9 ‘harmless’ habits that age you

The following articles was taken from Prevention.com....n ... just read n learn more...


It pretty much goes without saying that smoking cigarettes and frying your skin in the sun make you older, so kudos for quitting and slathering on the sunscreen religiously. But if you’re trying to turn back the clock — or at least slow it down a little — don’t overlook these other habits that may be sabotaging your efforts.

1. You keep your college bedtime
It’s not uncommon for superbusy women to cram a day’s worth of around-the-house to-dos into the late evening hours, a practice that pushes back bedtime into — eep! — "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" territory. The problem with this is that too-little sleep is proving to be really, really bad for your health: Research links it to high blood pressure, diabetes, weight gain, and even just looking tired and older.

Act your age: We’re not saying you need a perfect 8 hours every single night, but make sleep a priority more often and your body will thank you. Everyone's sleep needs are different; to find out what yours are, sleep experts recommend you turn off the alarm clock when you're well rested, and see how long you naturally sleep. (Most people need 7 to 8 hours.)

2. You have a soft spot for sweets
A sugar-packed diet can take its toll on your waistline, but now experts also believe it can make your skin dull and wrinkled too. To blame is a natural process known as glycation, in which the sugar in your bloodstream attaches to proteins to form harmful new molecules called advanced glycation end products (AGEs, for short). The more sugar you eat, the more AGEs you develop; these damage surrounding proteins like collagen and elastin, which keep skin firm and elastic. Once damaged, springy and resilient collagen and elastin become dry and brittle, leading to wrinkles and sagging. These aging effects start at about age 35 and increase rapidly after that, according to a study published in the British Journal of Dermatology.
Act your age: It's not easy to eliminate sugar completely, but limiting added sugar to no more than 10% of total calories can help. If you're a 45-year-old woman of average height (5-foot-4), that's 160 calories (or 10 teaspoons) from added sugar — about the number in one 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola or six Hershey's Kisses. By comparison, the average American consumes 31 teaspoons per day of added sugar, or the equivalent of 465 calories. Watch for stealthy sugar in unexpected foods, like salad dressing. Many prepared foods contain hefty amounts of sugar, but it's hidden under aliases — including barley malt, corn syrup, dextrose, fruit juice concentrate, maltose, maple syrup, molasses, and turbinado — on ingredient panels.
3. You’re stressed more often than not
You don’t feel good when you’re stressed-out — be it from work projects piling up, a miserable commute, issues with the kids, etc. — and there’s good biological proof why you shouldn’t. Stress increases the concentration of the hormones cortisol and norepinephrine in the bloodstream, kicking up blood pressure and suppressing immunity.

Over time, stress that doesn’t go away can delay healing, harden your arteries, and possibly shrink areas of your brain involved in learning, memory, and mood—talk about feeling older!
Act your age: Stress will never go away completely, but how you manage everyday blips can keep hormones on a more even — and healthy — keel. Deep breathing is the top antistress pick of Prevention advisor Andrew Weil, MD: He makes time for it at least twice a day. “It only takes 2 minutes,” he says. “I do it in the morning, when I’m falling asleep in the evening, and anytime I feel upset.” Try it: Exhale strongly through the mouth, making a whoosh sound. Breathe in quietly through the nose for a count of 4. Hold your breath for a count of 7, then exhale with the whoosh for a count of 8. Repeat the cycle 3 more times.

4. You only exercise when trying to lose weight
Exercise is one of the best turn-back-the-clock agents around, but too many of us don’t reap its full benefits because we only associate physical activity with weight loss. If you tend to hit the gym in 2-week stints to shed a few pounds, but then take a few months off from physical activity, you’re missing out on some major health perks. Research shows that vigorous exercisers have longer telomeres — cellular biomarkers that shorten as we age — compared with healthy adults who rarely work out. Being active consistently can help fight brain fog, reduce inflammation, and prevent type 2 diabetes and other chronic conditions that crop up over time.

Act your age: Don’t let your sneakers get dusty. Choose any activity you enjoy — be it walking, cycling, or dancing — and aim for a minimum of 20 to 25 minutes a day. Break it down, if you have to, into two 10-minute sessions. Slowly increase the frequency, duration, and intensity in small increments. If you miss a day, don’t let it become a habit; just pick up again the next day.

Life Church Youth Group CNY visitation to my house

My boy John with the others .... All flowers arrangement done by myself... but sad cos my ipod touch did not do the job well or my self got to blame...


My cakes and cookies... poor me...nobody seem to take it... not so delicous .... could be... but they told me my house was the 4th houses they visited in the evening... after all it was already 10pm lo... George the driver, using the church big van taking all of them here... 15 of them in one van....


