Low Fat Aidilfitri

We are into the second week of hari raya, I am pleased to say that I survived it. I am not saying that I don't enjoy hari raya, celebrating it in Brunei is much much better than overseas. It is just that there are just too much food and too many houses to visit that serve these food. As I have said before, I am trying to lose weight and ultimately maintain this weight.

Alhamdulillah, food in Brunei is plentiful. It's just that we are not eating the right kind of food. How many times have we thought about how much oil are we putting in our cooking or how much sugar are we consuming? I assume that most of my readers are from Brunei and I know that today alone, I am sure almost all of us would have eaten something fried and drank something sweet. It is already our lifestyle.

I have tried hard to change my eating habits, including my family members. It is not easy. I used to eat cucur almost every sungkai, but I only had one cucur pisang this year. I had 2 open houses in the evening yesterday - both were in the medical field and both had healthy options, even by chosing the healthy options. Which one did I choose? Had a bit of both actually, time for my run...

I tend to wander off a bit, although cucur pisang is not the normal dish for hari raya, there are enough unhealthy food to go around, from cakes to rolls, from satay to rendangs and many others. It is impolite to refuse such offerings but even if we were to only take a small serving, after 6-8 houses per day, the amount tends to build up. My usual way of getting through this is to take healthy options, like fruits, take less gravy, no peanut sauce and just plain rice.

On the flip side, there is some improvement in our diet and we are more aware of healthy food. Some houses do serve plain water, fruits, vegetables during hari raya. It is up to us to make the right choices.

Selamat Hari Raya

I guess it's not to late to wish my readers Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin

Losing weight

I saw an article in BB on 18th Oct. I don't have the article with me at the moment. It was about this weight loss clinic which has just opened with some of the latest technologies which will help it's customers lose weight. It even showed a picture of a slim young lady and claimed that a customer even lost 10.5kg. I had to laugh when I read all the fancy words they used to explain what the treatment is and it's effects on the body. Seems like it came out from star trek. I am no mocking the technology, as with all new treatments, we must have the scientific evidence to prove it, and this was too unbelievable.

This is another gimmick in a long line of weight loss fancy gimmicks in Brunei. Still remember the fat loss spray? And recenly the gadgets from Osim? Bussiness in the weight loss industry in Brunei must be big bucks. First of allm there are a lot of overweight people in Brunei because of our diet and lifestyle. Secondly there is pressure from many sources to keep ourselves thin including health reasons and appearance sake.

I will not say that these weight clinics are scams. Some of them will give results. But, most will only give short term results. Main reason for failure is that there is usually no change in lifestyle and diet.

As I said before, our diet and lifestyle is the major reason for so many Bruneians to be overweight or even obese. In general, our diet is full of fried food, oily stir-frys or excessively sweet food and beverage. Our lifestyle is also quite sedentary. We drive everywhere, try to park as close as possible to our destination, we don't use stairs as often as we should and our lives are so busy nowadays that there is no time for exercise. No point in blaming your genes, because they only play a small role. This is just touching the surface of the problem and I hope some readers will see this in their lives and try to change.

Ever since coming back from overseas, my weight kept increasing, and my clothes became smaller and smaller. I only started to really change my eating habits and lifestyle recently and alhamdulillah my weight is moving in the right direction. No fancy stomach trimmer gadget or saddles. And no gimmicks like Atkins or fancy creams and treatments. Honestly... It's all proper diet and exercise and it works!!

Therefore in order to lose excessive weight or maintain your weight is to change your lifestyle and diet. I will try to share some of the changes I have made and feel free to leave your comments.

Visit to gerai ramadhan

I went to visit gerai ramadhan yesterday. Just thought I'd see what's on offer as I have not been there for some time. From previous years, the crowd tends to diminish towards the end of ramadhan but today it seems to be as crowded as it has been over the past 3 weeks. I think that is good for our stall owners as this is one constructive way to boost one's income.

The food was about the same though - fried everything, oily mee goreng, sweet kuehs. I did my mandatory round of the stalls and found out that there are more rolls and cakes on sale. All sorts of shapes, sizes and colors are offered as well as creative names for each one. Didn't buy any though. There were also biscuits on sale.

The juvenile me wanted to get some fireworks... but managed to remember cuboiart's cartoon - check it out on this link. We're basically burning money heh heh but I think for parents with small children, it would be one of those things that you have to get. I remembered my childhood years when we would look for illegally smuggled firecrackers sold by some brave souls. Aaahhh those were the days.

