10kg

Weights lifting is very important in ones health. It makes your bones stronger, allows you to carry heavy objects and it increases your resting metabolic rate. It also looks very appealing to have a toned body and sculpted body. I have started lifting weights more often now because I think it will be very practical in real life (carrying potted plants, carpets, cooking gas tanks, my laptop). You never know when you suddenly need that extra strength to perform a certain task. I started with 5kg dumbell, but now I have move on to 7kg. My biceps and triceps are underdeveloped because I tend to carry heavy objects using my torso. That is why according the fancy weight machine, I do have a lot of muscle in my body, but most of it is at my torso. Well, so far 7kg has been quite tough for my arms and shoulders, but somehow I feel its too easy for my chest. So out of curiosity I tried 10kg weights. That means 20kg (10kg dumbell on each hand) or about 44 pounds. The first thing that comes in my mind is that 10kg was the weight of a bag of rice my family use to buy (now we only get the 5kg packet, but only because the brand of Basmati rice my mum likes to use comes only in 5kg bags). Its like, cool, I can lift 10kg of rice. I don't want to hurt myself so I make sure to stop when I feel strained. Heee did that felt good. When doing the 10kg dumbells it felt like the first day I lifted weights. I really felt it on my chest. The pleasure only lasted till I went to sleep, and then I woke up feeling very sore. Hik.. when that serves me right for going a bit extreme. Next time I will increase the weights to 8kg for the chest to really give it a good workout.

This is my favourite cardio machine in the gym. This is the elliptical machine or cross trainer. Its great because the fluid motion of the machine (its like cycling but only standing up) is gentle on the joints. The trainer said this machine is particularly hard since you have to keep moving or the machine will shutdown, but I find it easy to do. I could easily burn at least 500 calories in 45 minutes (I usually try to go for 700). However one drawback of using this machine is that its not practical in real life. What I mean is, do you actually walk or run in a fluid motion like the machine? I find it harder to walk up the stairs or cycling on the stationary bike (both are exercise that one normally does in real life). I could only burn 300 calories on a treadmill or stationary bicycle. All 3 exercise work and focus different parts of the legs. I am very used to the cardio machine and I could go on the machine longer than most people can., but not sure if I can coped with the highest setting yet. ( I did but only for a short while). I plan to alternate between all 3 so I could get the best training of all three. However the elliptical machine wins hands down for me for burning the most amount of calories in the shortest amount of time. I also read that a good cardio workout is when you work 60-80% of your maximum heart rate, so I plan to pay close attention to the heart monitor from now on to get a better workout.