Thursday, May 29, 2008

Green Tea for Health Benefits



I got a power point slide show from a friend's email. It's regarding the benefits of drinking green tea. For me, I seldom drink tea. I will take green tea only when I dine in Japanese restaurant. I bought a packet of green tea quite some time ago, but was never make it into hot drinks. Just keep it in the kitchen permanently. ;P

The slide show is about "25 Reasons Why You Should Start Drinking GreenTea Now". Ok, let's see:

1. Green Tea and Cancer

Green tea helps reduce the risk of cancer. The antioxidant in green tea is 100 times more effective than vitamin C and 25 times better than vitamin E.This helps your body at protecting cells from damage believed to be linked to cancer.

2. Green Tea and Heart Disease

Green tea helps prevent heart disease and stroke by lowering the level of cholesterol. Even after the heart attack, it prevents cell deaths and speeds up the recovery of heart cells.

3. Green Tea and Anti-Aging

Green tea contains antioxidant that is known as polyphenols which fight against free radicals. It helps you fight against aging and promotes longevity.

4. Green Tea and Weight Loss

Green tea helps with your body weight loss. Green tea burns fat and boosts your metabolism rate naturally. It can help you burn up to 70 calories in just one day. That translates to 7 pounds in one year.

5. Green Tea and Skin

Antioxidant in green tea protects our skin from the harmful effects of free radicals, which cause wrinkling and skin aging. Green tea also helps fight against skin cancer.

6. Green Tea and Arthritis

Green tea can help prevent and reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis. It has benefit for your health as it protects the cartilage by blocking the enzyme that destroys cartilage.

7. Green Tea and Bones

The key to this is high fluoride content found in green tea. It helps keep your bones strong. If you drink green tea every day, this will help you preserve your bone density.

8. Green Tea and Cholesterol

Green tea can help lower cholesterol level. It also improves the ratio of good cholesterol to bad cholesterol, by reducing bad cholesterol level.

9. Green Tea and Obesity

Green tea prevents obesity by stopping the movement of glucose in fat cells. If you are on a healthy diet, exercise regularly and drink green tea, it is unlikely you'll be obese.

10. Green Tea and Diabetes
Green tea improves lipid and glucose metabolisms, prevents sharp increases in blood sugar level, and balances your metabolism rate.

11. Green Tea and Alzheimer's

Green tea helps boost your memory.And although there's no cure for Alzheimer's, it helps slow the process of reduced acetylcholine in the brain, which leads to Alzheimer's.

12. Green Tea and Parkinson's

Antioxidants in green tea helps prevent against cell damage in the brain, which could cause Parkinson's. People drinking green tea also are less likely to progress with Parkinson's.

13. Green Tea and Liver Disease

Green tea helps prevent transplant failure in people with liver failure. Researches showed that green tea destroys harmful free radicals in fatty livers.

14. Green Tea and High Blood Pressure

Green tea helps prevent high blood pressure. Drinking green tea helps keep your blood pressure down by repressing angiotensin, which leads to high blood pressure.

15. Green Tea and Food Poisoning

Catechin found in green tea can kill bacteria which causes food poisoning and kills the toxins produced by those bacteria.

16. Green Tea and Blood Sugar

Blood sugar tends to increase with age, but polyphenols and polysaccharides in green tea help lower your blood sugar level.

17. Green Tea and Immunity

Polyphenols and flavenoids found in green tea help boost your immune system, making your health stronger in fighting against infections.

18. Green Tea and Cold and Flu

Green tea prevents you from getting a cold or flu. Vitamin C in green tea helps you treat the flu and the common cold.

19. Green Tea and Asthma

Theophylline in green tea relaxes the muscles which support the bronchial tubes, reducing the severity of asthma.

20. Green Tea and Ear Infection

Green tea helps with ear infection problem. For natural ear cleaning, soak a cotton ball in green tea and clean the infected ear.

21. Green Tea and Herpes

Green tea increases the effectiveness of topical interferon treatment of herpes. First green tea compress is applied, and then let the skin dry before the interferon treatment.

22. Green Tea and Tooth Decay

Green tea destroys bacteria and viruses that cause many dental diseases. It also slows the growth of bacteria which leads to bad breath.

23. Green Tea and Stress

L-theanine, which is a kind of amino acids in green tea, can help relieve stress and anxiety.

24. Green Tea and Allergies

EGCG found in green tea relieves allergies. So, if you have allergies, you should really consider drinking green tea.

