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7 Steps to Reduce Stress
Mental HealthPhysical Health

7 Steps to Reduce Stress

by Helen

“I am so stressed out!” This was the most common phase that I heard from my peps these days. Increasingly I find that more people I know are dealing with more stress in their daily life.  Stress is everywhere and impacting just about everyone. We are being stressed to the limit in this fast moving and constantly changing world.

The bad news around the world is not doing anything to help us feel any better. Just tune into CNN, BBC or Bloomberg and all we hear is natural disasters, human tragedies, political instability, economic gloominess and just plain stupid stuffs that happening around our world adding more stress and worries to our minds.

Stress has become a common state of minds for us to the point that 79% of American and 73% of Canadian reported having some level of stress in their day. Jesus! Almost 8 out 10 people are experience stress at any given time in North America? How did we get here? How has stress crept into our daily lives to this point? How can we function effectively if we are under so much stress?

Now, before I stress you out this stressful talk, you should know that not all stress is bad.  If we are still living in caves or running away from a dangerous situation, a stress response can be life-saving because nerve chemicals and hormones released during stressful situations will prepare your body to get into the fight-or-flight mode. According to a NIH study, short term stress can boost your immune system because stress triggers your breathing faster, increase pulse rate, tensed muscles and the brain will use more oxygen. But the key word is: short term. Like everything else, it is about moderation and balance. When you have too much stress is when things can turn really bad quickly.

You know that I experienced a lot of stress due to having a nightmare Panda boss. I was so stressed out that I ended up with a mild depression state. Looking back, I don’t even know why I put up with it for so long. Well, this one was a life lesson learned! It woke me up and got me to re-evaluate my life and what are the important things to me. Since my near breakdown, I have done a lot of research on the topic of stress and how to manage it. Check out my post on 10 common signs and indicators of stress. When you experience these signs and symptoms, I highly encourage you to talk to someone you trust or a healthcare professional who can help you deal with it immediately. Don’t wait.

Does stress impact your body and mind?

The answer is a big YES. If you experience chronic stress, the same chemicals produced to prepare your body to response keep going for longer periods of time and can seriously harm your body functions and prevent them from functioning as they should. Chronic stress can lead to sleep and digestive issues, headaches and body aches, depression and irritability. In serious cases, stress can cause: heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and anxiety disorder.

The American Psychological Association links that chronic stress to six leading causes of death which are heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide. So, it is extremely important for all of us to take steps to manage our stress level effectively and ensure our body is functioning as it should.

Why is stress so bad for you?

The answer is cortisol. Remember this name because it should be public health enemy number one.  As I mentioned in my previous post, cortisol is released in response to fear or stress as part of the fight-or-flight mechanism. The fight-or-flight mechanism is part of the general adaptation syndrome defined by Canadian biochemist Hans Selye of McGill University in Montreal. Yep, a Canadian did it!  He defined two types of “stress”: eustress (good stress) and distress (bad stress).

The kicker is both good and bad stress release cortisol as part of the general adaptation syndrome. Once the alarm to release cortisol has sounded, your body becomes mobilized and ready for action — but there has to be a physical release of fight or flight. Now do you see it? If there is a guy with a gun runs toward you, the good stress (eustress) is a life saver that will get your two legs running fast.  Eustress creates a “seize-the-day” heightened state of arousal, which is linked with a tangible goal. Your cortisol level will return to normal when the task is done. For instance, you get away from danger, the crazy guy with a gun.

On the flip side, distress, or anxiety that doesn’t provide an outlet for the cortisol will causes your fight-or-flight mechanism to backfire and bite you back big time. All those build up cortisol that has nowhere to go but storing in your body will wreak havoc on your mind and body. The irony is not lost on me. Our own biology which insured our species’ survival as cave men and woman is sabotaging our bodies and minds in a sedentary digital age. What can we do to defuse the cortisol ticking time bomb?

How can you reduce and better manage stress?

Luckily, you can make simple lifestyle choices that will reduce stress. I don’t mean to scare you but I can’t stretch enough the important of stress management. This is one time that you will see me get really serious. Living through depression was one of the toughest experiences for me, and I don’t wish that for anyone. I have done a lot of research in addition to getting professional advices on stress management. Here are the 7 ways I have used to reduce and manage my stress.

  • Meditate

There are many studies that show the benefits of meditation. Personally, I like this one from Harvard Health. My therapist/life coach told me that a mind under stress or depression would be like someone walking around in a fog, and meditation is a great tool to clear the fog from our mind. To begin to meditate:

  • Sit in a comfortable position or lay on your back
  • Close your eye
  • Take in deep breathes
  • Focus our mind on your breath, imagine the path the breath is taking in your body. Your stomach rise and decreases.
  • Be present in the moment and ignore the thousands of thoughts flying buzzing around in your crowded minds. Your thoughts will still be there. Just acknowledged them and refocus on the present.

Meditation allows your mind and body to relax and bringing it back to the present.  I have been practicing meditation for months to heal my mind, get back to being healthy and happy again.

  • Breathe

What? I breathe every second, so what kind of breathing are you talking about?  I am talking about intentional breathing which few studies show to greatly reduce stress.  It is a mini meditation for me.  When I was stressed out (which was a normal state when I worked for the Devil wears Panda boss) I would stop for 10 seconds to take 3 deep breathes, then I focused my mind on my breaths bringing it back to the present and cleared out of the fog.

Karen has a “breath when the marker drops” rule. It was a method that she learns from a leadership emotional intelligent program. When she senses that she drops her maker (it is a term that she uses to describe the state of mind when her stress level rises and her heart beats faster) because work stress or irritants, she will start breath slowly ten times, puts on her pre-recorded 5 minutes mediation and walks outside for 5 minutes. Cortisol takes approximately 18 minutes to clear from our body, so by the time she completes all these tasks, the cortisol level will normalize in her body and she can make the right decision with the right mindset.

Try it out when you feel that the walls are closing in around you and your heart start to race. Remember to breathe!

  •  B e with people who you love

I will never admit this out loud but when I was at my lowest point, my family and well…the little monster niece (shush! don’t tell them that) was what kept me going and getting better.  A study on Social Relationship and Mortality Risk show that those had strong social support were at 50% lower risk of mortality than those who were isolated and without social support.  If you have someone that you can call on to just have a ‘bitch fest’ to take your minds off the stressful thinking. Call that person. Go for a walk or coffee or just talk! It is very emotionally effective (thanks Karen!).

  •  Exercise

Many studies (too many for me to quote) demonstrated the benefits of exercise to reduce stress. Wait! Before you hit the treadmill at the gym, remember that you don’t need to go there to exercise. Read my post on a home gym. Yes, my $4 dumbbells are still the best investment ever and mini-me is always willing to wrestle with me.

Physically, when you exercise (in whatever method of your liking), your body is active and it will start to pump up endorphins.  Endorphin is known as: the feel-good hormone which improves your moods. Not kidding. This is true. Look it up!  More than the physical boost, able to exercise is also an ego boost for you when you are at the low point because you show that you can achieve something! You get something done! Check mark. So, whenever you feel sad and at a low point, put on a pair of comfy shoe and go for a walk. Preferably, with your pet or a companion who can give you some cheers. Mini-me and Karen, where are you guys?

  •  Hobbies

Hobbies is a one of my big stress relievers. I am a cross-stitcher. There I admit it. Karen still can’t understand why I like cross-stitching because it seems so pain staking to her. Well, she plays Candy Crush, paints with mini-me and reads for stress relief. Each to their own. But for me, I will reach for my cross-stitching basket when I feel my shoulder and neck starts to tighten (in case you’re wondering this is my favourite cross stitch designer).

When I cross-stitched, my mind focused solely on the needle, threads and patterns so all the negative thoughts buzzing in my mind just went blank for those time.  Karen hung all of my finished works in the house, so I am quite an accomplished cross-stitching woman.  So, I encourage you to pick up the shovel, brush, pencil to work on your garden, paint or draw when you feel that your mind is in a fog. #merelaxingtime! Your mind needs the rest and healing.

  •  Laugh

Yes, laughter is the best medication.  Whether it is a Will & Grace, Friends or Gilmore Girls binge watching weekend with my bestie Karen or Korean variety (1 night & 2 days is my favourite) laughter was an almost instant relief that helped me heal.

When you laugh, your body starts to release endorphins (the happy hormone) which will then reduce the stress response, relax muscle which soothe the tension in your body.  Laughter can also improve your immune system and mood. So, when you feel down, find things that can crack you up with a hearty laugh. If it is not Korea oddities and over the top variety shows, perhaps the funny pair of Joe and Chandler can crack you up.

  •  Keep a gratitude journal

Seriously? I am not twelve anymore and you ask me to keep a gratitude journal? What is that anyway?  I was very skeptical when my therapist asked me to do this. According to her, a gratitude journal is nothing more than a log or journal of things that you are thankful for.  The git of it is to motivate you.

When you are down and full of negative thoughts and emotions, it is important to remind yourself of the positive things in your life to counter the negativities.  By keeping a journal, you are having a visual reminder of what you are living for. In addition, the journal acts as a force to keep your mind away from thousands of negative thoughts and brings your clear mind back to the present (another form of meditation?) looking at good things that happening now.

So now, I consistently write down two things that I am thankful for each day. Example: I am grateful for my family.  I am grateful for black sesame bingsu (Korea shaved ice). It is not a joke. Bingsu is on my list and it is heavenly desert. The Korean Gods listen to me and they gave me this delicious desert.

Other methods from friends

These are my 7 tried and true stress management methods. My friends and life coach also recommended other methods that have worked for them. Give these a try if you could. It bounds to be good for your mind and body.

  • Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet. I am all for this one. A healthy body will help your mind to heal faster.
  • Let go of problems that you cannot fix. This one is easy said than done. I learn to appreciate this principle. For a long time, I hung on to my job thinking that I could make the Devil wear Panda boss to change her attitude. And also, I hate losing and quitting. But after all this, I have realized that it is even more important to know when to let go. So prioritize things in your life and let go of things that you can’t change. It is not worth your health and time.
  • Schedule time for yourself to relax. Karen, this one is for you!
  • Consider yoga. Love this one!
  • Spend some time outdoors for a change of scenery. I am good with this too. Love the outdoor!

Final Words

Lastly, I want to say that stress is difficult to deal with physically and emotionally. But the cost of stress is too great for us to ignore it. With the increasing demand of work (no, there is really no work-life balance in corporate environment. Sorry for being the bearer of bad news!), more people are under constant stress.

It is important to know the stress symptoms that your body, mind and behaviour exhibit and so you can act to manage your stress right away. Don’t wait! Don’t try to tough it out liked I did because you would likely reach a breaking point. Deal with your stress and emotions before it get out of hand. There are 7 ways that I have been using to manage stress and finding happiness. Try them out or find ones that really work well for you. Whatever that stress relief is, I hope you find it and use it.

As my little endearing and wise beyond her age, niece said: “I am the boss of my body. I want to be healthy.” Yes, you are the boss of your beautiful body, mind and soul, so take good care of it. Life is too darn short and precious to be stressed out because of someone else’s malice intention, job, status, wants and whatever else. You only live once, so live happily and purposefully! I wish you a happy and stress-free ever after!

As always, I encourage you to share your thoughts and experience. By sharing your experience, you may be able to help someone else to overcome their challenges, so please do!

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10 common signs and indicators of stress
Mental HealthYour Health

10 common signs and indicators of stress

by Helen

Do you know that 110 million people die every year as a direct result of stress? That is 7 people every 2 seconds. This statistical data was reported the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). So why are people so stressed out?  Let’s take a look! An Uber software engineer who made six-figure income killed himself in 2016 due to workplace stress. A 21-year-old Merrill Lynch intern collapsed and died in London after working 72 hours straight. Yep, we all remember that one.

It always made me so sad to see someone died so senselessly. I don’t have to look far. Take short stroll around Toronto Financial District (aka: where the rat race begins) and I see a lot of people who have the “I am so burn-out” look racing back and forth in the paths connecting the financial office buildings.  Well, I was one of those people.

Both Karen and I experienced stress and burned out at some point in the last few years. Karen is a special case. She is constantly in the stress mode because she has been chasing one goal after another since the day she was born. The first born and their drive to success at all cost.  Give it a rest, Karen!  But I never thought that I would experience work burn-out but it happened to me.

Yep, I was diagnosed with mild depression resulting from stress. Yep, stress leads to depression and that’s not fun. Believe me! When I was diagnosed with depression, I was in total denial. It took me weeks to accept the hard reality. Well, that and I was crying a lot. Also signs of stress and depression that I totally missed out on.

Now you may ask: how would a single Gemini, carefree, free-spirit gypsy world-traveler like me end up with work stress? Well, I had a Devil wear Panda boss for a long…long time.  She wasn’t beautiful or well-dress like Meryl Street. But she was definitely meaner, has zero empathy, no emotional intelligent and jealous as a hell cat. Oh, yes, she had all brand-name stuffs but she had no sense of style hence the name Panda.

