Posted by Fergus on Aug 3, 2011 in
General 
Suan lum night market has been one of the ‘must visit’ places in Bangkok for a tourist to go. However, the land lease expired in 2007, and the tenants had been illegally occupying the landtill Jan/Feb of 2011 before they were all chased away. And suddenly, there’s nowhere to go to experience the night market atmosphere in Bangkok!
In the recent months, the closest replacement is Tawanna Square, which is somewhat like a wholesale center but extended outdoors using tentages.
The day started with a quick visit to the tailors to do the fitting for my orders. For people who do tailoring while skipping the fitting session, you might as well just buy off the shelf. The fitting for both the tailors I used were quite good, but as expected, alterations had to be made in order for it to be better fitted.
A quick meal at Pasta ‘n’ Noodles was surprisingly good! It was just one of those restaurant type places along the road near Nana BTS. The food looked decent and the price was good, so we went in. And as usual, we were the only customers in the restaurant. Now I’m wondering where do locals eat!?!
After that we made our way to Phetchaburi MRT station to get to Asoke Pier which was just walking distance away. One of the unique feature of Bangkok is how river transport is an essential form of transport there.
From 1 end of the river to the other, it’s probably around a 80 minutes boat ride, and if you were to travel the same distance on taxi, it would have probably cost 200 baht and maybe 2 hours given the traffic congestions!
Tawanna Square is located right beside Mall Bangkapi, which is a pretty large mall in a suburban type of district. But most importantly, it has it’s own pier! Being tourists, it makes more sense to ‘do as the locals do’ and take the boats rather than to rely on taxis right?
There’s basically 1 pier at every stop location. Thus, the boats from both direction will stop at the same pier, and you gotta make sure you don’t get onto the boat travelling in the wrong direction! Once it approaches the pier, the 2 operators of the boats will just sling ropes to pull the boat closer, and within 1 minute, if you’re not on the boat, it would have left without you! Most of the locals even got onto the boat while it was moving! Once you’re on the boat, the operator will then walk along both sides of the boat to collect the fare. Our fare from Asoke pier to Mall Bangkapi pier was a 40 minutes boat ride and it costs only 17 baht. We actually passed the Mall yesterday on our way to Siam City Park, and by my estimate, a taxi ride would have cost 100 baht for the same distance.
At first, we were worried of missing our stop, since the signboards were in Thai. But Mall Bangkapi is really quite a big building, so in most likelihood, you won’t miss it!
If I were to compare a mall, Mall Bangkapi would be fairly similar to NEX Serangoon. Full of locals, lots of F&B outlets, and lots of bustling activity. Tawanna Square would then be something you don’t see in Singapore.
It has everything ranging from apparels, performance costumes, novelty items, food, drinks, mobile phones, electronics and even sound systems for cars! In fact, you can even get hair extensions or tattoos done right at Tawanna! In my opinion, I would much prefer Tawanna Square compared to Chatuchak. At least there is a shopping mall right beside where you can go for some nice buffet once you’re done walking!
Unfortunately the boat service stops at 8.30pm. We decided to take a taxi to Hua Mak Airport Railway Link station, and then taking the ARL to Makkasan and switching to MRT since there is probably going to be traffic congestion at Sukhumvit Road again.
Onward to Day 5 and the last day of the Bangkok trip!
Tags: Bangkok, Holiday, Thailand
Posted by Fergus on Aug 3, 2011 in
General
Day 3 of the Bangkok trip was something different.
Not many people know that Bangkok is the home to one of the largest amusement and water park in South East Asia; Siam Park City. That said, even the locals don’t know what it was!
I got onto a cab, and told the driver Siam Park City. He looked a bit confused and I told him Suan Siam, which is suppose to be the Thai name for the place. He still looked a bit confused but he wanted business, so he moved off. A minute later, he turned to ask, “Siam center, shopping?” He thought that we wanted to go to Siam Center/Discovery/Paragon area, which is right in the center of the shopping district. We replied negatively and he still act confused. We eventually went up to a hotel to get a bellboy to translate. It seemed like the bellboy knew where we wanted to go, but the driver certainly didn’t. He responded that he knew though.
So he sent us to Siam Paragon. Gah.
Being nice people, we still paid him, for wasting a good 30 minutes of my time, and driving me further away from the amusement park. I asked 2 other cabs, and they both didn’t know where or what it was! Finally I found a tourist booth, managed to get a map with the address of the place. But seriously, how helpful can it be when the address of Siam Park City is “1 Siam Park Avenue”? No matter, we flagged a cab, got into it, showed the driver the map with the location. Even with that, he had to call his friend over the phone to get directions on how to get there.