Some younger ones just busy indulged themselves with the handy little gadget instead "bye niang" ..... this is real electonic games world.....


The only 3 roses among the thorns!


My hubby talking to them......bla bla.....









After all these snaps, only did I realized I need to improve my skill of taking pictures..... who can teach me ah..

CNY

Cruising through hustle n bustle of the cny activities really made me exhausted landing up taking medication that can be grabbed handily from fridge thus unable to come to my ehome to write more for my receipe. I baked 4 cakes last Saturday ( with 2 extra given by friends ) and 10 types of cookies to celebrate my cny with friends and relatives. 1st day of cny I had an open house dinner with them. I just could not imagine that I cooked 12 dishes and ordered 5 dishes of Malay food for I have Muslim friends. Thanks God for giving those extra strength.

Though every time I told myself to avoid all those sweeet n spicy food but when occassion such like cny just could not help myself “falling off the wagon” to cruise through the once in 365 days to celebrate the cny, thus such many cakes n cookies n the spicy food. We r celebrating until 15th day of Chinese lunatic calender, so friends n relatives , u all r welcome as long as I am arround ... "Happy Chinese New Year!"

CNY cookies

A few more days we are going to celebrate cny, and like before we are going to have our reunion dinner in the restaurant that been booked weeks ago. So I shall do the cooking on the 1st day of cny inviting several friends for dinner.

These few days I baked several types of cookies. Here comes my Sago cookies done from scratch in 4 difference shapes.


Sago Cookies

Ingredient

200 gm castor sugar
2 eggs
200 ml coconut milk
650 gm Sago flour
150 gm potato flour

First stir fry sago flour with 10 pandan leaves which are cut into stripe on a very low heat until fragrant for about 20 minutes. Cool and rest for at least 3 hours before for use.

Mix egg yolk, sugar and milk until sugar is dissolved.
Sieve the 2 types of flour into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre, pour in egg mixture. Knead evenly the dough. Wrap and rest dough for 1 hr or longer for better absorption of coconut milk.

Roll out dough (small potion at a time) into a thickness about 1/2 cm.
strain a mould with a little flour and cut into the desired cookies.

Finally bake at 150*C for 20 mins.

Banana Oat muffins

Happy n blessed year of 2012. I did not go anywhere due to cancellation of tickets n mum having an ischemic stroke. An alternative for my cny in Melbourne also been cancelled due to missing the deadline of having booking with Brunei airline. So will go there during Autumn time in OZ which just a right weather for us.

This year to kick start the year 2012, we celebrated Near Year Eve dinner outside with my inlaws. The 1st dinner of year in brother Loo's house and other church members. It was a potbless dinner n everyone brought different dishes to welcome 2012.
For me I cooked nasi bryani and a traditional dish of Melanau delicacy done from scratch.
I will write out the receipe when free to do so.











As CNY is just approaching n the Chinese cultural heritage is to throughly clean the house from top to bottom to welcome a new year n hence everything beleived to be new and new blessings flow. These few weeks hubby and me took a deliberate decision to indulge in the spring cleaning for it been very messy here n there after away from home for 2 years. Many unused magazines, children textbooks, files, plastic containers, newspapers, paper boxes and many unwanted obsolete items were being removed.

I always have the passion to do cooking n baking and while cleaning the kitchen cabinets my eyes caught on the cooking n baking utensils and hence a thought of getting to utilise the several over ripe banana on the table. Thus came my own modified Banana Muffins. I am rather health concious n I do not often go with all plain flour so I need to make it into more nutritious n easily be assimilated by the body. Hai hai ... if wanna make from scratch, just follow my self designed and proven palatable muffin... hubby loves it and can take a few in a go. Below is a picture I took after just came out from oven with my ipod.




360 gm of plain flour
150 gm oat
200 gm castor sugar
200 gm corn oil
180 gm milk power n dissolved in 360gm of water.
2 tea spoon of cinnamon powder
3 tea spoon of baking powder
2 tea spoon of bicarbonate soda
3 pieces of ripe banana
3 eggs

Preheat the oven to 200*C. Put the muffin paper cups on the muffin tin.
Sift flour into a large bowl, add in the oat and castor sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate soda and cinnamon powder. Make a well in the centre of the mixture.
Then add in the combined banana, egg, corn oil and milk powder which is dissoved in the water. Just lightly beat the mixture.
Finally spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin paper cups. Sprinkle the topping with mixed nuts to your own preference. I prefered appricots, sultanas,mangoes, rasins, almonds, groundnuts, tree nuts and walnuts. The whole bunch of mixed that I got it from oversea which is very much handy for decoration.