It wasn’t all bad when I started working for her, then I was promoted and groomed by my VP, that was when she turned into a nightmare. Jealousy wears Panda shaded of green and black, I tell ya.  Seriously, I thought woman should support and help out other woman, but she didn’t. Don’t get me start talking about this because I don’t know when I can end, and I digress.

Stressed out from working for the manic Devil wears Panda boss, I felt like my body and minds were constantly drained from suppressing my emotions and unhappiness. So, I got help from a life coach and therapist to help me deal with my situation and got back to being emotionally and physically happy again. As I dived into this subject to get a better understanding and found my path to happiness, I learn that many people share my experience and pains. The top stressors on most of people’s lists are: work, school, family, relationship, money, commuting and lack of time for themselves.

Yes, most of us think of stress as immediate everyday problems: the boss hovering over our desks, a break up with a cute boy, the crowded subway ride or in case of Karen, her precious mini me is unwell.  In the short-term, stress makes us feel irritable, anxious, tense, distracted and forgetful. In long term stress can chip away at our physical, mental and emotional health.

The link between chronic stress and the potential for mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and other mood disorders is well-known.  So let’s dive in and get a better understanding of stress and what are the earl warning signs.  It will be a long discussion (I warn you), but I think it is worth your time and effort to get a better understanding of this important topic.

What exactly is stress?

Well, stress is an instant physical response when your body thinks it is under attack. The human body is still conditioned to react as though we still live in cave and have to defense against wild beasts. When we are under stress, our bodies go into “fight or flight” mode and releasing a mix of hormones and chemicals such as adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine to prepare the body for physical action.  Our hearts will start to pound fast and furious. Then come the heavy breathing, and a boost of energy which in turn focus the body energy to respond to the situation.

See, this reaction is very useful when a wild and scary lion is charging toward you but in modern day environments (say work related or personal stress), this physical reaction is a dead trap waiting to happen if you experience it constantly. Imagine your body goes through this reaction every time and immediately when you are under stress. All that adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine pumping through your body continuously will wear you down mentally and then physically.

Our built-in caveman/woman instinct that helped us surviving predators and thrived in the Stone Age is now killing us in the modern age. Chronic stress can lead to health issues such as: increase in sugar and blood pressure levels due to release of cortisol, and a decrease in libido. It is not good news, I tell you.

How does stress affect your body?

Stress can affect your body, your thoughts, behaviour, action and feelings. There are signs that you are under stress. So look out for these early warning signs and symptoms.

  1. The knots on your back, neck and shoulder

When your mind senses danger, your body muscles will naturally tighten up and then it gets ready for the release of adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine hormone. The neck and back muscles are the area on your body that most likely tense up and get the blunt of the stress.

Shoulders are where my stress built up. When I was stressed out, my shoulder and neck muscles would tense up to a point where I couldn’t even more my neck.  Then I would beg my massage therapist to fit me into her schedule for a rescue session or made my way to my fall back (aka: Karen). Karen is free of charge but she has death hands. Seriously, she can break my neck. Those hands can break any muscles but they really hurt!  Now, you can have neck and back pain from other causes, but if you consistently have the same ache and pain in neck, back and shoulder, it is a good idea to assess and see if you experience stress.

  1. Constant headache and migraine

The other leading indicator of stress is headache which cause by tensions in your muscles or mind.   If you experience prolong and consistent headache or migraine to a point where you can’t sleep at night, it is a sure sign that you are stressed out. Looking back, I started to experience migraine consistently about 3 years ago but I chalked it up to body fatigue.  I should realize that it was stress, but I didn’t have the self-awareness and knowledge to know better.

  1.  Can’t kill the cold and flu bugs

Researches have shown that stress reduces body’s immunity by limiting inflammation. The danger is your body will get use to this level of cortisol over time and then it can’t fight off the bacteria. You can see where this will lead right? When you have a peaceful state of mind and having good immunity, you can fight off the nasty cold and flu bugs more effectively. When your body defense armor is down due to stress which impacts your immunity defense, your body is weaker and can’t fight off the bugs.

So when you get a cold that lasted for weeks and healing is nowhere in sign, I encourage you to take a step back and ask yourself that important question: Am I under too much stress?

  1. Focus and attention span of a 5 year old

“You have the concentration and focus of 5 years old”. Karen told me this couple of times but I shrugged it off as one of her nagging.  In the past years, it was getting harder for me to focus. I would start a task, and then I would be distracted by other stuffs and wasted hours of valuable time. In addition, my short term memory went down the drain. I had a tough time recalling recent facts but I didn’t think much of it.

Apparently, there is a scientific explanation for this. Research has connected long-term exposure to excess amounts of cortisol which shrinks of the brain’s memory center and production of protein that causes Alzheimer. I literally wanted to kick my own ass when I came across this piece of information. All the warning signs were in front of my eyes, but I kept ignoring them.

        5. Say good bye to your hair

Ladies, listen to this carefully. It is common for us to lose couple strands of hairs, but if your hair fall out in clumps then it is a different story. It is not normal. This is the sign that your body is telling you that you are experiencing telogen effluvium, trichotillomani or alopecia areata. Simplify put, your body immune is attacking your hair follicle.  And your hair follicle is losing the battle big time.

10 to 15 strands of hair fall out are normal, but hairs falling out in clumps would be the warning sign for you to see a doctor and have a long chat about your mental state.

          6. The expanding waistline and muffin top

When I experienced stress, my muffin top was big. Well, ginormous was the term that my niece described it. The little chipmunk was sure honest. The kicker was I didn’t even eat much during stressful time because I didn’t have much appetite. No matter how little I ate, my waistline and muffin top kept on expanding.  Do you experience this too? You can try all sorts of diets, but your middle section stubbornly expands as though it wants to challenge you.

The reason is stress causes your body to release high levels of cortisol into your veins. Cortisol causes higher insulin level in your body which resulted in lowering of your blood sugar. This reaction causes your body to crave sugary and comfort food.

It is not a coincidence that ice cream is the much beloved food when people are under stressed.  I am also one of those people.  Deserts, wines, noodles and dumplings were my staple during stressful time. I even binged on KFC and then dug up Italian tartufo for more relief. Most of my female friends are in the same boat, the more upset we are, the friendlier the ice-cream shop owner seem to be. Something about the sugar that seems to temporary soothe the pains. But it was just that, a temporary and brief relief.

To add more bad news, your body is also in instant fight or flight mode due to stress so naturally your survival instinct will kick in. To protect and prepare itself for survival, your body will store more fat instead of burning it.  Yep, double whammies.

  1. No restful night

Our body is built and condition for night sleep. So, when you can’t seem to get any sleep at night, it is a warning indicator that your state of mind is less than ideal. When your mind is constantly turmoil and working overtime to resolve issues, your body won’t get any rest. At one point, I had less than 5 hours of sleep per night and then I ended up worrying so much about my lack of sleep that I couldn’t fall asleep. It was a vicious cycle.  Without sleep and time for your body to heal and recharge from daily activities, you will experience a number of physical and mental health issues as a result.

        8.    Fatigue in the morning

Do you get up in the morning feeling worse than you feel at night?  If your body didn’t get any sleep to recharge and heal, then it is no wonder that you feel fatigue and has no energy in day time. When your body has to work overtime to handle the stressors, and yet it starts to store fat instead of burning it, your body ends up with no fuse to keep going. As a result, you will feel sluggish, no energy and drained. This physical and mental state will make you more irritable and prone to outburst.

Karen got quite a few tongue-lashings from me when I was at my low points. Looking back, I truly regretted not seeing the writing on the wall and got the help I needed immediately. Luckily, my family understand and forgive me. That’s why I feel so strongly about sharing my experience and hope that I can help you to get help before too late.

         9.   The matter of the heart and chest

It is all about hormones.  The release of the hormones (cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline) due to stress will cause a short-term increase in heart rate and blood pressure or chest pain. In short-term, this may not be life threatening to you but long term exposure to this condition will take a toll on the heart. It can lead to high blood pressure and high cholesterol as a result.  In worst case, it can lead to unhealthy habits like smoking, physical inactivity, and over-eating which also causes heart disease.

         10. Acne

A higher level of cortisol pumping in our body can cause cystic acne. I used to have bad case of acne in my early year (insert the link for the article 10 yr food journey), but I got rid of acne with healthy eating and Korean skincare over the year. But when I was under stress, my face would break out like a pepperoni pizza. Well, maybe it was not that bad but I really dislike acne skin. I have worked so hard and made a lot of changes to my diet and skincare to have healthy skin. Yet, stress brought the ugly acne right back. I tried so many products and drank lot of water but the nightmare acne won’t go away. But once I was destressed, my skin cleared out.

There are other signs but these 10 are the most common ones. Take it from someone who have been through a lot of stress to the point of mild depression, it is not a journey you will enjoy. So stay connected to your body and mind. Listen and see the warning signs that your body and mind are telling you and seek professional help immediately. Don’t wait because you will regret it! Share with me your experience about stress and warning signs that you know of. I truly believe that if we can talk about this and share our journey, we can help others to get well sooner. I can’t wait to hear from you.

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5 exercises that you can do at home without hitting the gym mat
Mental HealthPersonal FinancePhysical Health

5 exercises that you can do at home without hitting the gym mat

by Helen

If you read my post on my experience hitting the gym mat, then you will know that I don’t go the gym anymore.  Staying healthy and active is one of my “must do” to have a quality and happy life. Without the gym, I found alternative solutions to keep myself in a healthy shape.  The thought of not seeing the eye candies depressed me for about 5 minutes then I reminded myself why I didn’t want to gym. What was it again? Ah yes! The sweat and gym smell. Alternative solutions it is.

One of the things that I am good at is researching. I can spend hours looking up stuffs and playing detective. So, after many hours of researching in various medical articles as well as advice from my trusted nutritionist Ariell, I found my 5 alternative exercises that would keep my heart rate up and my muscle toned. My criteria for selecting the exercise was: it must be enjoyable. Life is too short not to enjoy every moment of it. With a little bit of imagination, creativity and new perspective, you can shift your mindset to enjoy activities that you aren’t normally enjoyed.

Getting back to my alternative exercises selection. Apart from the fact that weight training and gym machines are not the ideal fitness solutions for me due to my health condition, I also don’t like the fact that I have to make the time to get to the gym. It feels like a chore instead of a lifestyle that I can truly enjoy.

Most scientific, medical and fitness articles that I came across indicated that you can get healthy by doing exercise at home. The key thing is that you do something active, somewhere, sometime and be consistent about it.  Most experts agreed that it shouldn’t take much effort or money to design an effective workout program at home.

Things like fit balls, dumbbells, exercise bands or tubing, and push-up bars are an inexpensive way to create a routine that works all the major muscle groups in your body. Seriously, even with no props or expensive work out machines, you can build muscles and burn calories with all the information that available on the internet. Bless YouTube!

5 Components of an effective workout

Based on my research, an effective fitness program has five components. The fabulous news is you can accomplish these 5 components by working out in the comfort and cleanliness environment of your home. I still can’t stand the sweat even when the guy is Brat Pitt. I could change my mind if the guy is Christian Bale though. Below are the 5 components to have in an effective fitness program:

  1. A warmup. This can be as easy as a quick walk around your neighborhood. If you have a treadmill or a stationary bike at home, feel free to slowly and steady walk for 10 minutes.
  2. A cardiovascular (aerobic) workout. For the cardiovascular portion of your fitness routine, walk or pedal faster if you prefer walking outside on a treadmill. Now, if you want to feel a bit sexier, try step aerobics with a video. Feeling more courageous and pushing your boundary a bit more, try jumping rope. The key is to get your heart rate up while doing something you enjoy. I prefer a speed walking while tightening my butt muscle. Yes, a shapely butt appeals to the superficial woman in me. There I admit it.
  3. Resistance, strength-building exercises. This is the component of the fitness routine that can make you say: Ouch! I did and many times. Resistance exercise can be as simple as squats, push-ups and abdominal crunches if you want to really tighten up certain body muscles. I have been doing consistent abdominal crunches to build more strength on my lower body (also known as my muffin top). If these “ouch worthy” exercises don’t appeal to you, try workout with small dumbbells, a weight bar, bands or tubing. The objective of this portion of exercise is muscle strength and toning to protect your joints from injury.
  4. Bend it like Beckham – flexibility moves. This portion is where you can increase your flexibility with floor stretches or yoga poses. Love my tree and warrior poses!
  5. Time for a cooldown. You start with a warm up and so you must end with a cool down! The same exercises that you use to warm your body up can be used to cool it down. If you still feeling sexy, you can also use cardiovascular work routine (aka: step aerobics) at a low level to bring the heart rate down to a resting state. Step lightly on it, ladies.

 How did I get started?

Well, I learned a good lesson from my gym experience so I listened my body this time. To start, I aimed for 35 minutes of cardiovascular (aerobic) exercise and I did them consistently at least three times a week.