So what did I get in the end? Some grilled chicken and pulut panggang.

It is almost Hari raya Aidilfitri, a day of celeberation for all muslims. As with other years, shops in Brunei are always full of people, trying to get themselves ready to celebrate Hari Raya. Shops have reported been crowded with people and the roads leading to the shops congested with cars.

It came as surprise to me that during the past two nights, the shops have suddenly become less busy, almost back to normal season. I thought everybody have finished their hari raya shopping, Then I realised something. Its middle of the month and most people probably are a bit short of cash, not everybody mind you.

This phenomenon is normal in Brunei. Shops tend to be busy around 28th (depends on when government servants get their wages) up till probably 1st week of the next month. Then slowly, less and less people go shopping and shops are almost empty after 20th of the month. I thought that this month will be different since hari raya shopping is important and people need certain items badly. But if you take into account other expenses like clothes, cakes, biscuits and other items which need to be ordered in advance, then you can see why shops are not as busy now.

This month the wages will come out on 21st October, almost a week earlier than usual. Banks have put up notices that they will be open longer than usual to cater for this. If the moon is to be sighted on Sunday,22nd October, then that Saturday will be the only time for us to visit the banks, apart from maybe a few branches which open on Sundays. After raya, shops will be empty again, since it's going to be around 5 weeks in between wages.

Personally, I like to go to the shops at the end of the month. That's when I most of my shopping and I will just stay away from shopping areas on the first few days after wages. And I will make sure I have enough cash so that I do not have to queue up at ATM machines during this time.

Lastly remember to spend wisely and enjoy yourselves during this festive season.

Another long gap

Well, it has been a while since I have actually posted something. I have a few drafts of entries but I feel that they were not good enough to be posted heheh a bit of quality control. Thanks for those of you who has stopped by.

We're on the last week of Ramadhan now and I think I have been too busy with work to take full advantage of this month to improve myself. I was planning to take at least the last 10 days off but I was not able to because of last minute change of scheduling by the boss. To me, fasting is Alhamdulillah not as tiring this year. I just feel sleepy at times, which borders on embaressment because I tend to yawn too much or doze off at my desk. I guess being online at this time of the night doesn't help matters.

Guess it's time to sleep now. Good night all. Don't forget to baca niat puasa.

Updated Blogger

Wow, I didn't realise that I could update to the beta version of Blogger so soon. I am not really sure what the updates were but I definitely like the labels for posts. I miss the categories in wordpress whereby I could just browse through the categories of postings rather than scroll through each post month by month to look for a specific topic.

It's been a while since I have posted anything, I think I will have more time this week to put some of my thoughts down.

Help for smokers

Sorry for the long absence. It is not as easy to update a blog as I thought. My hats off to those who can find the time and drive to do thiss regularly. I didn't realise that I would get a lot of visitors to my blog. Thanks for taking the time to read my entries and leaving your comments.

I think somebody asked me about the location of the smoking cessation clinic or Klinik Berhenti Merokok. And I read about a comment on smoking and religion in another blogger's comment page. People in Brunei know about what the smoking cessation clinic in Brunei. These leaflets are in malay, will find out if they have such leaflets in English.

There are actually four smoking cessation clinics being run by the Ministry of Health. They are located at

1. Berakas A Health Centre in Anggerek Desa
2. Jubli Perak Health Centre in Sengkurong
3. Pekan Seria Health Centre in Seria (Obviously)
4. Pekan Tutong Health Centre in Tutong (Surprise, surprise)

The clinics are open to the public without appointment. It provides a well-structured program to assist smokers to quit smoking. This includes counselling, tips, nicotine replacement and follow-up.

This is good news for those who wants some extra help to stop smoking. It is easy to tell somebody to stop smoking but there are a lot of factors that hinder someone to stop this habit. Some of the factors include addiction to nicotine, habitual and pressure from "friends" who continue to smoke. i have written "friends" because if they really care about your health, these so-called friends should actually support you in your efforts to get rid of this habit.

Hopefully with the help of these clinics, more smokers will stop smoking and lead a healthier life. This will indirectly improve the health of others. So please if you are a smoker or know of someone who smokes, pass on the info, who knows you may have done your good deed for today.