25. Green Tea and HIV

Scientists in Japan have found that EGCG (Epigallocatechin Gallate) in green tea can stop HIV from binding to healthy immune cells. What this means is that green tea can help stop the HIV virus from spreading.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Botanical Garden, Bukit Tinggi

Here are some plant photos for sharing. It's taken during our trip to Botanical Garden, Bukit Tinggi.

See, colourful flowers are blooming. This is how the greenery world is created. Let's enjoy the gift from the earth.


Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Jesus phone arrive in our family

Finally, after all the hype from the press, and non-stop ogling at the iPhone, we finally get one ourselves! Yes, the one and only iPhone, THE Jesus phone.

The initial response when we got hold of the unit is, Wow! The phone is fantastic, fluid and really captivating. We couldn't take our eyes off the screen and almost danced around with it screaming hallelujah! We tried out every thing possible with the phone, and the more we tried the more we are attracted to it, this baby is really something!

We also try to use our big fat fingers to poke on the screen, and typing messages. Initially we face some difficulties with it, entering the wrong letters but as Steve Jobs said we should trust it...so after some practice and trusting it (try to ignore minor mistakes), the phone software corrected the words magically and we are able to compose an email and chatting away using the phone.

Apart from that, the jail-broken iPhone allow us to install application with ease, thanks to the Installer app. You can find many types of softwares to download using the Installer app and before you know it we already fill up more than 2 pages of menu worth of applications.

The iPod works as great as before and the safari web browser is a bliss. We can now check our blog and even write a post using the device.

Overall experience is great and no complaints so far. We hope that Apple will continue to churn out more innovative products in the future.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Sailing A Life Journey



'Life' is a 'visionary journey'. Sailing is good analog explaining a life journey. As you sail your ship, through the sea, it will continue its journey till it reached the destination set for it.

Everyone need to go through their life journey with strength and confidence. This can only be attained by identifying their destination.

To end of your journey, you must determine your destination and choose the right path. Most people knew their destination but failed to choose the right path. This happened if there's no proper guidance.

Or even maybe they as yet to identify 'new island' in their life. In other words, they still at 'old island' to reach their dream destination.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

'Life Architect' & 'Life Engineer'



Do you realise that we play our role as 'architect' and 'engineer' in our life? We shape our own future. We are the planner (architect) and builder (engineer) of our own life. We should only blame ourselves if something went wrong with our life. Nobody can force us to do something that we do not like. Learn to be a skillful 'architect' and learn to be an experienced 'engineer'.

Monday, May 19, 2008

In Laws Story



Reading about new kid on the blog's recent post on MIL, making me wanna write one for my situation.

Both FIL and MIL are educated persons. They have 3 sons. Hubby's eldest brother is holding Australian PR and stay there permanently with his wife. 2nd BIL is also a married guy who is also successful in his career. Both of them is quite supportive. Hubby is the youngest in the family like me. Our age are very far behind our siblings. Parents in laws have their pension to cover for their own expenses, so money wise, is not a burden. All siblings help up the expenses for MIL since she was diagnosed with stroke back in March. She's now still undergoing physio and we observe an impressive improvement on her left body movement.

My relationship with MIL is not so bad. She treats me like her own daughter. She always talk to me about her life. When I was pregnant, she bought me few maternity wears, and even when I lost my baby, parent in laws were there to support me and hubby. I'm lucky to have MIL and grandma in law to take care of me during my confinement.

Hubby and I stay in a free hold landed property at Penang island which is fully paid off by FIL. It's a kind of blessing from FIL when we got married. I'm fortunate cuz FIL & MIL do not have daughter. So, the situation is not so complicated. I don't have sister in law to comment a lot in front of parents in laws. It saves me from unnecessary misunderstanding. Hmm...so based on the above I shall not have any bad experience with FIL & MIL isn' it? No, still there is.

I don't have as much as issues with my in laws compared to new kid. The only problem is from FIL. He tends to control his sons, especially his youngest son, my hubby. He used to instruct hubby to do this and that, to rush here and there without asking our opinion. He always force us to follow his words without considering our thoughts. We have been dedicate our weekends to parents in laws lately, but still FIL keeps on calling us on daily basis and repeating the same words over and over. I'm damn tired with his order. I'm a Leo, I don't like to be controlled by other people. I really wish FIL can spend some time sitting down with us and listening to us. We are human beings, and we have our rights to do things in our own way. And we need to be respected too. Only 2 way communication is able to result a win-win situation.

That's the only problem I encountered so far. May be my case is not that bad. Or may be you think that I'm so lucky since I have that little bit of problem with my in laws. Anyway, I will try to tolerate FIL's behaviour, but I'm still afraid I will burst out one day.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Colmar Tropicale



While we were on the way to Colmar Tropicale, it was like we were traveling in the arms of nature. It really make ones relaxed. The sky was clear and the air was refreshing. We were totally enjoyed the beauty of nature. Green scenery greeted our eyes all along the way up to the hill.



This is the first building we saw. It's still work in progress palace-like building.




Here we come, Colmar Tropicale, the France Village located at Bukit Tinggi, which is surrounded by lush tropical forest land. It's a French-themed resort inspired by the original Colmar Village in Alsace, France. You will definately fall in love with the artful-designed buildings. It consists of a collection of buildings from a northeastern village in France dating back to the 16th Century.





Here's the clock tower. You can either climb up to the top by steps or by lift.


And this is the water fountain.




The garden.


The black swan.


and the white swan.

I would say it's nice environment for a short break.

Top 10 Most Stylish Esentials

Just watched the Top 25 Most Stylish Essentials on E! Channel, Astro. As a lady, I understand sexy strapping shoes, watches, pearls, mini skirts/shorts, cell phones, handbags can be our sexy accessories or item. However, I'm shocked that miniature dogs and babies also become the top 25 stylish essentials. Wow, now a days holding baby and mini dog has become a fashion! Oh, I'm so out dated!

Let's take a glance on the top 10:

Top 1: The little black dress. It's classic, young and fun. No matter what personality you are, most ladies look great in their little black dress.



Top 2: Perfect Designer Jeans. Ladies with "0" body fat, at around 100 pounds look great in designer jeans. It's a trendy fashion for the thin ones.


Top 3: Sunglasses. It keeps you a really fashion ready look when you are not make-up or when you have puffy eyes ;P. The bigger, the better provided the frame fits your face.



Top 4: Spanx. It's designed to give you a slim and shapely appearance. The result is amazing!



Top 5: The trench coat. But for us in Malaysia, we seldom have it in our closet.



Top 6: T-Shirts. Nothing to say about, most of us have alot.




Top 7: Ballet Flats. Not only comfortable, but also fashionable.



Top 8: The push-up bras.To make you look sexy in low cut top wear.




Top 9: Sexy Lingeries.For your seductive look, hehe.


Top 10: Bling Bling. *Bling Bling* earings, *Bling Bling* high heels shoes, *Bling Bling* rings, *Bling Bling* bracelet, *Bling Bling* belt, *Bling Bling* hair pin and even *Bling Bling* teeth haha. Hollywood superstars afford to spend multi-millions on diamonds. Jealous, jealous... cuz I only afford to own *Bling Bling* stone accessories nia. :(


Not only Hollywood stars can be so stylish, so can you.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Are You a Durian Lover?


Most Malaysian love durians, but not me. All my family members like durians. They eat it with steamed rice as a meal, except me. I eat durians too, but not to their extend. I'm quite particular in eating durians. I choose to eat those durians with bitter taste. To me, bitter taste durian is only considered as durian, haha funny ler. My brother always perli me to dip durian into Panadol soluble to transform sweety taste durian into bitter taste . Oh, he is so bad huh? Sob, sob. :(

I remember there's once, my brother's friend sub his durian farm to my brother. He spent few thousand dollars just to temporally take over the farm during durian season. He did not distribute the durians, but bring back all the durians for the family members. Oh, you can see, he loves durian more than money. Besides, my SIL, his wife, used to select suitable time to conceive a baby, so that she could eat durians during her confinement. Believe it or not, my niece and nephews were born in durian seasons. SIL's calculation is extremely perfect. Kudos!

Besides, I have a wonderful mama who is an expert in making durian ice. It's super yummylicious. I love durian ice much more than durian. Everytime, mama will peel off the durian flesh, mix it with sugar and some water, then keep stiring the mixture for a long time before pouring it into a container to keep in the freezer. Mouth watering now, thinking of the durian ice. Got to ask mama to make some in this durian season. :P

Painkillers Cause Misscarriage

Info from Clean Air Council :

Women who take ibuprofen, aspirin and other similar painkillers around the time of conception may have an increased risk of miscarriage, according to a new study.

Researchers at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco and South San Francisco interviewed 1,055 women who had recently gotten a positive pregnancy test, 75 of whom reported taking aspirin, ibuprofen (such as Advil or Motrin) or naproxen (such as Naprosyn) since their last menstrual cycle. Of those, 24 percent miscarried by their 20th week, versus a miscarriage rate of 15 percent in the women who didn't take the drugs. The study was published in Friday's edition of the British Medical Journal.

The Kaiser study adds support to an earlier Danish study that also found a link between the drugs and pregnancy loss. The March of Dimes already advises against aspirin and related drugs during pregnancy except when suggested by a doctor.

The theory is that the drugs cut down on the production of prostaglandins, hormone-like substances involved in pain signaling that are also needed for an embryo to successfully take hold in the uterus, according to Dr. De-Kun Li, a Kaiser epidemiologist in Oakland and the study's lead author.

While raising a caution flag over painkillers with ibuprofen and aspirin, Li said there appears to be no association between the use of Tylenol and other acetaminophen-based painkillers and subsequent miscarriages. Acetaminophen-based painkillers only block prostaglandins in the central nervous system, not in the uterus, Li said.
In 2001, Danish researchers also reported finding an association between prescriptions for aspirin, naproxen and ibuprofen and a greater risk of pregnancy loss in a group of women who had been hospitalized for miscarriage.

Dr. Alan Decherney, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA, said he was surprised by the latest findings, because many doctors now prescribe aspirin to protect against miscarriage in women who have a specific clotting abnormality that interferes with embryo development.
Decherney said the results suggest patients who don't have that condition may want to be cautious about using aspirin or ibuprofen in the early part of their first trimester. But he also said that more research is needed before a firm recommendation could be made.

Dr. Victor Fujimoto, director of the in vitro fertilization program at UCSF, prescribes low-dose aspirin for women who have miscarried in the past or who are taking part in IVF because studies have shown it actually increases the rate of successful conception. He said the small number of women in the study who took aspirin makes it hard to draw firm conclusions, but that the 81- milligram tablets he recommends aren't likely to trigger problems.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

I'm Sad...



Yesterday, hubby and I visited our relatives in a small village. They have a sixth month old baby boy. He's cute, fair, and chubby. He's so happy and excited seeing me. In fact, this is only the first time I meet up with this baby. Without thinking much, I offered to hold him in my arms. He's playful, try to touch me, smiling to me and play with me. I was happy holding this baby, but deep inside my heart, I was crying. Nobody knew that I was thinking of my baby boy again...Holding people's baby, but thinking about my own lost baby.

On the way back, I couldn't control my tears anymore. I cried quietly in the car. Initially, I thought I have walked out from the past, but I'm wrong. If everything's fine, I will deliver my baby boy in mid of June. But now, I lost him. I've lost our flesh and blood, and now, I still missing him...very much indeed.

I think New Kid On the Blog understand my feeling the most, don't you?

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Rabbit Park @ Bukit Tinggi

The Rabbit Park is one of the places of interest at Bukit Tinggi. Entrance fee is RM6 per person. Here, what you can see is big fat rabbits. It made me think of the cute & naughty rabbits that I blogged earlier in My Little Cottage.
You can touch the rabbits here. They won't hop away. They will stay there and let you touch them. I enjoyed touching their soft fur. Let's see the photo shots of those rabbits.


This is the first rabbit that we saw. Initially it was quite playful. It kept hopping for a while, and then stay quietly enjoying people touching it.






This brown rabbit looks a bit lazy.


This one must be thirsty, it's drinking some water.


And this one licking its fur like a cat. Cute ler... ;P




These 2 little puppies were woke up by us from their sweet dreams. They are in the area of the cages keeping those baby rabbits.
Besides rabbit, you can also take a donkey ride at Rabbit Park. But, I will not want to try coz the donkeys are quite dirty and smelly.


See the pity look of the donkey. It came to us when we went near the pen.



There's also a group of deers beside the donkey pen.



See, this deer is posing for us to take its photo. So clever!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Antioxidants and the Oxygen Free Radical

If you want to understand the 'free radical' precisely, below is the explanation. Good health knowledge worth sharing. Information from John R. Pfeifer, M.D.Chairman, Medical Advisory Board. It's published in E-Club, Synergy Worldwide Malaysia.

To understand antioxidants, we must first understand the oxygen free radical.

A normal oxygen molecule has a proton nucleus with paired electrons orbiting around the nucleus. An oxygen free radical is an unstable oxygen molecule which results when one of the orbiting electrons is lost from orbit. On a global basis, when the oxygen is metabolized in the body, 2% of the oxygen molecules lose an orbiting electron. The loss of one electron from the pair of orbiting electrons crates electro magnetic instability which attracts another electron from an adjacent intact molecule.

The previously unstable molecule is now stable, but the molecule which suffered the loss of the stolen electron is now an unstable new free radical and it will capture still another electron. The original free radical which suffered an electron loss can create a chain reaction of 10,000 new free radicals. This unstable molecular environment, with rapid electron transfer (each in a billionth of a second) is called oxidation. Halliwell and Gutteridge’s textbook states that 100 diseases in the human body may occur from the oxidative process. For example, it may cause or accelerate cancer, arteriosclerosis and most of the degenerative diseases of the nervous system.

At the cellular level, oxygen is metabolized within the mitochondria to create cellular energy; this energy we know as life energy. Oxygen free radicals attack this most basic function. Since each new free radical creates a chain reaction of 10,000 free radicals and we have trillions of cells in the body, you do the math! The number is beyond our ability to compute, and the damage can negatively affect your health.

Dr. Ken Cooper (“The Antioxidant Revolution”) said, “No part of your body is sheltered from the destructive assaults of these molecular outlaws, which are known as free radicals. The bombardment that your system is sustaining every single day can be devastating. In fast, many experts believe that free radicals pose one of the greatest single threats to our public health, as we approach the brave new world of the 21st century.”

Dr. Cooper goes on to list the lethal enemies of your health and life. Research clearly shows the links between free radicals and the following:

1. Heart and blood vessel disease. Free radicals damage LDL, which then causes blood vessel obstruction by cholesterol plaques.
2. Cancer may be caused or accelerated.
3. Cataracts.
4. Premature aging may occur as free radicals attack DNA and longevity genes.
5. Nervous system, eg. Parkinson’s disease.

All free radicals are not harmful. The stable oxygen molecule is essential to sustaining life. Even some unstable oxygen molecules work to assist the body in fighting inflammation as they kill bacteria selectively. Stable oxygen molecules also control the tone of smooth muscle which regulates the function of internal organs and blood vessels.

Antioxidants
The key to the effective and safe operation of certain types of free radicals is balance. These delicately balanced mechanisms frequently get out of balance because of new excess free radicals. To correct imbalance, the human body produces free radical scavengers known as endogenous (internal) antioxidants which can neutralize extra free radicals and help prevent damage in the body. There are also exogenous (external) antioxidants taken in from outside of the body to bolster our defenses against excessive numbers of free radicals.

These exogenous antioxidants include Vitamin C, Vitamin E and betacarotene. More recently, powerful antioxidants called bioflavonoids were found in brightly colored fruits and vegetables. Bioflavonoids are the most powerful antioxidants yet discovered.

We initially viewed these individual antioxidants as if they functioned alone. They do not! In fact, we now know that many antioxidants function synergistically and become much more powerful in neutralizing free radicals when they work together.

First, the free radical is engulfed by the antioxidant and begins the neutralization of the free radical. In so doing, the attacking antioxidant itself becomes a weak free radical. This complex is then engulfed by yet another antioxidant to complete the detoxification of the free radicals which may require several antioxidants to complete the process.

Our water is a toxic world, with polluted air and water. A great deal of the success in neutralizing free radicals is to recognize the myriad of external toxins which we are exposed to daily: you must go beyond the additive antioxidants, modify your environment and diet and exercise to give nature its best chance to protect you.

Above all, also avoid the worst of the external toxins:

1. Tobacco. It is the most deadly of all toxins.
2. Alcohol. As your nervous system is a key attack point for free radicals, minimize your exposure to alcohol. It destroys nerve cells and they cannot regenerate.
3. Obesity. This is a deadly toxin all by itself.
4. Not exercising. Exercising is one of the best protectors of your health.

It is your world and your body! Take your antioxidants every day (twice a day) and protect yourself from your toxic environment with good habits.

Monday, May 5, 2008

One Night Stay At Colmar Tropicale



Hey! We are back from a short break at Bukit Tinggi. We enjoyed the trip very much. The stay at Colmar Tropicale was really relaxing. Initially we booked a value package for superior room with breakfast, dinner, and all the entrance ticket included. But when we got there, the superior room was fully occupied, so they upgrade our room to 1 bedroom suite.

Colmar Tropicale is a French-themed resort modelled over the Colmar Village in Alsace, France. It retains the authenicity of the French architecture.



Here's the building of the suite that we stayed in.


Its name, Fuchsia.


The bedroom with balcony.


The bathroom.


The living room.


The dining room.


The kitchen.


And the nice view from the balcony.