Luckily though, we managed to get there before it was night time. Ugh.
We started the day with the hotel’s buffet breakfast. Since we booked the hotel rooms using Agoda, it was a room only booking with no breakfast included. However, the reception gave us a 1-use-only voucher for the buffet breakfast for only 177 baht.
Given the long day ahead, a buffet breakfast was definitely a very good idea! Usually I would prefer taking native food during overseas trips, but a western styled breakfast would have to do!
On our way out to the main road to flag our first cab, we saw an interesting sight!
Essentially there were these motorbikes with riders wearing a bright orange vest ferrying pillions that seemed much better dressed than the riders. Walking further up the road, we found a queue of such motorbikers. Apparently how it works is that they wait in queue at the exit of the MRT station. People would just walk out and hop onto the back without wearing a helmet and the biker with speed off. What I later found out was that this is a form of ‘individual taxi’ since most of the time you only need to ferry yourself and having an entire taxi for 1 passenger is a waste of money in their opinion. I would definitely love to try this sometime!
Back to the highlight of the day! After the big saga I mentioned above, we finally reached Siam Park City, and boy was it huge! Most of the rides were fairly spaced out, with lots of resting pavilions and benches. Fortunately the weather wasn’t hot and humid though. There weren’t that many rides though. For example, there were only 2 exciting water rides at the water park area, although there was the usual lazy river and wave pools. The amusement park area had more rides, but definitely not Universal Studio standards. For the price of entry at 900bahts, it’s probably still value for money.
At the amusement park side, just 2 rides would probably make it worth your while. The vortex, which is pretty similar to Universal Studio Singapore’s Battlestar Galactica Cylon, and the boomerang, which is eh.. fun.
When we finally decided to leave, we realised we forgot about a big problem: Traffic congestion. Sukhumvit Road and the surrounding roads is probably the most jam packed area in the whole of Bangkok. It took us almost 90 minutes to get back to the hotel, and it took around 40 minutes to drive a 500meter stretch of road near the hotel. So, be warned.
Being tired and grumpy, a good fine dining type dinner was in order!
Baan Khanitha is one of those traditional looking authentic Thai restaurants with a few outlets around Bangkok. Since there was 1 within walking distance from the hotel, we decided on a quick shower before heading out for a late relaxing dinner there.
One interesting dish we tried was a leaf wrap thing-a-ma-jig. I still have no idea what is the name of it. So anybody who knows, please comment below! Basically you are given a tray of ingredients and leaves. You take a leaf, place all the ingredients in it and wrap it up. Then, you pop the entire piece into your mouth. I have to say, it’s definitely more delicious than it looks!
With a full stomach, its time to rest for the day 4 of activities!
Tags: Bangkok, Holiday, Thailand
Posted by Fergus on Aug 2, 2011 in
General
Day 2 of the Bangkok trip is basically the typical holiday itinerary for Bangkok. Tailoring for guys, followed by Pratunam area (or more specifically Platinum Fashion Mall) for shopping, followed by a sumptuous Chinatown sharks fin seafood dinner.
There was quite a few tailors recommended on HardwareZone Forums, namely Boss Avenue, Crown, Pinky and a few others. Since I was nearer to Nana/Asoke area, I decided to try Boss Avenue and Crown, since they were quite well known and easy to find. You could practically see the signboard for Boss Avenue from the BTS! I’ll probably write a longer post about the clothing quality after I have worn it for 2-3 weeks, but at this moment, I quite prefer Boss Avenue’s cutting and cloth type. Although I have to say, Boss Avenue tends to stick with the common and safe cloth selections. So nothing fanciful for sure.
Next is the compulsory visit to Platinum fashion mall in the Pratunam area. Platinum mall is kind of like a bigger version of bugis village, where fledgling blogshops like to get their stock from. The clothes aren’t exactly dirt cheap, but they do have a large range of designs and styles! If you are travelling in an all-guys group, feel free to skip this!
Pratunam is essentially a shopping region. In fact, Pratunam is so popular with Singaporeans, that most of the time, they stay in the hotels around that area, such as Amari watergate or Metz Pratunam. One of the main reason is that Pratunam is actually some distance away from Chit Lom BTS(the nearest BTS), and having a hotel nearby would be helpful if you are lugging 5 plastic bags of purchases.
