still feel the desire to want to meet people face to face, but it’s artificially suppressed because that’s the way the world is becoming. Likewise, people still want an intimate companionship. That’s why there are so many people staying in relationships that have gone sour.
More and more so, people are starting to substitute emotional intimacy with other things, such as material needs, instant gratification, or plain just having fun (clubbing or otherwise).
Sex
Need I say more? Sex used to be limited to married couples. But nowadays, it just seems that people do not demand a high level of emotional commitment before indulging in this. Ironically, one of the main reason that is exacerbating this in my opinion is female empowerment. Females have gained significant social standing in the last 2-3 decades. They have seen guys sleeping around with not much detriment and they want a share of that too! There’s a saying that a guy that sleeps around is a stud, and a gal that sleeps around is a slut. In the end, we would all have to agree that sex (or masturbation for those with a strong right hand and a strong imagination) is a pleasurable activity. The only thing stopping humans from indulging in 24 hours of sex is food and moral values.
Porn producers are catering more towards the female audience. Sex shops are selling more female products, in fact there are specialty dildo shops with some costing up to $200+! More and more females are becoming initiators of one night stands, when it used to be a male only initiator previously. Soon, social norms will not see a girl that sleeps around as a slut as much.
Independent living
In Singapore, you need to be either married or above 35 years old to buy a HDB. Private housing is just prohibitively expensive for a young working professional. So, some people get married for the sake of living away from parents. However, nowadays more and more studio apartments are coming on board. While I don’t think it is a good investment or a viable property segment for the long term, the absolute price for a 350 sq ft studio unit costs about the same as a normal 4rm/5rm HDB. So people don’t have to get married to move out of their parent’s house. They can just buy a slightly more expensive pigeon hole in the shape of a studio apartment.
One thing you would notice is how the 4 reasons for a guy to get married is getting weaker as time goes by. Some are due to the changing social dynamics, some due to economic dynamics, some are technological changes, while some are just breaking of broad cultural habits. One of the biggest social change is the concept of instant gratification VS delayed gratification. Having kids, saving for the future, following a religion, following a fitness/diet regime are essentially all actions of delayed gratification. In a world of rush, people are looking at instant gratification as a way of feeling good. Not that it is a bad thing, but we would just have to understand the implications.
Of course, there has always been ‘obstacles’ of marriage, in the name of the women’s charter.
The women’s charter was enacted a long ago when females typically have less economic ability than males. In the past, females also tend to leave the working society to take care of their kids when they get married and give birth. Thus, you do need a women’s charter to protect these people since a divorce after 10 years of marriage would leave a female vulnerable with very little economic skill. But nowadays, females tend to earn their own keep. There is still a need for alimony, especially when there’s kids involved and the mother is the custodian, but for a married couple without kids and with similar economic power, I don’t see why there should be a women’s charter putting males at a disadvantage.
Definitely if a guy’s reason to get married is less, and the obstacles to get married remains, the likelihood of marriages would drop in the future right?
I still believe in the institution of marriage. And I hope that the world will too in the next few decades.
Tags: SocialEconomic
