To elaborate on progress, I’m visibly leaner and have gained some good amount of muscle. My tummy is perfectly flat again (although that 6-pack still eludes me!). Though weight isn’t my primary concern, just for the record I started at 80 kilos and I now weigh 77.5 kilos. My clothes fit a lot better as I’ve gone down one, maybe two waist sizes.

My diet consists mainly of egg whites, wholemeal bread, milk, yoghurt, cheese slices, tuna, ham and green leafy veggies. I have cut down on sugary drinks almost completely and try to stick to drinking plain water most of the time. I still enjoy my favourite food (Nasi Lemak!!!) on weekends!

Supplements that I take:

• Whey Protein Powder - Strength and recovery
• Creatine Monohydrate Powder - Muscle strength and endurance
• Nutrex Lipo6 - Thermogenic, gives energy and increases metabolism
• Glucosamine - For joint recovery
• Fish Oil - For joint and overall health and well being
• Multi-vitamins - Overall health and well being

The greatest challenge remains getting at least 8 hours of sleep every night! I work at pretty odd hours so it’s hard to keep a proper sleep schedule.

First impressions… I could see that the place is visibly older than the one in Sunway Pyramid especially the equipment (not to mention most of the people there too!). The place is huge! Way bigger than the Pyramid branch. There was a pool on the terrace outside which I might try out someday.

The equipment, albeit appearing older didn’t bother me as they were in order and functioned well. The shower, locker rooms and everything else was about the same. I definitely wouldn’t mind coming here again but my preference still goes to the Pyramid branch!

w00t!

Well the main reason I joined was because my current employer has a very attractive corporate rate deal with them that I benefit on. I basically got the Platinum membership for what I call, a steal! The other reason was because, I just can’t bear to keep up an unhealthy lifestyle, having being active in a gym before. Seriously, it really isn’t fun to look at the mirror day by day to see that you’re not as lean anymore.

I happen to frequent the one in Sunway Pyramid as it’s on the way home from work. After thoroughly checking out the gym on my first day, I was totally wow-ed! I was astonished by the space, the equipment, the layout, the interior design and the facilities of the gym. Starkly better compared to a particular FF branch that I used to frequent. Since we’re on the topic, you can check out Mun’s detailed review on the branch in his blog.

My first week was intense. I formulated a simple workout plan that focuses more on cardio at the moment but at the same time careful to include the necessary weight training exercises. I was then hitting it 4 days straight with one rest day in between. In the aftermath, I had severe DOMS that weekend. So bad to the point that motion of my arms were very restrictive and any attempts to fight it resulted in very dull muscle pain, but in the name of progress, it’s all good!

It’s been over a week since my first day as I write this and I have lost 1lb since! Having slightly bumped the intensity of my workout this week (as I plan to do every week), I would expect slightly better progress in the coming weeks which should sum up to about 4 lbs or roughly 1.8 kilos in a month, which sounds to me like a pretty reasonable milestone. Eventually I’m gonna have to stop relying on the scale but on the mirror instead. As muscles weigh more than fat, it may offset the weight lost through fat-loss.

Of course, diet plays a very important role to, but I guess I will elaborate more on this in a later post.

So for months later I never bothered about getting a new gym membership again until recently where my current employer had arranged for a special corporate rate plus a nice 50% membership fee subsidy with CF. I took up on the offer immediately as it was literally a steal!

Now after (more than) half a year missing my gym sessions, I realised that I was in serious need of new gym equipment. My old, stained and tattered Nike Shox served me rather well for the past 3 years but I never really liked it anyway. It was heavy and didn’t really suit my foot type (more on this later).

It was my fault really, as it was my first time buying an expensive sports shoes and I was brash and inexperienced in my decision, thinking that the more expensive and established the brand of the shoes, the better it will perform. Little did I know, the shoes that I had bought didn’t really suit a flat-footer, in which I recently discovered that I am one. The shop assistant at that time didn’t help much either.

Anyway, I decided that my new pair of shoes would be made by NB. Googling where would be a good place to find a wide selection of NB shoes, I found this site. The owner of the blog, Jonathan (aka the Janggut Man) is actually the owner of a newly opened New Balance flagship store at The Gardens, Mid Valley.

I paid his store a visit the next day and I did get to meet this man. Now, a merchant who knows his products inside out is a rare thing to come by especially in retail shopping malls. Jonathan is one such person. I told him about the bad experience I had with my old Nikes so he asked me to show him my feet. He immediately knew what was wrong, that I had flat feet and my old shoes were not designed for this.

So he recommended me this…

A pair of New Balance 903 Men’s lightweight running shoes. I tried them on for the first time and they were snugly fit and SO comfortable! They’re also very light, significantly lighter than my old Nike Shox. I happily took out my Visa to be charged RM 319 (I think, can’t remember exactly, it’s been 2 weeks since I bought the shoes). HSBC card holders get a 20% discount, but since I didn’t have one, The Janggut Man was kind enough to throw in a nice pair of New Balance shoes as well.

On another note, I was also in Mid Valley to shop for a pair of Crocs to replace my bruised and battered Everlast slippers. At RM 129 each, here they are in their full glory…

Don’t they just make you feel like stepping on ‘em? They’re really as comfortable as they look!

I spent a great deal of time and money preparing my ride for this event. Among the things done were:

• Swapped front brake pads for Mintex 1144 pads
• Pumped in Motul RBF600 brake fluid
• Replaced the stock clutch to an Exedy semi-racing clutch
• Pumped in Motul Turbolight 4100 10w40 semi-synthetic engine oil
• Full track wheel alignment setup
• A full tank of Shell V-Power Racing
• Removed the spare wheel and rear seats

These are some of the stuff that I’ve installed earlier:

• Formworks exhaust system
• Full set of Bridgestone Potenza RE001 205/40/R17 tyres

As expected with all the above done, the car performed brilliantly and I’ve never had so much fun!

Here’s an in-car video I took during one of my drives:

I’ve just seen this car being driven by the Stig on the latest episode of Top Gear couple days ago. Thanks to Brando for pointing this out to me.

Sources: Autoblog, Cartribe.co.uk

Just look at it, doesn’t it just ooze good amount of ‘Buy Me!’ goo?

Photos 3 and 4 below shamelessly stolen from paultan.org

Sweet looking rear end just makes you wanna pull up close to it just to admire, and eat some dust at the same time!

Futuristic looking dash with red backlighting is just gorgeous. Love the beige upholstery too!