In addition, I spent 20 to 30 minutes of strength work and also for three times a week. I tried to have three sets of 10-15 repetitions of each strength exercise to make sure I targeted all major muscle groups. One thing to keep in mind is to cover all major muscle groups such as your upper body, lower body, abdominal and back. By working to improve all these major muscle groups, you can build up the strength for your entire body (not just one or two parts) and protecting all your joints.

I used to have really bad back pains (one of many health issues that I used to have) but regular exercise and healthier and selective dietary have reduced my pains and aches substantially.  I still have lot of work to make my muffin top disappear but I am not in a hurry. Enjoy my workout is more important than excess weight on my tummy. I have been slowly increasing the length and repetition of the exercises as my muscles strengthen and can tolerate more exercising.

Now I will sound like a yoga instructor, but I want to leave you my first advice: stay focus on the muscles that you want to work on. Then feel it. If you are doing the abs crunches and yet you feel tightness it in your neck, then STOP. Do a quick scan of your body and let your body tell you what you should do next. I can’t say enough about the important of staying tune with your body.

My 5 most enjoyable workout routine

I set out to create my own enjoyable workout routine and I did. Here are my 5 absolute favourite workout alternatives:

1 – Long walks.

Why jump on a treadmill when you can take a walk in a trail?  Apart from walking, I can also enjoy the scenery and talk to people. I also dragged Karen into walking with me. Truth be told, she needed it more than me. When the weather permitted, we walked and we took mini-me (my niece) with us.  She rode her bike while Karen and I tried to catch up with her. I am telling you, this exercise beats jumping rope anytime and the little mini-me can bike fast. Hello aerobics workout!

The enjoyable part is talking and sharing the moment with people I love.  It is also very educational for mini-me because she constantly asks about flowers, plants and other things that she spots on the trail. So, Karen and I know quite a bit about wild flowers, plants and insects.

A pet also makes great walking companion. It is good for you and your pet. Long walk is not only good exercise but it is a great method to clear your mind.  Whenever I was stressed out or went through a tough time, long walks did amazing thing to give me clarity and declutter my mind.

2 – Swimming time.

Swimming is a really good exercise because you can work all major muscle groups. When you swim, you will engage all parts of your body into a rhythm, and you can set the pace as will. So, check out your neighborhood’s community center or a privately run pool.

3 – Playing time.

Just for fun and testing out a theory, I wore a health watch while playing with mini-me. After 30 minutes with her, I burned 200 calories. Seriously, all we did was run around the kitchen and wrestled a bit. She won the wrestling match though.  I had a lot of fun with her and we created lasting bond.

Karen is certain that my niece loves me more than her mother because I am her most reliable source of ice cream, bubble tea and cake supply but I think it is the time that we spend together. The laughter and the memories we share, and that worth a lot more than a few calories to me. So, instead of making time for the gym, spend the time to play with your kids, nieces or nephews.  It is a win – win, I tell you.

 4 – YouTube!

There are tons and tons of content creators on YouTube who provide free exercise videos. I was livid and almost kicked my own butt because I paid CAD$1000 for something I could get free of charge! $0 instead of $1000. Some of my favourite YouTube exercise routines come from Fitness Blender. I use their workout videos extensively when old man winter visited Canada and I couldn’t do outside walk. For you yogis, try YogaTX, and Yoga with Adriene.  They are my morning go-to channels.

 5 – Home gym.

Got ya! I didn’t spend money to build a home gym. I got a set of 5 lbs dumb bell for $4 at a garage sale. Best $4 spent ever! During the winter, my lazy day or when I was short on time, I stuck to a 5 minutes jumping jack, 20 squats, 20 lunges, 5 minutes arm muscle work with my $4 dumbbell and a 45 seconds planks. I repeated the routine as many as my time or lazy body permitted. If you don’t want to spend $4 (which I did for about 3 months) you can use water bottles. I know it will work because I used water bottles as weight for 3 months.

My last tips for home exercisers

My last 2 cents on home exercises and I hope you find them useful:

Challenge yourself and select the exercise that you will enjoy.

At home, you won’t have access to equipment, class’s instructor or pricey private trainer that are available at a gym. So do your research and make sure you get the good set of exercises routine that you can enjoy. I find YouTube videos very useful because I am a visual learner. Seeing the correct postures that the experts demonstrated in their video helped me optimizing my workout and prevented me from injuries.

Find an exercise partner.

You will be more motivated if you work out with a partner. Karen and mini-me are my endearing partners in my getting healthy crime.

Schedule your workouts.

I typically set a 30 minute workout to wake my body up then I work out after my dinner. Regardless of the time of the day, give yourself time to rejuvenate your body and mind. It is my little blissful moment that I look forward to everyday.

Set workout goals for yourself.

Goals help to motivate you because it is something you can’t do right now, but you know is within your reach. My goal is 2 inches of my waist and then I will reward myself with this gorgeous yellow and white summer dress that I have been eyeing. A little pick me up is a good way to make me move my butt.

Exercise is a lifestyle commitment.

You have to think of it as a lifestyle commitment and an on-going component of having a happy life. It doesn’t end when you get a nice abs or butt, it continues. Get out of the mindset that exercise is something you are only going to do for a period of time. Repetition and continuation! Like eating healthy, this journey goes on.

Ok, I will end my rambling here. Do you exercise at home? Please share your home gym idea. I love to learn from your getting healthy journey and more importantly good home gym ideas.

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4 reasons for a woman to travel solo and have a blast
Mental HealthTravelYour Relationship

4 reasons for a woman to travel solo and have a blast

by Helen

“Doesn’t it get lonely when you travel solo? And is it safe? A girl travel alone, I don’t know. It is risky. Why don’t you travel with Karen and her family?” These were the questions that my friends asked me when I told them I traveled somewhere solo. There seems to be this fear that solo travel is very unsafe for woman.

In contrary, I like to travel solo. Well, I love travelling period! If I can afford to, I will travel till my legs can no longer move. I could be a travelling gypsy in my previous life.  My favourite pastime is reading travel blogs. It sort of like my mini “mind-get away” when I need to escape but can’t yet due to well…budget constraint.

Here are my favourite bloggers: Marie-Eve at To Europe and Beyond, Amanda at Dangerous-Business, Jodi at Legal Nomads, Kristin at Be My Travel Muse and Lauren from Never Ending Footstep.  You can see it right? Yep, they are my pep. They are the awesome, fearless modern travelling gypsy ladies and they are fabulous.   All of these fab ladies raised and discussed the issue of woman travelling solo. I didn’t know this issue was “a controversial thing” until I read their blogs. It is not easy to be a woman isn’t it?

Travel solo is common in my family because my mom, Karen or I all traveled solo at some points. I was 20 years old when I did my first solo stretch.  I was in my 2nd year of university and I well…sort of having a little too much fun and had a slight drop in my grade. A slight dip was all it took for my mom and Karen to get bend out of shape.  The arm sergeant, also known as Karen drilled and then lectured me for hours before released me. So, I decided to take a year off to re-charge.

Inner Mongolia seemed like the right place for a re-charge, I decided.  What would be better than goat milk tea, constant sand storms, freezing cold, cut-throat expensive leafy green and 50% of the foods were pickled? Yum! Signed me up.  Like I said, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I had a little (just a little, I swear) to much fun. So, when a university in Inner Mongolia looked for an English speaking teacher, I jumped at the chance.

Inner Mongolia wasn’t a place of luxury but it was a place of raw beauty and you could learn a lot about Chinese culture, way of life, challenges and things that just perplexed you. I spent one year in Inner Mongolia and I traveled to most part of China during my 1 year stint there. Beijing, Datong, Dalian, Dandong (also known as the border between China and North Korea), and I almost made it to the Tibet border before I realized that I couldn’t go into this autonomous region because it was off limit to foreigner unless I got the authorization from the Chinese government. Well, I was very careful at the Dantong area to never cross to the hermit kingdom. The Kim’s educational camp (as they called) was not a place that I could survive.

My second and third solo run was Holguin, Cuba.  I needed a break and Karen wasn’t available, so I just went by myself. I had a blast and everyone at the all-inclusive resort felt bad for me because they all thought that I had a bad breakup and went alone to lick my wounds. Seriously, why would people think that when woman traveled alone she had no one in her life? But they did and I didn’t brother to care. I had a blast though. It was restful and peaceful. I did what I wanted and when I wanted. Easy and breezy!

Then, I was tapped to travel to Ireland for a 6 months work assignment 2 years ago. Loved it! Every weekend, I was out and discovering the mystical land where leprechauns ran wild (well, in my imagination anyway).  I tasted Guinness in all 4 provinces of fabulous country. Kissed the rock at Blarney Castle and did few more unspeakable things. Well, Karen thinks they are, but I don’t.

When back to my homeland of maple leaf and delicious maple syrup, I made short trips to Halifax, Nova Scotia and Montreal on my own.  I am so used to travel by myself that I made a silly assumption that every women like travel solo. Yes, it was silly of me but I have always been very comfortable with my own company. I traveled with Karen often but I did a lot of things on my own.  Whether going to the movie, shopping or weekend trip, I just did what I wanted on my own bucks and my own time.   Anyway, I can easily amuse myself so it never bothers me.  So, it was a bit of a reality dose when my fearless woman travellers pointed out that solo travel was not always ideal for women. Seriously? So why do people travel solo? Why I travelled alone?

Here are my 4 reasons to travel solo

 1 – Live your life; don’t wait for anyone because you never know what you will miss.

Well, this is my biggest and main reason. I want to LIVE! And it is my life so I shouldn’t wait for someone else to get mine started. Granted, Karen will always support me (my one and only sugar mommy) but I don’t want her to give up things in her life to accommodate my needs. So when I saw a promo for round trip flight to Taipei, Taiwan for $500 last year, I salivated. Taiwanese food is on my list for many years. Din Tai Fung ‘s xiaolongbao (steamed dumplings), night market, the land of people that invested the heavenly drink called bubble tea that can instantly lift my spirit. What was I waiting for? Taiwan, here I come!

No one was available to go with me. Karen was building her dream home and desperately preventing my brother in-law/her hubby from turning their dream home into a case of “Vatican meet Forbidden Palace”. How do those two stay together for almost 20 years? They are at opposite end of most of things. I digress.

 I had 2 choices: 1) go by myself or 2) wait for someone to go with me and pay $1,000 for same ticket. Forget that!  I bought the ticket that night. Mark Chao, wait for me! O.K! Maybe not. I am not that into the brooding look and also Karen may pass out from envy. Like many Asian women who got a glimpse of Eternal Love, she succumbed to deep and sexy voice of Mark Chao. He is one good looking guy though. Say no more!

I was so jazzed planning to eat and drink my way thru Taiwan and possibility catching a glimpse of hot Taiwanese actor (hey, a woman can dream) till my mom decided that her precious granddaughter could potentially survive for 12 days without grandma.  So, she promptly invited herself along. What? This was me time, mom.  Ah, no it was no longer me time when my mom was involved.

So, my point is: live your life and others may decide to join you.  If family and friends can join you, then it is great.  If not, you never know when Cupid may decide to shoot you and a hot guy an arrow of fate and love.  Just saying, it may happen for you.  The best part of solo travel is you are the driver of your solo travel vehicle and you can go when and where you want! Live your life now.

2 – Make new friends and open yourself to new learning and possibilities.

I am an introvert and so I am reserved when I meet someone new. But once I get to know someone and get a comfort level, then I am a chatterbox. I discovered that when I traveled solo would open up to stranger. Yes, the oddities of me. During my trip to Cuba, I made friends with a gentleman who came to visit his son and daughter (they were Cubans while he was a Canadian). Through him, I learned so many amazing facts about Cuban daily lives, their culture, and what had been changing in that small but mighty little island over past 20 years. I had wonderful conversation with him and I looked forward to our daily chat because I learned so many interesting things and facts from him.

 While trekking my way thru Kilkenny, Ireland I meet this wonderful lady who was on her first solo trip to Scotland, England and Ireland.  This was a dream trip that she and her deceased husband wanted to make but he passed away before they had the chance. With him in her heart, she made the trip for both of them.  We sat next to each other on the tour bus and became fast friends.  I learned about her family’s journey from Ireland to US. I have a whole new appreciation for how tough the Boston Irish Americans could be. These people were tough as nails and hearty as Guinness drinks.

She was a delightful person and shared with me life story and her adventure eating of haggots in Scotland. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What was in that haggots? The best part was probably when we came across a store that had the same name as her maiden name. She was thrilled and to see the joy, amazement, and tears of happiness that she had was a great joy for me too.

I believed that people tend to be more open, willing and warmer when they travel. Partly because they tend to be in better moods (well, no work) and in a new environment which can tickle people sense of adventure and willingness to embrace new things including friendship. I made friends on trips that I still stay connected with. I have heard endless stories of how people met on trips and became friends or even romantic happy endings. Who know what you will get when you open your heart and mind to new possibilities.

3 – Stretch your comfort zone.

Pub hopping in the Dublin Temple Bar area was one of my best travelling experience.  True be told, I am not a bar crawler. I got it out of my system in university days.   I am the nice dinner with good wine and desert preferably with nice ambient kinda of woman.   So when Karen and my friends learned that I pub crawled, they were flabbergasted.   Well, I didn’t lose my mind temporary.