For those staying in other parts of Bangkok such as Sukhumvit or Silom, the easiest way is probably to take the BTS to Chit Lom, walk pass Central World, across the bridge and there you are. A short little 10 minutes walk.
The last destination for the day is Chinatown for the ‘cheap’ seafood! It’s not exactly ‘cheap’ cheap, since tourist tend to flock to the area. It’s probably how foreigners to Singapore see Boat Quay and Newton hawker center.
I wasn’t exactly keen on sitting along the roadside while paying good money for food, so I managed to find a little ‘hole in the wall’ restaurant that had an air-conditioned upper floor!
I figured that if prices were similar, how much worse can seafood turn out right?
Turns out it was a good choice!
Compared to the overcrowded restaurant next door with people sitting on small stools, there was only 2 other tables occupied in our nice air-conditioned dining area! Food was really good too! The customary claypot of sharksfin, scrambled egg with crabmeat, prawns fried with garlic, black pepper sea bass fillet, beef in oyster sauce and crab vermicelli. Best! Definitely a meal fit for a king. It wasn’t particularly cheap, not that we expected it would be anyway. 1500 baht or around S$60 for 2 pax. It almost felt like an exclusive meal with almost no other guests around.
After dinner, we took a walk around the dark and quiet streets of Chinatown, before we decided it was too spooky and flagged a cab back to civilisation. It’s scary how desolated and uninhabited the place can be after dark. *shudders*
Day 3 would be the highlight of the entire trip! Siam Park City!
Tags: Bangkok, Holiday, Thailand
Posted by Fergus on Aug 1, 2011 in
General
Bangkok is one of the most popular holiday destination for a Singaporean. Largely because there is so much to do! There’s cheap food, cheap massage, great sights, reasonable tailoring, diverse range of shopping options, and even an amusement park (which nearly nobody knows about!)
I have went to Bangkok once before last year, and the plan for this trip is not to repeat destinations.
So the plan this time is
- Chatuchak weekend market
- Siam Paragon
- Tailor shirts
- Platinum mall (yes, the only repeat, because it is unavoidable when you go to Bangkok)
- Chinatown (for seafood)
- Siam Park City (Apparently one of the largest amusement park in South East Asia)
- Baan Khanitha (Some Thai style fine dining restaurant)
- Soi Cowboy
- Mall bangkapi
- Tawanna Square (the supposed substitute for Suan Lum night market after it was closed)
- Baiyoke Sky Hotel (For the Bangkok Sky Restaurant buffet lunch)
Quite a different experience from the previous round, since the previous round was more sight seeing of the temples, and all. We ate a lot, we shopped a lot, we spent a lot.
As usual, I flown in on
Jetstar on the early morning flight. The good thing is that there is now the Suvarnabhumi Airport Rail Link that takes you from the airport to the city in 30 minutes for just 35 baht. Definitely no reason for travellers to take taxis! And this is probably where the BKK train system is more practical than the Singapore’s system.
Their MRT and Airport Link system uses a non-card contactless system. That means, you buy a token from the ticketing machine, tap the chip on the entry like how you would in Singapore, and at the exit point, you drop it into the exit gantry. So, you don’t have to take your single trip EZlink card to the ticketing machine to get back your deposit. Which also means, you don’t have to pay for deposit in the first place! Why isn’t the Singapore system this way?
But then, here’s where Singapore excels. All the transport systems are closely linked! You can change lines at Dhoby Ghaut without even thinking about which operator runs which lines. In Bangkok, you have to get off the Airport Link (at Makkasan in my case), walk 200 meters in the sun, get onto the MRT (at Phetchaburi MRT) and get off 1 stop later at Sukhumvit MRT. And if you had to transit to the BTS, you would have walked 100 meters at Sukhumvit MRT to Asoke BTS, which is literally on top of each other, but are not connected.
The previous time, I stayed at I-Style Trend Hotel (or now known as Citrus Sukhumvit 22). My plan was never to stay in the same hotel, simply because of the abundance of choices in Bangkok, so I stayed in Tai-Pan Hotel this time around.
It’s one of the older hotels, but decent sized room, decent aircon, decent bed, decent toilet and decent location. Nothing to complain for the price. I also wanted something along the BTS and MRT line, so the Sukhumvit-Asoke interchange was definitely a better choice that the Pratunam area hotels.
First stop after dropping off the luggage was the Chatuchak Weekend Market!
As the name says, it is only opened during the weekends. The easiest way to get to Chatuchak is to take the MRT to Kamphaengphet station which is right at the market itself. Alternatively, you can take the BTS to Mo Chit BTS, but it will be a 5 minutes walk away.
Chatuchak weekend market is definitely one of those ‘must go’ places for the new tourist, but to be honest, I didn’t find a lot to buy. Perhaps it is good for the atmosphere, the sights and the quirky people.
Siam Paragon was the next destination, but we didn’t spend much time there. It’s so amazing that I have been to MBK, Central World, Gaysorn, but I haven’t been to Siam discovery/center/paragon.
9th Cafe was the restaurant of choice, since the rest wasn’t particularly unique. A pretty simple meal that was very satisfying!
Of course, when in Bangkok, one must end the day with a massage. In this case, a 90 minutes Thai Massage for 400 baht makes a good day. Till day 2!
Tags: Bangkok, Holiday, Thailand
Posted by Fergus on Jul 19, 2011 in
General 
I was recently on my way to town on a Saturday afternoon, and I tell you, I was in for a shock! The number of cars along the CTE and within Orchard/City Hall area are crazy! I remember quite some time ago on a Saturday evening, I drove from Newton to Suntec. It was actually quite a short route, just round novena, then the back of KK hospital, past little india, then straight on to suntec. Shouldn’t take too long since the train ride from newton to city hall was just 10 minutes or so.
The drive took 45 minutes.
And not only that, the searching for a parking lot at suntec took another 20 minutes.
Madness.
So I was wondering, is there a reason for this?
The first thing that came to mind was that I will definitely take public transport the next time I go to town.
The second thing that came to mind was Off-Peak Cars.
Off-Peak Cars are basically red plate cars that are allowed to drive only between 7pm to 7am on the weekdays and full days on the weekends. In return, they get a form of rebate off the purchase price of the cars. The essence behind this scheme was that they wanted to keep the roads as congestion free as possible during office hours, so that logistics can move fast, couriers can deliver parcels with minimal delays, and people will be able to get to meetings without 1 hour traffic jams like in other regional cities. (Think Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Beijing, Jarkarta) In this aspect, the Off-Peak Car scheme has been very very successful! Now, you only get traffic congestions before 9am, and after 6pm! Inconvenience yes, but pragmatic too.
The problem is you get a flood of cars on weekends! Every normal plated cars and Off-Peak cars will be flooding the roads, particularly to places with shopping malls. (which in the case of Singapore, tend to be congregated together) While I can’t say it is an economically inefficient, it is definitely a bit of an annoyance.
Thus, the concept of On-Peak Cars.
Putting aside people who buy car for the sake of luxury, there are still a group of people that need to have private transport. Typically sales people, marketing people, coordinators who need to go for numerous external meetings, or just self-employed business owners. Some of them might not even want to drive in the first place, if not for their job requirements. Is it possible then to have a scheme to discourage off peak car usage?
Consider a new car category, where a rebate is given for On-Peak Cars, such that it makes it cheaper for businesses to own vehicles, but at the same time, restrict them from using it on weekends. The rebate would probably be lower than that for Off-Peak Cars, since they can drive it on 5 days, but in the nature of cost efficiency in businesses, people might actually take up the idea!
Or maybe, just take the train!
What do you think?
Tags: SocialEconomic, Transport
Posted by Fergus on Jul 17, 2011 in
General 
This week hasn’t been a good week. In fact for the last 2 weeks, my weight loss has stagnated somewhat. I suspect it has to do with the more ‘dined out’ meals, because I had lunch appointments almost everyday. As much as I try to stick to the Slow Carb Diet, there are always slight mis-steps. I managed to stay away from white carbs most of the time though, except for that delicious bowl of beef noodles and XO carrot cake the other day.
I suppose a reason is that I am fairly comfortable with the results now. But definitely, it’s not time to give up yet! Today’s measurement was 1 day early, on Friday morning instead of Saturday morning, because I had a party (with beer) to attend to on Friday night. Ah well. The joys of life.
Anyway, Quick Recap,
Week 0 : 80.6kg, 24.6% BF, total inches of 268.0cm.
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.
Week 5: 75.8kg, 21.7% BF, total inches of 258.2cm.
Week 6: 76.0kg, 21.6% BF, total inches of 256.5cm.
Week 7: 75.7kg, 22.2% BF, total inches of 255.0cm.
