Why do We Grow Sideways as we grow Older?

I've always wondered why skinny children grow up to be adults that are well filled out.

While in college or varsity, young people still have good figures, both male and female. However, when they move into the next phase, that is, their working life, this is where changes take place.

Most will get married, build homes and raise families. This is the phase where both the men and women begin to put on weight. The women, arguably, put on weight because they have become mothers.

It is not easy to lose the weight put on during pregnancy and during the confinement period when the elders insist that you have a special diet, to get back your strength and you are not allowed to do anything except to relax and rest. It is safe to say that with each pregnancy a woman gains more and more weight.

What about the guys? Why do they develop that unsightly paunch? Today I saw a man in the street, talking animatedly on his cellphone, with lots of hand gestures. His profile was that of a full-term mother-to-be.

How did he get to this state? Is it his wife's cooking? Is it the sedentary life style of today? I don't think he will be able to shed that pot belly.

Most of us tend to be overweight. Blessed are those with high metabolic rates that burn away the calories and keep them in shape. Those of us who are overweight are at health risks. A plethora of diseases headed by diabetes and its attendant complications await overweight people.

Then there is what people term as middle-age spread. This is to say that as we age, our hormones go a bit haywire and we begin to grow sideways. Even those who are not married, will lose their svelte figures, and the guys will also develop a pot belly.

Is there anyway to prevent this?

Yes, I believe so. It's called a change in lifestyle. We need to change our habits, eating habits, sedentary habits, and whatever it is that makes us put on weight. We need to lose the fat, especially abdominal fat.

Watching what we eat and eating the right kind of food, when to eat, when to sleep, and regular exercise will keep the excess pounds away.

To learn more about weight loss please feel free to visit my blog at http://peggy-chan/blog.

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Old is Gold

Two days ago I received a telephone call from an old classmate asking me out for lunch. It came as a surprise in a way because I hadn't been expecting her call.

We had been classmates since Form 1 ( when we were twelve years old ). I had joined the school after my parents re-located from a small town to Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia.

It was a big change, in terms of language and school culture. The people in Kuala Lumpur mainly spoke in a dialect that I didn't know and the school was a big one compared to the one that I came from. It wasn't easy trying to make new friends especially when you don't speak the main dialect and many of the girls had been together since their elementary school days.

However I was lucky to have a very nice girl who took me under her wing. She taught me to speak the dialect and to use chopsticks. Who would believe it, me, a Chinese girl not knowing how to hold a pair of chopsticks. The sticks musn't cross when you are using them to pick up your food.

I come from a large family of ten siblings so the easiest way for us to eat was by using the spoon. Mum just gave each of us a spoon ever since we were old enough to feed ourselves and that was the way it had always been. So I didn't know how to use chopsticks. Of course I got laughed at when eating at the school canteen during the recess time. Anyway I soon got the hang of it, thanks to my older friend.

I was in the same class as this lady who invited me for lunch. She came to fetch me and said that having lunch together was the best way of catching up. It's true as one can't really talk when one is in a big group.

So over a simple lunch in an upmarket restaurant, she told me of the years since we left school. She was a high-flying career woman in the private sector involved with private tertiary education. Her three sons are all grown up with their own families and she was widowed more than a decade ago. However she has adjusted to being single once more and she's not interested in a second marriage.

We exchanged news about what we knew of our other classmates, some of whom have already left this world. Time flies. It did not seem so long ago that we were in school, playing pranks on other classmates and doing whatever mischief that seemed peculiar to naughty girls. I remember pulling the pigtails of a classmate, who is now a medical doctor. She was a school prefect and she was always asking me to toe the line, often chasing me literally in the school grounds! I have not seen her since we left school and I would dearly love to see her again.

It is quite fascinating that although we have left school for such a long time and have never met in the intervening years until very lately, it was quite easy to pick up from where we had left off.

Of course the years have played havoc with our looks, our size and our health. She used to be on the plump side but having fallen prey to age-related illnesses, she is now much thinner. Losing weight has had a better effect on her health and I must look to lose some weight too.

The holiday season has wreaked havoc as the goodies have been too much to resist.The older we get, the more sedentary our lifestyle is. We concurred that each day is different, with energy levels decreasing by the day. The joyously wild days of youth are now a distant memory.

Most of our talk centered around people we know and our present circumstances. Old friendships can be revived and there is nothing like an old friend to share the nostalgic memories of yesteryears, when we were in our heydays although we had been rivals to a certain extent.

I'm very blessed in that I have a few old friends who go a long way back and who are truly the "old is gold" kind, who will not hesitate to help when the need arises. These friends share and care. We have shared our joys and our sorrows; we were there for one another. Such friends are few and far in between but they will always be friends forever.

Fair weather friends come and go but the "old is gold" stay close.

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We are all the Same, yet Different

I was looking at the people in the departure lounge. Some were concentrating on their books, a few hidden behind newspapers, some texting on their cellphones,a few talking on their phones, a few children running about, eyed by anxious parents and others engaged in conversation. They were all of different races and nationalities.

Tourists were easily spotted as they were generally caucasians. The Asians were a bit more difficult to identify. However, snippets of their conversation identified their nationality.

No matter what color or what language they speak, they are all human beings, with red blood in their bodies, with the same concern for their offspring, with similar hopes of a good life for themselves and their own.

Only their stations in life differ. It is an accident of birth, whether you are born into a life that brings you the benefits not enjoyed by those born in the slums. It is also an accident of birth that sees you either living in disaster-prone countries or elsewhere in places that appear to be blessed by God.

A farmer toiling to eke a living from the land, an investment banker who works in air-conditioned comfort, a housewife who tries her best for her family....they all have the same aspiratons. To have a better life for their family. The degree of comfort differs.

I think that we all try to do good while in this life, to help those in need and to be kind. However, I need to qualify this because I just found out that there are people who are unkind and downright bad because they poisoned the stray dogs that have been coming to my brother's place for food. He used to feed the starving eight strays that were loitering in the neighbourhood and they looked forward to the evening meal that my humane brother gave them without fail every day after he returns from work. A couple of weeks ago he discovered that only two dogs came for their meals and he couldn't locate the rest no matter where he looked.

A few days ago his neighbour mentioned a foul odor emanating from the hill closeby. He went to investigate and found the rotting carcasses of the stray dogs he used to feed. They had obviously been poisoned.

No one, not even dogs, deserve to die this way.... being poisoned. It is a very agonising slow death. Only people who are heartless without any humanity would treat animals this way. May their sins find them out one day.

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