On a day trip to Glendalough, Ireland I met a fellow traveller who was also in Ireland for work, but she was there for one week only. We quickly hit it off and decided to have dinner when we reached Dublin. It was the Irish wine did us in, because we decided to go to Temple Bar after dinner and then we literally crawled thru every bar within the district that night.  We danced and jammed with the bands and just had a really good time.  To meet the objective of crawling thru every bar in Temple Bar area, we had   each had 1 drink sang 2 songs at each location and then moved to the next target. Yep, we did.

 On my own or with my friends, I would never do that. But something about being with someone who didn’t know my life story and a new place pushed me to do something totally out of character. I wasn’t sorry. I had a blast and wonderful memories.

 4 – Time for reflection.

Karen told me about this one and I must agree with her on this. She travelled to a remote island in Cuba for a one week alone time leaving her then fiance at home. Our friends all thought that they had problem and Karen wanted time to think. The truth was Karen has been and always will be an independent woman and she wanted her me time for self-reflecting.

Alone time for self-reflecting is one healthy thing that you can do to bring peace to your mind. You will get to know yourself better than you ever have before, learn what truly makes you happy and what you need to work on to improve as a person. It can often be challenging to face these truths but learning to overcome and growth as an individual. When you’re on your own, you can do whatever you want without having to worry about anyone else. That freedom and solitude is incredibly liberating.

What are the downsides of solo travelling?

With all good stuffs of traveling alone, there are downsides too especially if you are a woman. Here are just of the few issues that most of the woman solo travellers and me identified:

1 – Safety 

 Safety was always on my mind when I was on my own and in a foreign land. It was difficult to ask for help because I didn’t know if I could trust someone to help me. There was always that nagging feeling that you could be taken advantage as a woman.

2 – It can be lonely if you are on the road for a long time.

Many of friends would agree this is one main reason for them to have a partner instead of going solo. We are sociable creatures and we thrilled on interactions with other human beings. So yes, it can be lonely when you are eating alone in the restaurant and have no one to share a joke, to enjoy the fabulous foods and discuss interesting that you learn on the trip. And don’t you hate it when the waiter condescendingly says:  “Table for one?” It can sound so judging. I am being judged for dining on my own. Darn you waiter. No tips!

3 – Higher Costs.

For budget-minded travelers (aka Karen, the budget hawk), cost is a major downside because traveling alone nearly always works out to be much more expensive than traveling as a couple. As a couple, you can share meals, rooms and expenses. Let’s not forget about cost for private tour. It is definitely cheaper per person if you have 2 instead of numero uno. There’s no doubt about it: solo travel supplements can suck big time for the solo woman.

There are ways to mitigate these downsides though. And I definitely want to share with you.

1 – Know your limit and have self-control.

Ok, don’t roll your eyes at the screen. I know what is going thru your mind right now. Yeah, this is coming from a woman who did a pub crawl. Lady, listen to your elders! In my defense, I was not drunk that night. I knew that I would be able to handle the amount of alcohol and I drunk a lot of water in between to sober up.   I was still able to walk, knew my direction, got in a taxi safely, paid the fair in correct amount and walked to my apartment in a straight line!

Hah! Also, I had my cell phone with numbers of couple of my peps who could bail me out of emergency situation. They were on my speed dial. I planned for these things. It was years in training with Karen, the planner. Yes, I will have fun but I always stop before I reach my limit and have control on my mind and body. So don’t drink to the point where you can’t fight back.

2 – Avoid empty streets or alleys.

Temple Bar was always a crowded area and I avoided the empty lanes at all cost. You never know who can be lurking around the corner so stay on the safe area where there are a lot of people can see you.

3 – Don’t go looking for trouble.

You should have fun and let loose, but don’t go looking for trouble unnecessary. Don’t go to areas that known as shady part of the towns. Single or travel in pair, you can get yourself into trouble if you go into those places.

4 – Listen to your instinct.

If your gut feeling is giving you a kick then listen to it! Don’t speak to someone if your gut is giving you the jitters or when the pit of your stomach drops like a ton.  Listen to your instinct, mind and body.

5 – Look for savings.

As a solo traveler, you will have to pay a single room supplement if you stay in hotel or motel. But if you book an Airbnb apartment, it can save you a few bucks. When you make friend with other travellers and you have good feeling about them, it won’t hurt to ask if you can travel together for shared destinations so you can lower the travelling cost. I did that many times. I typically looked for other women who shared the same interests. It is your time to open yourself up to new adventure so explore the new possibilities.

I will end my rambling here. My last words on this subject are: I encourage you wholeheartedly to give solo travel a shoot. You may enjoy it and discover many new things about YOU!   So, go buy that ticket to Taiwan, Spain, Italy, Korea or Peru.  Wherever it is, don’t just have it as our bucket list. Do it! Make your bucket list come alive and don’t wait for someone to make the trip with you. You may be missing out on wonderful experiences if you wait. I would hate to see you looking back one day and say I wish I did that. So don’t wish! Just do it.

Share with me your solo travel tales. I love to hear it. I am obsessed about all things travels so don’t leave me hanging.

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Quality or Quantity – 5 Reasons to downsize your wardrobe
Mental HealthPersonal FinanceWardrobe

Quality or Quantity – 5 Reasons to downsize your wardrobe

by Helen

The beginning

Do you still remember your first love? I do, it was a pair of aqua blue 3-inch Steve Madden sandal. After that, I kept falling in love over and over again until my closets were filled with the latest trends. I didn’t really know why I felt the need to buy so much clothes but I did. And it was getting harder to find an outfit because there were so many and I couldn’t find them in the mountain of stuffs.

One morning, after spending 10 minutes to push and pull a bunch of stuffs from the tightly pack racks of clothes, I was short of breath and annoyed. I was annoyed at myself for creating this overflow mountain of clothes and I asked myself: Do I really need all these clothes? How did I get here? When did I buy this much clothe? It got me to analyze what do these clothes means to me.

While I mentally scanned my closet and its contents, I started to reflect on the journey that led me to each piece of cloth and this mini mountain of stuffs that accumulated in my closet. The trial and error, the hits and the misses and how much money did I spend on stuffs that I didn’t even wear that often or never wear at all. Back then, my motto was: latest trend and lot of it. I couldn’t care less about the quality. Quantity mattered more to me.

The Debate

Couple of days later, I got together with a friend for dinner. Over dinner, wine, career and a little bit of male bashing discussion, I posted the question of quality vs quantity clothing purchase. My dear friend was a champion of quality over quantity. She obsessed over cashmere and silk.  I didn’t know how fast she could run until I saw her making a dash to grab the last cashmere sweater at Brooks Brothers. Her ninja legs could move at the speed of a bullet train. She had some good points supporting buying quality over quantity:

1. Longer lasting clothes, less shopping more saving.

It is counter intuitive to say: by paying more per item, you will save more. Her argument was: it came down to casual wear vs office attire. You would wear your office clothes more often than casual ones because you spent an average 40 hours at work plus couple hours of traveling time. Your office wears would be worn out before the casual wear.

But the winter boot was when she got me good. She compared my $60 winter boots that I bought every year to her $300 boot which has lasted for years. If you lived through a Canadian/Siberian winter then you know what I’m talking about. I lost count how many times I stepped outside for couple minutes and then ended up with soaking wet feet because my boots are not fully waterproof.

So, I finally got smart and invested in a pair of Sorel women’s Joan of Arctic boot. These babies were expensive. I paid $300 but they lasted and so warm. Do you want to spend $60 on a pair of boot that won’t last you one winter or a $300 one will ensure you have warm feet for 4 – 5 winters? When you buy quality items, they typically last longer which means less money spent, and less trips to the land of temptation (aka: MALL) and giving in to the spending beast that I called impulse purchases.

2. You will take better care of the expensive items.

When you spend more money on an item, it usually means you really like it and it makes you feel good. When you buy quality, every item in your wardrobe is your favourite. If they are your favourite, you will care for them well and in return, your items can last longer. It is a domino effect, ladies! More importantly, when you look good in your favorite outfit, it will have a positive lifting to your spirit and mindset giving you the confident to tackle your day.

3. You will be less wasteful.

We live in a very wasteful culture. We want more and new stuffs all the time. Just stop for one second and think this through. The more crap you buy, the more crap you eventually have to get rid of. If you’re buying poor quality shirts, you will have to get rid of them more frequent. This will not do your wallet any good.

4. You will save space for more living.

Well, I couldn’t argue about this one. My small mountain of cloth spoke volume. I will shut up now. The less cloth you have also means less time to clean, care for them and ah… yes, more spaces for you.

5. You will shop less.

For the ladies who love shopping therapy likes me, this might is not a plus. What? No shopping therapy, what should we do to reduce stress? For a long time, I loved shopping but then I slowly realized I used shopping to deal with other unhappiness in my life (namely Panda boss). I brought stuffs that I didn’t use because I needed that instant few minutes of gratification to lift my spirit but that feeling was short and fleeting. I ended up not using 1/3 of what I brought and I added more stress to my life because I overspent on shopping for useless stuffs and had to work harder to pay for them. Vicious circle, I tell you

The Purge

Tipsy and deflated but I still had enough brain power to grab the wisdom of my dear friend’s logics. So, I started researching on the best way to clean up your closet. That was when I came across Marie Kondo and her KonMari method. This is one organized lady, I tell you.

To be honest, I thought she was Karen’s long lost twin because they both have this insane drive and determination to follow their convictions. Hum…Tea time with Marie and Karen, I shuddered at the thought. But I was determined to make some changes and my closet was busting at the seam, so there I went. I banned Karen from coming over to my house on the day of KonMari, because she is a first-rate cheapskate and she would talk me into keeping stuffs or grab my thing for herself (which is not recommended in the KonMari method).

It was a simple technique but it was very hard to follow because:

  • First, I had to take everything out of your closet. Cloth, shoes, purse, bags, accessories and everything else must be pull out and on the floor. Jesus! Why did I have so much stuff? I was out breath from lugging things within 15 minutes
  • Then, I had to pick up every item and asked myself this question: Does this item give me joy?
    • If the answer was Yes, I kept the item
    • If the answer was No, I throw it away
    • If the answer was Maybe, then I had one last chance to decide after careful consideration

It was a blood bath. I ended up with 6 bags of stuff to throw away. Karen helped me drop them off at the donation bins and ended up with sore arms. There went thousands of dollars.  What I realized after this awful KonMari exercise was the fact that these stuffs did not just cluster my space but also my mind. I felt lighter and happier looking at my much more organized closet.

There were actually movements in the closet and I could see my clothes finally. More importantly, all the items I decided to keep are things that bring a smile to face or they made me feel good and confident. Why did it take me so long to realize this?

So now I am embarking on a new wardrobe strategy. I planned carefully what I need instead of buying on impulse and I tried to deal with issues in my life thru other means instead of shopping therapy (long walks, punching couch pillows, etc.).

Here is my new found philosophy and method of wardrobe investment:

  • Have a plan.Rather than jumping right into a major closet clean-out blindly, always start with a strategy to keep you on track and be clear on what you need. I started out with pulling my entire closets into middle of an empty room.  Then I pick-up each item, if I feel joy it goes to keep pile. No joy? Then its discard or donation.
  • Plan and set a budget. I know you may hate the B word. I do too, but then Karen set me straight. That budget hawk has her use. Once you have your personal budget, then you can have a plan of what and when you can buy the items that you LOVE but don’t yet have. The most important part in this step is to be honest with yourself. It is what you Love not what you want on a whim. With all the daily expenses in your life, you should never go into debt for the sake of your wardrobe. The last thing you want to have is financial stress for sake of fashion.
  • Bargain hunting. I love eBay. Karen probably told you how she shops. It is true, I got really good deals on eBay for her. Now, I have semi-annual shopping trip also known as my semi-annual clothing haul. Twice a year I, my friend and Karen drive to major outlet malls in US. Armed with our lists of “must”, we brought what we love and no more. I got Tahari, DKNY, Jones NY and Ralph Lauren at bargain price and I had a day of fun with my friend and sister.

In addition, I also took Karen’s mommy’s stylish wardrobe advices. Karen is boring (ex-banker and Capricorn) but she is very logical and good with the budget. If you are also seeing your closet busting at the seam and you spending money on items that you only wear once, it is worth your time to give it some serious thoughts. I am not a therapist but I learn from my experience that:

  • Shopping therapy did not give me long lasting joy
  • Quality is way better for my wallet than quantity
  • Cluster closet is bad for my physical space and mind
  • Dealing with root cause of my issue helps me to have a more blissful and happy life instead of masking my issues with instant gratification
  • Having a plan and making strategic purchases will give me a closet full of clothes that I love and give me lot of joy and confident

There! I will finally stop now. Tell me your wardrobe story. I love to hear from you.

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Do I need to go to a gym to get healthy?
Physical HealthYour Health

Do I need to go to a gym to get healthy?

by Helen

The gym locates across my office has a brilliant idea. Instead of wall, the gym has all glass fronts so you can see everything and more importantly who work out. The women in my office all agree, the glass front design is the best feature of the gym because they can drool over hot guys, muscles and nice-looking abs.  The men in my office are also in agreement but they will never dare to say it out loud. I must admit some of the guys working out in that gym have great bodies, but I often wonder does great body equate to health? Do you have to work out every day and have tone body to be considered healthy? We do have an obsession with body image, do we?

Thus, it is not surprising that there has been an explosion of gyms in North America cities. You can probably find a gym in your immediate neighborhood and sometimes multiple ones within short walking distance of each other.  Rows and rows of machines, treadmills, body pump, yoga or spin classes all day. People are lining up to sweat their butts off on these machines and classes.  But is it working? Are all these gyms helping or hurting? Do you really need the gym or does it need you? I’ll share with you my own journey with smelly gym mat.

About just 2 years ago, my health was at the lowest point.  I was around 180lbs but I felt like a 200lbs penguin.  Constantly, I had stomach pain and my body was aching all over.  I was a 30 something in a 70 years old woman body. On top of that, I was easily short of breath after climbing the stairs. And no, it wasn’t a long stair. 3 flights of stairs were enough to knock the wind of my sail. Well, I couldn’t go on like that and I decided to make a drastic change. I decided to join a gym to get healthy.

Yes, the big G word. I will share something personal: I hate gym because I am very sensitive to smell. If you have been in a gym you know what I am referring too. To get those 6 packs you will have to really sweat it out. And that was my turn off. I didn’t and still don’t like the sweat smell. Just my luck, every guy that I considered “somewhat hot” usually sweated big time. It was a huge turn off to see big fat sweats just rolling down and then came the smell.  Yuk! I digress from my disappointment in the male specie. The bigger muscle the guy has the more sweat he seems to produce. Seriously! Ok, I need to stop here.

As it happened, my employer had a partnership with a well know gym and I would get a decent discount on the price. Well, this couldn’t hurt too much, so I decided to jump on the gym band wagon (or a treadmill in my case).  The sign-up process was quite easy and I met with an associate from the gym for a walk through after much dreads. I was somewhat a gym virgin (like I said, hate the smell of sweat) so I was uncomfortable with the machines. Sensing my uneasiness, the associate suggested meeting with a trainer to see how they could best help me. Hum…was this a sale pitch? Yep, it certainly was.  I could see the associate was practically jumping for joy when he discovered that I had very little knowledge about machines and work-out techniques but I was desperate to improve my health.

To be honest, I didn’t and still don’t have a problem with my body.  I like my shape and curves. I know that I don’t have model body and I am happy with that.  My main objective was to get healthy and if I got my butt into shape that would work for me too. So, off I went to meet with the trainer and he proceeded to check my Body Mass Index (BMI) and a few other things. He promised that he would be get me in the best shape of my life and just to drove the point home, he show me a computer graphic of my post 6 months training body.  Wow! The post 6 month training “me” had Kim Kardashian body?

This guy really knew how to sell. Sensing that I had a real concern about health issue, he talked in length about how exercise would improve my moods and health.  But I got a bit annoyed when he kept hooping on how much weight I would lose and how great I would look. So after 15 minutes of him went on and on about this, I politely said: “Look, I don’t want to look like Kim Kardashian. It doesn’t bother me that I weight at 180 lbs. I only want to get healthier. My only objective is to improve my health. That’s all”. Signal received, he stopped the weight loss pitch after that.

This is one thing that I like to point out: the gym associate and trainer will push for a private training because they work on commission. They will tell you a lot of good stuffs to get you to sign up but you are the one in charge of your body and wallet so don’t let them talk you into something that you don’t really need.  I didn’t buy in their sale pitch because I did the research in advance and I knew what I needed to do. I decided to go with a trainer due to 2 main reasons:

  • Maximize the workout result in short time. I didn’t know the work out techniques. And yes, I could just jump on the treadmill, but I didn’t have a lot of time to work out so I wanted to maximum result with little time I had at the gym. A trainer could help me work out more effectively and efficiently since they have the expertise.
  • Motivation. I knew that I needed to work out to get better health but I needed extra push. I would confess: it was easier and more enjoyable to watch TV or reading than went to the gym. I needed extra push to get my butt moving.

So, I ended up with a 6 months training program with 3 days per week which costed around $1000 in total.  I requested a female trainer because I thought a woman would more likely understand my concern and could relate to my health issues more than a male trainer.

First month – Not too bad

Well, I survived the first few workouts with only few scratches.  My trainer was fabulous. We discovered and bonded over our caffeine addiction, travel itches and curly hair maintenance. She gave me a lot of good work-out tips as well as better drinking habit. I sort of drank coffee as substitute for water. I called it my coffee flavored water. More on the caffeine, less on the water. My trainer gave me a lecture on this habit but she was sympathetic because she had the same love for the bitter and highly addictive beverage.  Caffeine, thy name is addiction.

Yep, I made the right call. The male trainer would probably be more of an eye candy but it was a woman that could really help me get better health. That is another advice that I would give: if you need a trainer, then go with the one who you can be comfortable with. The relationship between trainer and trainee is quite intimated, so you may get a better result and more enjoyable workout if you are comfortable and relatable with your trainer.

My trainer recommended that I focused on building my muscles to gain more body strengths, so I did a lot of weight lifting exercises. After 3 weeks, I stepped on the scale, and the result was a 10 lbs loss. I wasn’t surprise because I knew that there was a good chance that I could gain weight due to muscle gain.

Second month – Muscle pains

I was a bit more energetic as I got more comfortable with the work-out techniques and routine. However, my body pain and ache were getting worst.   My muscles cramped up badly that my trainer had to give me mini massage during one of the work out session.  It was tough, but I hung in there with the hope that I could improve my health. After 2 months of continuous work out, I didn’t lose any more weight and my body ache and pain continued. My trainer was shocked and concerned because I worked out 3 times per week for 1 hour each time and yet there was no weight loss and eased of muscle cramped.  I could lift some weights and gained a bit more stamina on the treadmill but there was not much else to show.

Third month – Unexpected discovery

It was quarter end reporting time, and I had to put in longer hours at work. As a result, I missed a few work out sessions. My trainer (aka: caffeine sister) was understanding and accommodating. She moved my session to later time even though I gave her notice just couple hours in advance. Yep, I got a good one. I was adamant that I continued on the healthy workout routine, so I did yoga after work at home when I couldn’t make it to the gym.

That was when I made an unexpected discovery; my muscle ache went away when I didn’t go into the gym for a week.  As soon as I hit the gym mat, muscle cramped up and ached again. My massage therapist could tell when I went to the gym because she always got my call begging for a relieve session.   Wait a minutes, I just doubled my spending. I had to pay for the gym and then massage therapist? What was the reason for me to hit the gym mat in the first place? Ah! Yes, to make my body pain and ache go away. Hum… this wasn’t meeting my objective at all.

I stepped on the scale and I lost 5 lbs only? My trainer couldn’t figure out what went wrong because there was no change to my eating habit or any other factor.

Fourth month – There was a little thing called fate

Do you believe in fate? I didn’t and then fate gave me a little kick to prove me wrong. As painful as it was, I recommitted to my exercise training regime after my workload slowed down because I was determined to get healthier. Came hell or high water, I would get healthier.  Then, in a training session, I noticed that my trainer was somewhat off.  Normally, she was a chatter box and very cheerful, but that day she totally gave off the zombie vibe.

Thinking that she didn’t have enough caffeine injection for the day, I asked if she was o.k. Grumpily, she told me that she was on a cleanse program to deal with her stomach pain issue with a nutritionist who specialized in gut bacteria named Ariell. What? We had more in common than I thought. It turned out, we both experience similar stomach pain symptoms so she gave me Ariell’s contact information. Well, you know the rest of my cleansing story.

One of the initial down side of the 6 months cleaning program was it could drain your energy due to lack of carbohydrate and sugar. Yep, we need the little something…something to make our body energy and start moving.  Due to my lack of energy, I couldn’t keep up the regular work-out routine. I was quite concern with this and brought it up with Ariell.

Surprisingly, she said that while exercising was healthy thing to do, I shouldn’t do excessive weight training. She came to this conclusion after reviewing my blood test results.  I have a health condition that will limit my muscle build. For someone who has my health condition, it would be more beneficial to do repetitive motion exercises while weight training would do zero for my health.  Instead, Ariell suggested that I walked regularly to get my heart rate pumping better.

Well, you know the result of my 6 month cleansing. I have gotten much healthier and I lost weights. I was so jazzed that I no longer have to endure gym smell and the sweat. Yes, we can’t forget about the unattractive sweat.

Fifth month – Parted way

By the fifth month, I was already doing well with the cleansing program and saw good health results. With just my tiny dumbbell and YouTube yoga videos, I was feeling much better. I didn’t sweat excessively and my massage therapist stopped getting my phone calls. I didn’t see a reason for me to continue to hit the gym mat when I found a more enjoyable way to regain my health. I spoke to my trainer/caffeine sister and she understood. Having been on the cleanse program, she knew that I didn’t have the sugar and carbohydrate in my body to give me the fuse for gym workout.

In all honesty, I always disliked the gym and workout, but I hung in there for health improvement reason.   Now, I no longer need to do so to get my health back.

Would I do it again?

Most likely, no! I learned some useful information during my time at the gym that I still use but that knowledge certainly did not cost to $1000. On top of that, I didn’t enjoy the fact that I had to make time to go to the gym after work. It felt like a chore to me instead of enjoyment. All the eye candies and drool worthy abs in the neighborhood couldn’t change my mind about the cost of gym membership, the smell (oh…the smell), muscle cramps and the time commitment.

I find that working out at home suits me best. It is much more enjoyable to take a walk with Karen and talk about all kinds of thing even when the little monster tags along.  Seriously, try it. I would venture a bet that you may find it is far more enjoyable to have a walk with someone you can share interest and have a conversation with than sweating your butt off in a gym. Hot guys or not, I make my choice of exercise.

Before I leave you to your thoughts, I like to share a few things that I learned from my gym venture:

  • Find the work-out method that work best for you and your existing health conditions. While weight training maybe the best exercise for most people, it does nothing for me due to my health condition. So, I choose to do thing that works best for my health and it doesn’t include a gym.
  • Be comfortable in your own skin. Be healthy and happy in whatever body shape you are in and love it. I recognize that we North Americans have an obsession with being skinny but you should be happy and comfortable in the shape that you are in. I am all for individuality and celebrating the diversity in all of us. Don’t conform and be unhappy. Be different and happy!
  • Stick to your objective and don’t give in to sale pitch. I know of a few of these gym sale pitch stories and I won’t bore you with them. All I want to say is: spend your money wisely. If a personal trainer is what you need to get healthy than by all mean do it. But don’t let anyone pressure you into buying something you don’t want. And choose a trainer that you are comfortable with. Eye candies are good to look at but they may not help you get healthier.
  • Listen to your body. You know your body best. I didn’t listen to my muscle cramps and pains at the gym, but you bet that I learn my lesson.

At the end of it all, I don’t regret hitting the gym mat or paying for the personal trainer, but I would not do it again. I spent $1,000 and a lot of sweats (literally) and it did zero to improve my health.  Staying active and healthy is a big part of my happy and blissful life philosophy and I will continue to do so. But I will do what is right for my health which is walking, yoga and chasing after my niece. Yes, you betcha it is an exercise.

How about your gym experience? I would love to hear about it!

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Travel with your kids – A tale of nightmares or sweet memories
TravelYour HealthYour Relationship

Travel with your kids – A tale of nightmares or sweet memories

by Karen

“Mamma, I miss Jake, the dog and the peacock”. My daughter said.

I was surprise. We didn’t have any pet and there certain no peacock in our house. Curious, I asked her: “Where did you see Jake, the dog and the peacock baby?”

“Remember? We saw Jake at the church and the peacock at the castle. And I pee pee. Remember?”  She replied.

It took me a couple of minutes to realize where she would see the dog, the peacock and her pee pee. When my daughter was 3 and half, we took her to Ireland for a family vacation. During the trip, we visited an abandoned abbey where she needed to pee badly, and the guide was kind enough to show her how to use the “nature toilet” nearby. Luckily, no one caught her when she did “her pee pee” business. The star attraction of the abandon abbey for my daughter was a golden retriever named Jake. He belonged to a farmer who lived near the abbey and he frequently ran over. My daughter feel in love with Jake during the time we were at the abbey. Then at Malahide castle, we saw a bunch of peacocks on the castle ground and my daughter had an amazing time chasing after these beautify birds. She was very adamant that they wanted her to pet them even though they ran away from her.

I knew that she had a wonderful time when she travelled with us, but I often wondered how much memory my daughter could retain from our travels because she was so young. We took her travel since she was just 10 months old with the hope to instill the love of travel and learning new cultures in her. Well, I got my answer. She remembered the dog, the beach, the peacocks and the castles. Job well done, parents!

Both my husband and I agreed early on that we wanted to travel as much as possible with our daughter and travelling would be an important component of her learning and development. Most of our friends knew about this and they often asked me if my daughter would remember? Is it worth the cost and headache?

Because travel is not cheap, let’s just face that fact. The cost of airfare, food and accommodations are not much for a child but the stuffs you will have to prepare and alter to ensure your child safety and enjoyment on the trip is the real big cost. Also, it is not an easy task to travel with a young child, so is it all worth it? I will admit it is costly to travel one or twice a year with a young child, but it a life experience and knowledge that we believe is very important to her development and we commit to it.

The first trial run

So, our travelling story began when she was 7 months old. We wanted to have a family trip to Maya Rivera Mexico when she turned 10 months old, so we did a “trial run” short distance trip to build up her stamina for the big trip. Yes, I am a planner. I plan and have list for everything. To test it out, we took our 7 months old baby across the border into New York, US for a 2 days trip. The drive to the border wasn’t too bad because it was just about 2 and half hours. By the time we reached the line up at boarder Custom, she expired. In her little sit at the back of the SUV, she let out a loud scream and she won’t stop.

“How dare you parents and auntie. I am mad sitting in my sit for over 2 hours while you guys keep on talking. Well, I won’t have it anymore” she let us know her displeasure with her vocal chords.

My sister who sat next to my daughter at the back row of the car did everything to calm her down, but she didn’t stop. So there we were just 1 car away from the custom booth, my husband jumped out of his driver sit and picked her out of her sit to calm her down. I jumped into the driver sit, my sister got into the front passenger sit. In 2 minutes, we completely changed the sitting arrangement so my husband could calm down our precious screaming little tyrant. The custom agent was amazingly understanding and forgiving when he saw the agitated little tyrant in my husband’s arms instead of in her sit in a slow-moving car.

“Ah… they can be quite naughty. I have those at home.  But you need to put her back in her sit when you drive out of here”, he told me.

I silently thanked my lucky stars for giving me this understanding dad/custom agent, we drove on. The rest of the trip was quite calm. We learned a valuable lesson from this trip; she would expire within a 2 hours window. So, we would need to have toys or stuffs to entertain her for the 4 hours flight to Mexico for sure.

The first vacation trip

Then, came the big day! We were going to Maya Rivera Mexico. It was a 4 hours flights after 2 hours waiting at the airport. Darn, this gonna be rough. In participation of a flight, I prepared a few things in addition to a carry-one full of diapers and all other stuffs that you typically needed when you had a 10 months old baby:

  1. Toys, toys and few more toys.
  2. Mushies – about 6 bags. These stuffs are great to get your kid to eat fruit and veggies in a fun way and it has other use. I will explain later. The only 2 ingredients in Mushies that I am not crazy about are: citric acid and ascorbic acid. Though these 2 things typically added in the adult and baby food as preservative and it is low dosage. But there is a possibility that citric and ascorbic acid can increase the acidity in your kid’s diet and may result in increased incidents of kid reflux. I was comfortable using Mushies because the dosage of the acids was low and she only ate them twice a year when we travelled.
  3. One set of change of cloth for her and one extra shirt for me. The extra shirt for me was preventive measure and it came in handy when she vomited a bit of milk on me during the flight. Ah ha, my neurotic planning had it use.

Flying with kids

The flight was an enjoyable experience for us because we were well prepared and we got the airport with plenty of time. We were able to relax and get into the spirit of vacation from the moment we stepped into the airport.  This is one tip I will leave with the parents when travel with young children. Children will find the most unfortunate time to throw a little tantrum so make sure you give yourself plenty of time to travel. You won’t enjoy the vacation experience fully if you are annoyed and rushing at the very beginning of your trip. So budget sufficient time to give your mind the space and ease to enjoy the experience fully.

Most parent’s fear is the kid’s ear get hurt due to air pressure in the plane and I have a solution for you. Give your kid something to eat during take-off and landing. Seriously! By forcing them to move their mouth to eat, you will help prevent the air pressure from hurting or blocking their ears. We always gave my daughter few Mushies just before the plane started to take off or getting ready to land. It worked every time and the flight was enjoyable.

There was an unfortunate family who sat couple rows ahead of us travelling with a 1 year old girl. They didn’t know this trick and the little girl’s ears were hurt due to air pressure. The little girl cried for almost 30 minutes. The parents were panic and embarrassed. Other passengers who sat near them were sympathetic but certainly they were also annoyed.  I was certain that it wasn’t a pleasant flying experience for the family and few passengers.

Long at last, we landed in Mayan Rivera and spent a week at a wonderful resort. My daughter saw the ocean for the first time and well, she wasn’t a big fan because the waves were strong and loud. My hubby was very disappointed. He dreamed of building the sand castle with her but his dream was destroyed because she disliked the hot sand also. Well, he didn’t stay disappointed for long. It turned out she loved the kiddie pool and liked to fall asleep on her daddy’s chest near the ocean. The sound of ocean waves and her daddy ‘arms was what she needed to fall asleep.  They had a wonderful bonding time and there were many first time memories for both her and us.

Now, there were bumps on the road. Just one day before the end of the vacation, my daughter had a fever. It turned out she had hand, foot and mouth disease. Well, she did spent 6 days in kiddie pool and you never knew what the other kids left behind in the pool. This was one of those nightmare scenarios that could happen when you travel with young children. The resort had a doctor on site (one of the many benefit of an all-inclusive resort) and he gave her medicine to reduce the fever.

The flight back home was not so enjoyable for us because she had fever. To help her calmed down, I used one proven method, breastfeeding.  Work liked a charm on her every time but my boobs were another story. It one of those thing we all went through as mom. There is a reason why mother day is much bigger deal than father day. Sorry, dads! The truth may hurt a little.

Nightmare or sweet memories, there are many benefits of traveling for the children. But I believe the biggest winner are the parents. There is nothing more precious, happy and blissful then watching your child’s eye light up with laughter and curiosity when she discovers something new. To hear her giggles when she swims with you in a pool or see the smile on her face when she falls asleep on your chest.  Those memories and moments of happiness are priceless and worth all the troubles and nightmares.

Since then, we have taken her to Cuba twice, then came the big Ireland trip and last year we went back to Mayan Riviera.  Each trip brought different challenges but also memories.  On her first trip to Cuba with me and my sister she fell in love with the ocean and sand.  Yep, she got over the fear of loud waves. Granted, Cuban beach is gorgeous and very calm. On our last trip to Mayan Riviera she discovered Pina Colada (virgin naturally) and she learned to say “Pina Colada per favour. Gracias”. She had 2 small cups of virgin Pina Colada everyday. I begun to fear for her future as this might not be a great indicator for her choice of beverage.

For your kids, travel is crucial part of their learning and development.  Travelling is about giving your child a memory and an experience. And after all, experiences are the building blocks that make us who we are whether we remember them all or not.

Here are the 7 top reasons to travel with your child:

  1. Broaden the horizons of your child
  2. Expands, alters and stretches your child’s mind and see the world in a whole new way
  3. Help your child to be the future traveller
  4. Enable your child to learn, acclimate and adapt to change
  5. Help uncover your child hidden interest
  6. Your child can let loose and be themselves
  7. Create a lifelong family memory and bonding experience

The one thing that I love the most of travelling is learning. I learned something new about a culture, people, innovation and way of life every time I travelled to a new country. For my daughter, this translates to her understanding that there is no one single way or right way to do some things. There is always more than one right answer depending on the resources that are available and the options that she has.

Let just take food for example. My daughter is an adventurous eater. She will give every food a try and I credited this to the exposure she has had in a wide range of Mexican, Cuban, Irish, America, Korean, Chinese and a whole wide range of ethnic foods that she sampled. For her, eating a congee, drink healthy juice blend or ham, toast and egg are all part of breakfast. Actually she prefers Japanese’s cheesecake for breakfast, but we draw a line at desert. No sugar in the morning is my number one rule for her diet.

Food is just one example; there are many things that travel can help to broaden your child knowledge of the world. More importantly, travelling and new knowledge will instill in them the concept of innovation and there is more than one way to solve for a problem at an early learning stage. You can tell that I am one of those mothers who would totally go wild when my daughter does something new.

Nothing gives me more pleasure and joy than to see my daughter steps outside of her comfort zone, embraces change and pushes her limit. I am a firm believer that the children can easily learn to stretch themselves and experience things outside of their everyday life routine and comfort zone when they travel. The constant changes in their environment when travelling will push them to adapt to new changes quickly. Each time they do this, they will gain the confidence to push themselves further and further even when they are not travelling.

The younger your kids are when you start travelling with them, the faster they become better travel companions because they learn what to expect, what to do and more importantly what not to do. My daughter knows that every time I pull out her penguin travel suitcase, we will be going somewhere new. Without me asking, she will promptly drag the suitcase to her room and packs her clothes. She loves to travel and she knows what the adults expect of her at the airport, in the taxi ride or just getting up early in the morning to travel. When the plan began to lift or land, she promptly ate Mushies without us asking her to do so.

Don’t get me wrong, you need to have routine and schedule for your kid because we all have busy life. But it is also a fine line between complacency and routine. If there is no stimulant or change in routine, your kid will not likely to embrace change. We now live in the world that change is one constant guarantee, so your and my child ability to adapt and acclimate to change will give them life skills that they will need as the world continues to change.

I will now end my pitch for travelling with kid. There are couple of things that I will leave with you when consider traveling with young children.

  • Be prepared and test out your child time limit first. Try to have a short drive to see how much your child can tolerate before bundle him/her on a plan for hours of flying time.
  • Leave yourself plenty of travelling time so you can start your vacation with a good feeling and relaxation.
  • Give young children something to eat during the takeoff and landing. You will have a much better flying experience. I recommend Mushies, but you know your child taste bud best.
  • Be open to new experience. My husband was set on building the sand castle with my daughter and she didn’t like it. But when he opened to try a different experience, they had an amazing time and learned more about each other.
  • Push your child explore something new. Most of my friends thought it was wasteful to have a 3 and half year old experience Ireland, but they also agreed that my daughter seemed to growth so much more after that 15 day vacation. New environment and change accelerated her learning pace and she learned more quickly.

Have you travel with your child yet? Do you have any tips on travelling with children? Do share!

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Married or single, which is a better life choice?
Mental HealthYour HealthYour Relationship

Married or single, which is a better life choice?

by Karen

Every one of us want to have “this friend” a brilliant, smart, funny, independent and among many other admirable qualities that you want to have and aspire to be. This is “the friend” that you want to hang out with and have a life-long friendship. I am fortune enough to have a friend like that and she is fabulous. We met in the MBA program and have become good friends. I introduced her to my sister and they also become good friend.

This brilliant friend of mine and my sister are both single and they have a lot in common. Top of their list is travel, eating and shopping. Yes, they do know how to enjoy life.  Ignorantly, I held this belief that my friend and sister life was much easier than mine. They could go anywhere    anytime and never had to compromise with a partner on any issue. I often joke that they are “the single and fabulous aunties” that my daughter loves them more than me. Actually, she does love the aunties as they are her main suppliers of chocolate, ice cream, bubble tea, cakes and they never discipline her.

Over of one of our frequent brunch, I complained to them the compromises that I had to make with my hubby on several issues. I concluded: “You two have it easy. You don’t have to compromise with anyone and on anything. Your life is much easier than me”. You know the moment that you just became an insensitive jerk? Well, that was the moment for me.

One admirable quality that my friend has is her forgiving nature. Gently, she told me that there were other aspects of being single that would not be easy on someone. When my friend was sick for days and she had to take care of herself while she tried to recoup. Things in the house broke down, she had to take care of it, there was no husband or partner who she could delegate the task to even though she was in middle of year end reporting and had to pull a 60 hours work week.

It was an eye-opening moment for me to realize that I was so caught up in my own bubble and problems that I didn’t see the challenges that my friend and sister had to handle on their own. It got me to think about our life choice of being single or married. Being single is not that easy as it seems. But being married is also not easy either. I would venture a guess that there is moment in every married woman’s marriage which she wishes to be singled and free.

Perhaps, it is when your kid was screaming, you are exhausting from work and your husband choses this perfect moment to ask: when dinner would be ready? Don’t you just want to dump the dinner on his head? I had a few of those moments with my husband.  Does getting married make you happier, healthier, and better off physical and emotionally? Or single is a better choice for a woman mentally and physically? I don’t know the answer but I want to explore it.

Let’s talk finance!

When you have another person to pool your financial resources and share expenses, chance is you will have more financial advantages. Unless your partner is gambler or has bad spending habits, then you are out of luck. But in general, if both people work and generate similar level of income, you will have larger income to pay for expenses as well as investing. There are many researches that reached the same conclusion. One research in particular sited married couple would get a 77% increase in their net worth compared to a single person. That’s a hefty advantage. With the combined wealth and earning, there is higher chance of getting more return because you will have more funds to invest. Volume matters and it matters even more with time due to compound interest. My husband and I have a joint investment portfolio which we both actively manage. We started with $5,000 and in the next 10 years growing it to a $450,000 portfolio.  We have our own individual portfolios so our combined assets make us attractive customers for bank. And we used this to our advantage and leveraged our assets to grow more assets over the years. Lastly, financial safety net is always on my mind and having a partner means that if I ever lose my job, we will have my husband income to fall back on.

Tax is a big part of your finance, and the tax man doesn’t discriminate married or single because your marital status has no impact on tax. Married couples don’t automatically benefit from tax but depending on income, some are eligible for deduction where single may not. For example, there is spousal RRSP contribution in Canada.  The higher-income spouse can contribute to a spousal RRSP and get a tax break which can go up to 45% of the contribution depending on the income level and few other factors. In the US, there are a lot of tax breaks for the married folks as well.

Now, there is no joint asset and leveraging for single but it doesn’t mean there is no benefit.  When you are single, you only have to take care of yourself and spending for one. So if you are single and earn a decent income, you can afford to do a lot of thing your way and to your heart desire.

Take my traveling gypsy sister for example. My sister makes good income which allows her to live a very comfortable middle-class life.  As she has to no child care expense (well, because she can be the child sometime), she has more disposable income for her own enjoyment. She has one rule: travel to 2 destinations per year (last year it was Taiwan and Portugal, that travel junkie). And she took pictures of herself enjoying foods at Michelin restaurants and sent them to me. I could overlook Portuguese foods (not a big fan), but Taiwanese noodles and dumplings were a different story.  And let’s not forget Taipei night market. That’s heartless punk.

On top of which she can afford all kinds of specialty tea and coffee and still has enough money in her budget to go out to eat with her friends on regular basis. Whereas, I got to spend time with mini-me in all-inclusive resorts. Ok, I start sounding like a brat now, but you get my point. When you are single, you can make all financial decision for yourself and your enjoyment. When you are married, you will likely have to make some compromise.

 What about your health?

 Most study show that married couples have more health benefits, (mainly man). A prime example is my husband. Before we have our daughter, I went on a vacation by myself because I wanted to have “me alone time”. I came home to boxes of frozen pizza and Costco pre-made salad. Needleless to say, he was thrilled to have home cook foods again. It is not just for man (though I suspect men are the winners), woman also have health benefit from being in a relationship.  A 2013 study from the Journal of Clinical Oncology shows that being married may improve your chance of surviving cancer. Having a loving partner and children is a powerful motivator and emotional support that you will need to fight deadly disease. Mind over matter, and so when you are fighting deadly disease, the emotional support is just as important as medicine you have to take.

On the flip side, you will also have to make compromise when you share your life with someone. Most of us would want to do things our ways, so it can be challenging and stressful when compromise is needed. It can be a source of tension and stress for a relationship if both sides are not willing to collaborate and compromise. When we re-built our house, interior design was a source of many disagreements. I love classic and clean look while my husband’s taste is a mix of colours and shapes that my sister calls  “Vatican meets Forbidden Palace”.

To make both of us happy, we agreed that the kitchen and 2 of the bathrooms were mine while he got to go wild with the master bathroom, living room and dining room. Well, we end up with a contemporary looking dining and living room; a classic white and grey kitchen with crystal chandelier, a very funky master bathroom with 5 different tiles and 2 soft and neutral looking bathrooms.

All or friends agreed, it is a case of compromise went BAD on interior design! These are just minor stresses. If you are in an unhappy marriage or relationship, the stress and potential mental effect on your health can be propounded. It is not just a funky and confuse looking house but it could also be your mental and physical health.

However, when you are single and doesn’t have family or back up, you will end up in the same spot as my friend and my sister.  Whenever my sister got sick she just took care of herself even though we were literally 5 minutes’ walk from her house. Good thing is: she is very independent, but it can also very bad.  When I found out that she was sick and was really upset that she didn’t let me know, she usually replied: yes, I deal with it. My friend is the same way. She was sick for 2 weeks and didn’t call or let me know.  I was very annoyed with both of them for not asking for help when they needed. Their replies were: we deal with it. That was when I realized the trade-off for freedom of being single is self-reliance and sufficient.

When you are single, you have to make all decisions and shoulder all life challenges alone. It took a lot of guts, courage and healthy dose of confident be a single woman.  I consider myself an independent woman, but I admit that I depend on my husband on a lot of things and vice versa. There are a lot of benefits of having a dependable partner and I don’t know if I can make single as easy as my friend and sister do.

Society Pressure

My sister once asked me “how is it our society accepts divorce and unhappy marriage but we don’t celebrate someone who is single and happy?” I don’t have an answer for her but the question stayed with me. It is true that most singles get pressure from family and friends to start a family.

My sister is a classic case. My mom pestered her at every chance she got about having a boyfriend and getting married. When she realized that my sister won’t budge, she re-negotiated for a grand-child by suggesting that my sister could adopt or make use of sperm bank. I didn’t think that my mom knew what a sperm bank was, but clearly she did. My sister is happy and content with her choice, but my mom just can’t accept it. She thinks that a woman needs to have a family of her own even as a single mother.

In contrast, my mom thinks that I have a good life because I have a good husband and a child that I love dearly. I don’t deny the fact that my family brings me joy (my daughter is my endless supply of love and rejuvenation) but both my husband and I have to continuously work hard to make our family and relationship last. There were many fights and near break-ups in between our 20 years together.

My sister commented that she didn’t want my life because I had to comprise with my husband and lost part of me in the process (yes, we’re very honest and blunt with each other).  While I don’t think that I lost who I am in my marriage, I will admit that I have had to make a lot of compromises to make the relationship work. There were many things that I and my husband had to swallow and compromise. Top of my list is a very confuse looking house, and many other things that I can’t list them all.

After looking at the researches out there and re-examine life as single and couple, I don’t have a clear answer. From a financial and wealth building perspective, there are clearly advantages for married couples. But both choices can have positive as well as negative consequences on one’s health. These are logical reasons for this important life choice but there is also the factor of love. When you love and care about someone, you will compromise and have the kind of rewards that supersede everything else.

So, to be married or remained single, it is a choice that only you can make. Deciding whether to stay single is no small thing because it is a long and tough road ahead. You have to be self-sufficient and independent. Yet, getting married is not a guarantee to more wealth and happier life despite so many researches indicated so.  So is staying single, by the way. I have seen how staying single can be happy and blissful while staying in an unhappy relationship can be detrimental for one’s health. And, the opposite is also true.

At the end of the day, you are the boss of your fabulous body and mind, so make the decision that is right for you and make you happy. Don’t let anyone pressure you or run to the nearest sperm bank because your mom’s nagging. It is not the answer and it won’t make you happy.

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Food irradiation – 4 things you should know before buying your grocery this week
Food & RecipeYour Health

Food irradiation – 4 things you should know before buying your grocery this week

by Helen

Health Canada approves sale of irradiated ground beef, says can reduce bacteria. What is this? Are they thinking of shooting laser into these poor cows?  Yuk! There went my idea of having a juicy Portobello ground beef burger. Have scientists who work for Health Canada collectively loss their minds? That is the only explanation for their approval allowing food producers and processors to irradiate our foods? Totally weirded out by this headline, I clicked on the link and read the article.

It turned out, Health Canada deemed food irradiation as a safe and effective treatment to reduce harmful bacteria in ground beef after they conducted some experiments. As a defense for their decision, Health Canada sited that the US has been permitting the irradiation of ground beef products since 1999.  Yes, just because our neighbours are ok with “nuked” meat, doesn’t mean that we do too? Ah, yes our beef and cattle industry wants Canadians to eat irradiated beefs also.  Canada’s beef cattle industry also has been pestering the Canadian government to approve ground beef irradiation since 1998, and the government finally gave into industry lobbyists.

To my shock and horror, I learned that irradiation has used in Canada to treat potatoes, onions, wheat, flour, spices and some seasonings. Say what? So, I have been digesting irradiated foods for years? What is irradiated foods anyway?

What is food irradiation?

If you read my post on my 10 years food journey, you know that I have a sort of love, hate and obsession relationship with foods and I am very careful about what I put into my body. After all, my physical health is largely depending on what I eat, so I have developed a habit of reading everything concern foods.  In a nutshell, irradiation (also known as cold pasteurizing) is the process of exposing food to a controlled amount of energy called ‘ionizing radiation’. The process is completed by using one of three different types of radiation: X-rays, Gamma rays, or electron beam radiation ionizing. Just so we are clear on this, an eruption of x-ray is comparable to 30 chest x-rays. Jesus! That is not a good image.  Depending on the food, irradiation could be used to:

  1. Kill bacteria that cause illness or food spoilage
  2. Control insect or parasite infestation
  3. Slow down the ripening or sprouting of fresh fruits and vegetables
  4.  To increase shelf life of foods

It sounds a tiny bit scary (truth be told, I was scary out of my wits when I learned that they used x-ray and electron beam radiation on my foods) but the scientist claims that irradiation is safe for human consumption. I dug a bit deeper to understand exactly how the process of food irradiation worked. It is a bit graphic, but stay with me on this.

Imaging that you passing your food through a giant machine that continuously sends out low doses of ionizing radiation (most typically use is gamma rays) and will kill off unwanted organisms. The process is enough though to disrupt the DNA and kill insects and bacteria that can make people ill without heating or cooking the food that passing thru. Much like heating up your food in microwave, the irradiation energy should disappear from the food immediately and the food doesn’t become radioactive. Do you get the visual yet? I don’t use a microwave to heat my foods because I have done research into the long term health implications of using a microwave consistently. Let’s just say that I dropped my microware in the nearest dumpster. I will write an article on this topic. Promise!

Back to irradiation, the scientists claim this is done in the name of food prevention and with good intention. Much like GMO foods, it all started with good intention but as we know, human just can’t help themselves when it comes to messing with nature.

Exactly which foods are most commonly irradiated?

Jesus! I sweated a bucket when I learned about the food irradiation process. I have a well-found fear for all things that sound remotely close to radiation because my dad die of liver cancer then my mother’s sisters (my aunts) were diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. Genetic is my dead trap! I inherit the cancer DNA genes from both mother and father families. You can appreciate my fear of radiation. Though the government agencies (Health Canada and FDA) both emphasize that food irradiation is safe for human consumption, there are a lot of unanswered questions and we will get to those. Now, I am dying to see what types of food that have been irradiated. Here is the list of “nuked” foods.

For Canadians, here is the list of permitted irradiated foods:

  • Potatoes – To slow down sprouting during storage
  • Onions  – To inhibit sprouting during storage
  • Wheat, flour, whole wheat flour  – To control insect infestation in stored food
  • Whole or ground spices and dehydrated seasoning preparations  – To reduce microbial load
  • Fresh raw ground beef  – To reduce microbial load, including pathogens
  • Frozen raw ground beef – To reduce microbial load, including pathogens

 

For my America neighbours (and shopping playground), the list is a bit longer:

  • Beef and Pork. Cow and pig, you would be the most likely target because you are so popular.
  • Crustaceans (e.g., lobster, shrimp, and crab). What? Poor delicious and succulent lobsters and craps. Inhuman treatment of my delicious seafood.
  • Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. Peach and berries! Good bye, it was good while it lasted.
  • Lettuce and Spinach. My favourite leafy green? These people are heartless.
  • Poultry. Popularity is deadly, chicken!
  • Seeds for Sprouting (e.g., for alfalfa sprouts). Seriously?
  • Shell Eggs. Well, if the chicken is targeted so should you.
  • Shellfish – Molluscan (e.g., oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops). I can’t take this anymore. I can live with meat irradiation but seafood? This is war!
  • Spices and Seasonings. I have nothing left to say!

I am emotionally drained now! Seafood, fruit and leafy spinach, these people are just mean. The bad news doesn’t end here, I have more. There is a long list of foods that are currently being reviewed and approved for irradiation in Canada. The soon-to-be irradiated foods included: mangoes, poultry, shrimp and prawns. Yep, it is very sad news for me because I love mangoes and seafood. I may have to cross them off my list or buy organic from now on. My American neighbours, the FDA also has a long waiting list of foods being reviewed for irradiation approval. The list is growing, people!

 The big question, is it safe?

As I mentioned, Health Canada and FDA both support food irradiation as safe food preventive measure.  These agencies also approved and supported of GMO foods, just a reminder for you. Not surprisingly, many consumer groups have opposing views. A study conducted by Center for Food Safety that shown the food irradiation process can destroy the vitamins and ruin the flavour, odour, appearance and texture of food. Here we go again! It is the tomatoes story all over again. Please see my post on GMO food and prepare to feel really bad for what has been done to tomatoes in the name of increasing food yield. In addition, there was a study conducted by feeding rats the irradiated foods. The study concluded that long term digestion of irradiated carrots could lead to “depressed growth rate”.  To toped it off, I found a study indicated that there was a tendency for lower body weights in both sexes of rats receiving 1.0 and 3.0% irradiated thaumatin (which was a sugar alternative). Wow! Is this the cause of my muffin top? Now I definitely have a bone to pick with irradiated food producers and processors.

Last but not least, the Cancer Prevention Coalition reported 1/3 of studies examining genetic damage caused by irradiated food show substantive genetic damage to cells, human and animal.  Ok, so my paranoias may be well founded. When I was in grade 7, I had a class trip to nuclear power station after learning clean power of nuclear energy.  I was really interested in how they could generate power from the splitting of uranium atom (yes, I am a geek) until the scientists who worked in the power station show us the downside of unsafe nuclear power and the lasting damages to human bodies after the exposure to radiations.  He showed us pictures of Chernobyl and those images stayed with me since 7 grade. Since then, I wholeheartedly support any amount of spending my city needs to maintain the highest safety quality standard for the nuclear power station. You can’t ever be too careful where nuclear is concerned.

And yet, the process of food irradiation is subjecting our foods thru the same radiation exposure process, and we think this is safe? Really? The scientists who work for Health Canada and FDA may test the result of 10lbs on beef consumption and for 1 year period, and the result may be fine. It is safe for human consumption for that quantify and time frame, but what will happen if someone eat 15 lbs? 20lbs? and for 5 years or 10 years? Would it still be safe then?

I have been using various spices in my cooking every day. That’s almost 15 years of cooking for me and 15 years of irradiated spices consumption, how many lbs of spices have I consumed? Am I still safe? There is no definitive answer on these questions and it is the role of our government agencies to do their due diligent and inform the general public of accurate time frame and quantity that safe for consume.

My last point on this subject is longevity. We want to be healthy and live longer. It is well-known that Japanese live longer others. Do you know other countries that are on the top 10 list for life longevities? The other winners of life longevities are: Hong Kong, Singapore and Macao. Japan, Macao, Singapore and Hong Kong are all located in Asia. They all have one thing in common: healthy diet and very little use of food irradiation. As the matter of fact, Japan only allows small percentage of potato to be irradiated and the Japanese kicked up a storm about it. After Fukushima  incident, I would venture that the Japanese wouldn’t likely buy irradiated potatoes ever again.

How can I tell if food is irradiated?

Well, you bet that I will look into how to identify irradiated foods. With all these unanswered questions, I am certain that I won’t risk my health and my chance of getting cancer by digesting irradiated foods. So there is good news. In Canada and US, all foods that contained 10% of irradiated foods must be labeled to inform the consumers.  Below are the symbols that will tell you if the food is irradiated.

Canadian Sign

US sign

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, if you don’t want to consume irradiated foods, be sure not to purchase foods with these labels. Radiation is the most feared word to me because I always associated this word with cancer which I genetically inherit from both of my parent’s DNA.  Also, those Chernobyl images made a lasting impact to my fear of radiation exposure. There is one silver lining; organic produces are not subjected to irradiation because this is a requirement of organic certification. But as I mentioned in my GMO post, organic foods are typically more costly so it is depending on your affordability. But only you would know what is best for you and your family.  For me, I would avoid foods that are irradiated for reason that I mentioned. Truth be told, I don’t even have a microwave.

The other side of the debate

I am a balanced person, so I will also tell you the good stuffs. There is a case to be made for food irradiation. It reduces spoilage, increase shelf life, and kills unwanted bacteria. For certain part of the world, irradiated foods could help feed more people and save lives. Similar to the GMO food argument, the intention for food irradiation is good. The trouble is we, human never know where to stop. A lot of idea started with good intention and ended very badly. There are just too many examples to count.

Lastly, what trouble me the most is I haven’t been able to find any conclusive evidence that food irradiation is safe after all researches that I read. What I found interesting is the main reason for ground beef irradiation is to prevent bacteria that contaminated the meats because the processing plants are generally filthy. Basically, the ground beef may not need to be irradiated if food processing plants follow the regulation and keep clean. But instead of enforcing the laws to ensure the food processors follow the rules, the government agencies decide to “nuke” the foods instead. I like to post a question to you: What would you do after learning about irradiated foods? Would you still purchase them? Would you raise your concerns (if you have any) to your government?

Share your thoughts with me.

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Share ownership – Buying a house with your partner or friend
HousingInvestmentYour Relationship

Share ownership – Buying a house with your partner or friend

by Karen

“You Now Need $100,000 In Income To Buy A Typical Condo In Toronto”. This was the headline on a Huffington Post article this year.  As the cost of housing escalates in densely packed metropolitan, the dream of home-ownership becomes unattainable for many young home buyers. Don’t be despaired, you can still purchase your dream home if you are willing to embrace some trade-offs. I am talking about the option of purchase a house with a friend or a family member. I won’t lie, there are pros and cons to this option and the list is a long one.

The benefits of buying a house with a friend or family member are:

1 – Able to qualify for higher amount of mortgage thus able to purchase a nicer home. With combined incomes of two, it will increase your mortgage approval amount and thus giving you more funding to buy the house of your dream.

2 – Share monthly housing expenses. When you are a homeowner, it’s your responsibility to pay for utilities, maintenance, and repairs in addition to the mortgage payment. The expense of owning and maintain a house is high and thus it would be easier on you to have another person share these expenses. Also, sharing expenses will likely reduce your expense and thus allow you to save a bit more for other things that you also want.

3 – Equity gain for your own home. A house is an investment and naturally, you expect to make some gains on this investment. The good news is that the longer you live together in the property and make the mortgage payment, the more equity you will gain. Equity is the difference between your home’s value and what you owe the lender. So when you and the co-owner decide to sell the property, the two of you can split proceeds from the sale and put the money toward a down payment on your own places.

Now, it is not all rosy when you purchase a house with a friend or family, there are downsides as well:

1 – It is not easy to move out. In a perfect world, you and the co-owner will live happily till the end of time. Alas, reality can be very cruel. Problems can arise between you and you may not be able to work out your differences. When you just co-rent a place with a roommate, it’s easier to walk away.

However, it’s not so simple when you jointly own a house. Both of you are on the hook for the mortgage agreement, and therefore, you’re both responsible for the debt. To break all ties, you have to: 1) sell the house, or 2) refinance in one owner’s name. Both options will take months to sort out and require a lot of time investment from both of you to break up cleanly.

Relationship is messy in both finance and personal. I know someone who brought a condo with a longtime friend. They were great co-owners and friends for years. Then one of them got married and her husband didn’t have stable income. He was a music teacher and had a hard time finding full time employment. So, he moved in with his wife and her co-owner. Well, it did work for about five months before things got really bad. At the end, they had to sell the condo and they also ended their friendship. Yep! It was a classic case of what could go wrong in shared accommodation.

2- Potential damage to your credit score if thing goes badly. As I mentioned, both of you are on the hook for mortgage payment, thus even if you pay your half on time but if your co-owner is not you will be impacted. The bank will report you and your co-owner’s late payment to credit agencies for non-payment or in the case of foreclosure. Equal ownership and punishment!

3 – Difficulty qualifying for other loans that you may need. A big mortgage on your credit report may limit your availability to qualify for other loans. The lender/bank will look at the amount of mortgage you’re responsible to pay monthly relative to your income. Since you’re responsible for the entire mortgage payment (your co-owner is also), your ability to service additional debt will decease as a result. When I was a banker, I often encourage spouses to deal with this issue by include both of them on loan application, however, you can’t just ask your co-owner to be on your loan application

Things to Consider before buying a property with family or friend

Buying a house with a friend can work well and be beneficial for both you. I have seen several partnership home purchases and they worked out to mutual satisfactions. But as I mentioned, I also saw how bad things could be when thing didn’t work out.  Though, I am bias because I jointly own three properties with my sister and one with my “then boyfriend – now husband” in the last 12 years, I am happy to say that the co-ownership model works out well for all three of us. But it takes work, trust, being upfront and honest with each other from the very beginning.

Much like getting married, you both should be very honest and transparent about what you are looking for in the joint venture before jumping in to it. Just because you are family or you are in love today, it does not guarantee that things can’t go wrong in the future.  When people aren’t happy, they tend to call lawyer and then you have to call one yourself. The only person who will be happy is the lawyers, so you should proactively set the expectation before jumping in. There are couples of things that I recommend you consider before buying a property with family or friend (future husband and wife are also applicable):

1 – Have an honest conversation about what you both want and keep the communication line open.

You MUST have a  candid and transparent conversation about your financial situation and you need to have a plan together. I have the same conversation with my sister and my then boyfriend when we decided to buy a property together. Though I had a lot of faith and trust in both my sister and then boyfriend, buying a house was a very large investment and faith and trust alone will not protect both of us in the event that the relationship break down.

So be PROACTIVE and don’t assume you know what the other person wants because he/she may surprise you. I called it “open kimono” conversation because all parties should be very transparent and don’t hide anything even the smallest issue. Wow! I just got the visual of that statement, but I really want to emphasize the important of it.

Also, ensure that you have open dialogue and communicate what issues bother you frequently. Don’t hold it inside and then explore at your partner out of the blue. My hubby was a classic example. It took many flights and me reinstating that I wasn’t a mind reader for him to get into the habit of communicating to me instead of internalizing the issue and let it festered.

2 – Have a home-ownership ‘prenuptial’.

OK, I can practically see the judgment in your eyes. It sounds really bad and negative that I want you to think of how to end the relationship before the relationship even starts. I always prefer to think that the glass half full and giving peoples the benefit of the doubt, but this is one situation that I advocate for a pessimistic mindset. You need to lay down some ground rules and clearly define your “red lines”. That’s where co-ownership agreements come in. These documents are the prenuptial agreements of home-ownership and they are the only way to resolve ownership issues aside from court proceedings. When so much of your hard earned money is at stake, it’s important to address at least these concerns:

  • How much each of you can contribute to down payment? I highly recommend the 50/50 contribution because it is much easier to decide on ownership percentage and how to divide the house expense.
  • What are the ownership percentages? If you are a Canadian residence, you could jointly own the property as: 1) tenants in common or 2) joint tenants with right of survivor-ship. As tenants in common, each person would own a percentage of the property, and could sell his/her share or leave it to any beneficiary upon death. On the other hand, joint tenants means that each of you would have an equal, undivided interest in the property so if one of you dies, the share would go automatically to the survivor. There are pros and cons with both of these arrangements. With joint tenants option, you can bypass estate administration and taxes which is really nice solution if you want to avoid paying tax to CRA. The downside is the obvious, if you want to leave your share to someone else (rather than the co-owner) you can’t. Now, tenants in common would allow you the financial control over your share of the property and the power to leave your share to a beneficiary of your choice. Nice option heh! But there is also downside. You both have the option to sell or give your share to someone else without consent. Thus you could end up sharing ownership and/or living with someone that you don’t want as a result. I highly recommend you both to sit down with a real estate lawyer and flush out these details before deciding on the ownership model and percentage. This is an expense that you should pay because it will save you a lot of grieve in the future.
  • How are ongoing expenses divided? You need to decide who will take care of home maintenance tasks and how the bills for utilities, insurance, and unexpected repairs will be handled. Again, money causes problem so you should proactively address it.
  • How to divide up the joint household task? Silly joint household stuff like: who will take out the trash? or who have dip on the kitchen or have the bigger room should be ironed out. I am serious about this. My “then boyfriend” and I had many mini fights over whose turn to take out the trash. He can’t cook but hate washing dishes. I am the cook but I am not gonna wash dishes when I cook the meal too. You can see how this can get ugly quite fast right? So be proactive and set the expectations before you cohabitate.
  • What happens when one of you want to sell? When one of you wants to sell your share in the house, you are not required to sell to someone approved by the other owner. Well, now that is a winkle. But if you have a co-ownership agreement in place, it can grant the co-owner the right of first refusal. Again, a real estate lawyer will be very useful in helping you put in place agreements so you don’t have to deal with this headache if the worst case scenario happens.

Final thoughts

I will say it again, co-ownership is not a decision you should rush into much like a marriage. This is a decision that you should take the time to consider and investigate.  Do what the bank will do to qualify someone for a loan:

  • Do a credit check on your co-owner/owners. Know for a fact how his/her income and assets to get a better sense of how likely he/she will make timely payments as well as his/ her ability to make payments if income is lost
  • Hire a real estate lawyer to create a cohabitation agreement which outlines important details that I mentioned above
  • Lastly, it is worth considering taking out a term life insurance policy on each other. The payable amount on the policy should be enough to cover the mortgage in the event that one owner dies

Now that I sufficiently scare you off with my negative prenuptial talk, I would also like to highlight that there are benefits to co-ownership that I also highlighted above. A home co-ownership is just another relationship. If you are being honest, transparent and considerate of your co-owner, the relationship will last and you both can gain from the joint investment. I am an example of how well it can work out. 12 years later, I co-own three properties that worth over $2.5 million and my relationship with both my sister and husband are still going strong. Well, I haven’t poisoned his foods and he learns to take the trash out. My sister and I are building this blog together and we haven’t attempted to choke each other yet. I consider that a success…well…you be the judge.

How about you? Consider buying a home with a friend or family? Write to us about your co-ownership experience.

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