In particular waist measurement loss is still going on nicely. I wonder if that means my abdominal visceral fats are still dropping consistently. The main reason for visceral fats gain is basically having large meals at infrequent intervals. Beer belly is an example of this, as beer is typically high in calories (Alcohol is 7 calories per gram, whereas carbohydrates is 4 calories per gram, and worse still, vodka coke is BOTH alcohol and carbohydrates!) and that’s why people who tend to drink a lot have high visceral fat content.
Waist dropped from 90.5cm in week 0 to 83.5cm last week, to 82.5cm this week. Very nice I have to say!
My groupon gym membership only have 1 week remaining since I only got the 1 month promo. Immediately following that, I have heading to Bangkok next weekend for 5 days, where I will NOT be dieting. After that I would be doing another gym routine at the nearby community gyms, before doing a blood test 4 weeks later. I would be doing a comparison of my results from the blood test I did prior to this 3 month experiment.
How’s everybody else doing on this diet?
Tags: 4HourBody, Diet, Fitness
Posted by Fergus on Jul 14, 2011 in
General 
There was quite an interesting open letter on Temasek Review that’s written by a Secondary 4 student griping about the Singapore education system.
Not to take anything away from her, I will only quote the first 2 paragraphs:
I am a Secondary Four student at Nan Chiau High School, and am due to take my O Levels this year. Being shown first-hand what the education system is like, especially from a fairly unflattering point of view, has made me realise much about the education system that I do not like. Of course, I am fully aware that no education system is perfect, yet in the spirit of transformation the PAP has hopefully adopted since the 2011 General Elections, I write this letter to you in the hope that some of these problems with our system will indeed be changed, or if not, at least reviewed.
I speak just for myself, and not for all other graduating students in Singapore when I say this, but I do feel strongly about many methods being employed in secondary schools, especially for graduating classes. For one, I have come to realise the serious emphasis the education system has placed on factual memorisation. Perhaps it is just used in my school, or maybe even a method most autonomous or government schools apply, but based on personal observation, I have come to the conclusion that students are often not taught to ask ‘Why?’
More can be seen from her facebook note post.
I first read it last night, and by that time, it was already on the web for several days (hurhur, in internet time, several days means the news is outdated!) and thus there were already a big chunk of comments. Personally, she reminds me of Nicole Seah: Angsty, and maybe sidelined by the current system.
I commented that, It’s already been said before last time.. In Singapore, students are not taught; they are trained. Trained for performing a certain role/job for the bigger purpose of being a productive worker in Singapore.
Questioning is inefficient and ‘unproductive’. Thus, not encouraged. Which is why a lot of bigger MNCs like to hire Singaporeans to do the dirty work, but not the upper management type of work which requires more innovative thought processes. But that’s the way of life right? Every CEO will have 10 senior management, 100 managers and 1000 trained workers.. So if we (as in parents) are able to teach our children how to think/lead, they can be the top 11, rather than the bottom 1000. Any education system would probably have to cater for the ‘production’ of the bottom 1000 more than the top 11.
Unfortunate truth of life, but I guess that’s the way it is..
I also think informal education and lessons taught by parents plays a big part in developing a person’s character, rather than formal education in school. Things she mentioned about social graces and moral ethics should be values taught by family.
Wait till you read about degree holders that can’t even find skilled jobs in their country! Oh wait, that sounds familiar. I think I used to have a Filipino maid that was a degree holder.
PS: TODAY newspaper had an article that I can relate to when I read this open letter, “When You Shouldn’t Listen to Your Critics“. I think all change owners, management, and directors (and ministers should read.
Tags: SocialEconomic
Posted by Fergus on Jul 11, 2011 in
General In Singapore most young adults usually think that we have a lousy bargain in terms of the ruling PAP government. But the recent Thailand election has been quite an eye opener for some, though being a typical human, people are usually only concerned with matters affecting them.
I found this video, and thought it’s quite an interesting video. Most people always look things from their own point of view. But the things affecting us is affecting the world (Inflation, social unrest, unemployment, asset prices going mad, etc) Take a look at this video from the Malaysian point of view. There are probably a few more worth looking at.. (eg: Greece 40% unemployment for young adults. Spain 20% unemployment, etc)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt224G3c6WE
Perhaps we’re all demanding too much for our own good?
