Last post on the HIC'Juice restore level 2 cleanse! Was reminded of this because there's a recent pop up at Rockstar by Soon Lee and I went to grab some juices! :)

Was in a semi state of insomnia because my body was just bursting with energy. You would think that going on juice alone would make you lethargic and hungry but nope! That said, I really wanted to sleep but somehow the body thought otherwise. I also crazily believed that I can do a marathon at 1am in the morning. What did they put in my juice?!

640am. Weight: <39kg Mood: Energetic

Had my juice early (because I'm a rebel like that). Well I always skip the warm water with lemon thing because it's too much of a hassle. Drink 1 was the yummy 4 carats which I surprisingly took to even though there's celery in it. I shared some with the mummy and mama. Btw they both liked Heart Beet too! I took the obvious opportunity to get mummy to take the bottle of Kaleidoscope. Mission accomplished! I really couldn't stand that mix. Replaced that final drink with my coconut water from Day 2 since I didn't managed to drink it before I sleep. Well remember to just chill, there's no need to force yourself to go through the whole cleanse. Drink to your limits #yolo.

1030am Lemon n Spice
No kick for me. I'd take this drink over Kaleidoscope, which mummy has informed me that she only drank a little because it's spicy for her. So says the woman who grew up on chili. -Roll eyes-

1215pm
Yoga for lunch! Hot Patanjali at my regular studio to work out the arms. I had a hard time concentrating at the start because I'm so hungry!! Then I decided to cast away the need (yes food is a need) and to focus on my body. Felt terribly drained after the class though. Jelly but toned arms and a superbly flat tummy! Thankfully I'm not losing my abs. Had to use every ounce of willpower to walk away from marche and not lose myself to the freshly baked breads. God this sucks. Need to get back to my juice now!

Oh My Greens was waiting for me back in office. A slight energy booster with the mix of Celery, Apple, Pineapple and Broccoli. It's an ok drink like I mentioned before.

4pm. Green Lemonade was my tea break. Apple, Cucumber, Kale, Celery, Romaine Lettuce, Parsley and Lemon. The green juices do taste quite the same but this is a little cooler in terms of taste.

Ended the cleanse with Lemon N' Spice and Coconut Water.

Well, the cleanse was rather tough to get through for a serial snacker and rule breaker like me but I'm glad that I kinda stuck to it. If you want tastier juices, I'd recommend Level 1. The green juices, though good for your body, is quite nasty. I guess I just need to find a company that doesn't add too much celery in their juices.

So HIC Juice wasn't too bad but like I mentioned in my first post, the major con is the weight and fragility of the pretty bottles. I much preferred the lighter and smaller packs that they sell at their store on Boon Tat Street. They definitely need a store somewhere in town! For $8 a pop (250ml), it is certainly a good (and cheaper) way to initiate yourself into a cleanse.

Read about my entire HIC Juice Cleanse experience here! Day 1 and Day 2. Happy juicing people!

So you've read about Day 1 of my Hic'Juice Level 2 Restore Juice Cleanse Day 1 (read it here if you haven't) and here is the day 2 menu!

Woke up feeling flustered and a little constipated. Obviously not getting that diarrhea thing that comes with detox. Maybe my body is already very clean. Weight was 39kg.

Busy busy day! Meeting at 8am and I was running a little behind schedule. Damn these bottles are heavy. It's fine with S drives me around but it's totally not ok when rushing to catch public transport. I only brought 4 bottles out and the weight was already killing me. Plus I was worried that the bottles would break from all that clanging because the cooler box isn't very sturdy. And the strap of the box is kinda thin so it cuts into the shoulder because of the weight. BAH. Certainly a minus point!

7am

Had my first juice which is the Heart Beet. This fuchsia medley of Carrot, Apple, Beetroot, Lemon and Ginger promotes cardiovascular health, fights cancer and is a super tonic for the liver!

Had to gulp because I was rushing. Love the color of this one but I had to remove my aligners so that they wouldn't be stained red. The juice is tasty and quite similar to those $2.50 ABC juice at the fruit stall but it tasted smoother and richer (I'm hearing S' naggy voice in my head). Left half a bottle of that at home for mummy so that I don't have to carry it out. Yes I played cheat. Bite me. 

10am

Time for Oh My greens. Day 1 was child's play but not day 2 and 3. This had celery, apple, pineapple and broccoli. Oh my most hated celery!! And the celery taste was quite distinct! Eeeeks. My colleagues thought the taste was ok though. 

12pm

Another green juice. Cool as a... Celery Cucumber Apple Lemon. