Chinese New Year 2014

CNY in photos!

Eve of CNY - yearly tradition of reunion dinner at my place, before we headed over to Jason's granny's for 2nd round!

初一 after CNY Mass at St Teresa's Church.

Dress: Klarra

Bag & Shoes: Zara

Necklace: Topshop

Like every year, the first day ends at my place with all these yummy food from my hometown!

My lovely (part of the) family

初二

Dress: Love, Bonito

Clutch: BCBG Maxazria

Shoes: ASOS

初三

Top & Skirt: Love, Bonito

Clutch & Shoes: ASOS

XOXO

Health & Fitness - Arms Training

I usually do not train my arms on its own, I couple my arms training with deadlifts and sometimes I skip doing arms and ended up doing abs, or I'd go very easy on the arms training. Truth is, you are actually working on your arms during other body part trainings, particularly your biceps as they are needed in most workouts. Having said that, I know many ladies out there are very concerned about getting rid of their "bye-bye" arms and had requests to advise on the arms training that we do so here goes, some of the arms workouts that we do.

We need to work on both biceps and triceps so there will be no imbalance of strength on either muscle group. It doesn't really matter which you start with, as long you try your best to cover both muscles during your arms training, it should suffice.

I will usually start with triceps as my triceps are weaker. What Jason is doing in the video: Triceps rope pushdown.

Dumbbell overhead Triceps extensions (P.S: Apologies, I do not have a video or photo of us doing the other triceps workouts).

You can also try dips as well as bench dips.

Dips

Bench dips

Next to biceps, bicep curls and hammer curls, that simple!

Dumbbell bicep curls

Dumbbell Hammer curls

Hammer curls using Tricep bar/Hammer curl bar

Take your pick, and enjoy the videos! So sorry but I could not upsize the videos. We had the honour to attend Julien Fournie for Love, Bonito show last Saturday at FIDE Fashion Week. Thank you so much Love, Bonito for the invitation! It was such an amazing experience as we had never attended any fashion event, let alone fashion show. The Julien Fournie for Love, Bonito show marks the end of FIDE Fashion Week and was a perfect finale!

My outfit for the night

Have a great week ahead everyone!!

Health & Fitness - My progress so far

It's been a long journey from week 0 since I started IF (Intermittent Fasting). Here's a quick recap, basically IF (also commonly known as Intermittent feeding) is a pattern of eating that alternates fasting and non-fasting. So basically, you eat for 6-8 hours (8-9 hours in my case), and then you fast for the remaining 15-16 hours, which includes sleeping time. Some of the IF practitioners will do a complete fasting, drinking just water; some just water, black coffee and black tea. As for me, I take in anything liquid; in other words, I fast from solid foods during my fasting hours, simply because I want to avoid putting my body into catabolic state (muscle breakdown state) and I HATE the feeling of starvation. I will tremble and feel faint when starvation kicks in, which is so frustrating and unhealthy.

During the first few weeks, I made my body go through stricter fasting. By the 8th hour sharply, I stopped all solid food. I only drink juices and water, avoided coffee and tea. Honestly, by about 9pm every night I would start to tremble and feel faint. I endured for about 5-6 weeks, I worked out harder, increased my training frequency and rested very little as I was training 7 days a week, some days twice a day. I was literally pushing my body to its limits. VERY BAD!

On week 6, I finally took a day off from training and on one particular day, I took an 11 hours sleep which made me feel so good after. I see gains in my trainings during that week and I never felt so refreshed since I started IF. Unfortunately, ever sine week 6, because I was more lenient with myself, I went a little overboard and let myself have more than what I should.

Enough talking (writing), I'll let the photos prove whether I made any progress.

Week 0

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5 

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Unfortunately, I did not see much progress (LOL)! But you cannot just judge from my abs right? Generally I feel younger (my ability to resist and handle stress improves), I snack less and I feel stronger during training (managed a few new PRs during this 9 weeks). I have evidence to show that I not only feel younger but am really younger now (my body age I meant), and I've gotten people who meet me for the first time saying I look like a 21-22 years old (HURHUR). The most exaggerated comment was from this lady in SK gym, who asked if I'm a JC kid (Jason said it should feel more like an insult. HAHA). I took my body analysis from a scale that Nic bought and my body age is actually 20! WOOOOTS I get to celebrate SWEET 21 again next year!!

Okay, so I have 1.5 weeks more to go on IF and then I'll be practicing IF on alternate days and maybe try some other forms of diet (fret not, I'll definitely share!)

Here's what I've been up to:

We have been gym-hopping the past few weeks! 

Gymm Boxx XL with the Js

Edric is back! Stronger than ever!

Us at The Gym Nation!

OOTD with love bonito's Atherley top and a casual maxi skirt from allyfashion, with my long-forgotten toms!

Another old top from love bonito, really love the back!

I have been preparing for something exciting this weekend so stay tuned and follow me on Instagram, @limaranagustina if you haven't, because I will be updating real-time! Thank you for the support everybody and have a great Thursday ahead! :)