Tags: SocialEconomic, Youtube
Posted by Fergus on Jul 10, 2011 in
General In classical economics, price discrimination is when an identical product is sold for different prices to different customer segments. Of course, theoretically this should not happen, but we see it all the time! A Sweet Talk bubble tea sold at a busy MRT station can be $1.80, whereas a location slightly further away from the same MRT station can be sold for $1.50. A dress sold at a pushcart can cost $20, while the exact same dress (since most pushcarts and blogshops tend to get it from the same manufacturer) can be sold for $16 online.
Likewise, airlines practice price discrimination in order to maximise their profit. People who are willing to book tickets 9 months in advance can get tickets as low as $1 (not including taxes that is), whereas people booking tickets 3 days before a flight would have to pay a premium. However, there is yet another form of price discrimination that people don’t usually know about. The booking of 2 single trips VS a return trip!
Take a look at the fares above. I got the screen shots within 5minutes of each other. At this point of time according to XE, the THB to SGD rate is 0.0403021. So, a return fare is S$246.90, whereas 2 single trips booked is S$114.95 + THB2699.00*0.0403021 (S$108.78)= S$223.73! A savings of S$23.17 with just 5 to 10 minutes of additional effort! Of course, your credit companies might charge you a lousier rate for the exchange, but they would typically not charge more than 1% spread. I use Mustafa Forex as a typical money changer indication, and they are currently quoting 0.040/0.0409. Based on Visa’s rate and a administrative fee rate of 2.5%, I got 0.0416. That means at worst, you would be charged S$112.28 for the BKK to SG single trip. That’s still a saving of S$20 or so.
Likewise for another airline,
A return fare costs S$222.87, whereas 2 single trips costs S$80 + THB3570 * 0.0403021 (S$143.88) = S$223.88. In this case, there is no maximisation strategy within the same airline. But then, you would realise another thing. Technically, you can book a flight from Singapore to Bangkok using the 2nd airline paying S$80, and the flight from Bangkok to Singapore using the 1st airline paying S$108.78. So your final cost is actually only S$188.78 instead of S$246.90 or S$222.87. A total savings of easily S$50+ or almost 24%!
Of course, a person has to be willing to do all this fact finding and comparing in order to find the cheapest route. For those who find it a hassle, then you belong in the customer segmentation that would rather pay the higher fare! And here’s a word of thanks from me to you in helping me subsidize my airfare.
There are also various other mechanisms in the airline industry, such as offering seat selection, flexi fare dates, check in luggage, airfare+accomodation packaging and weekly special offers. All these are basically used as a form of price discrimination, since the budget conscious wouldn’t mind putting in more effort. Of course we cannot forget things like price beat guarantees!
Tags: LifeTips, SocialEconomic
Posted by Fergus on Jul 9, 2011 in
General 
The halfway mark of my 3 month plan!
This week, I tried to dine out almost everyday for lunch. I’m in a sales type job, and not meeting clients for lunch/dinner/coffee isn’t productive for my business! Just take for example yesterday, I had 2 coffee (tea rather) sessions at starbucks, lunch, and dinner out of my usual routine. Although I would do the same, that is, no rice/noodles/white carbs, and more protein. My difficulty would be that most places don’t really serve beans, and I don’t eat any vegetables at all. So it’s almost like an all meat diet, which I think is quite bad for the digestive system and all. So we’ll have to adapt.
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.
Week 5: 75.8kg, 21.7% BF, total inches of 258.2cm.
Week 6: 76.0kg, 21.6% BF, total inches of 256.5cm.
Interestingly, this is the first week my weight didn’t drop. Although body fat percentages and total inches seem to be accelerating downwards. Compared to Week 0 measurements, My waist dropped from 90.5cm to current 83.5cm. That’s 2.7inches off!
I have a feeling last week’s binge had to do with the smaller drop this week. But again, 1 instance of measurement is hardly conclusive in any experiment. I think if I am able to get below 70kg, or below 19% BF, or below 77cm for the waist, I would be very pleased! If it takes till the end of the year, so be it!
Gym routine is still the same. My highest kettlebell swing is now 35rep in the first set. So a slight improvement. I would actually be going bangkok on the 24th July week. So I *may* not follow the diet strictly then. Let’s see how it goes!
I actually did blood tests before I began the diet, and I would be taking blood tests again at the end of the 3 months. So I’ll post the results then. I’m guessing with the food/exercise/supplementation, there should be significant changes in my sugar/cholesterol levels.
Any thoughts on why my results are stagnating? Is it really due to the reduced bean intake? Since I am keeping my meat intake constant, just that probably there is a reduced bean and slightly increased simple carb intake.
Tags: 4HourBody, Diet, Fitness
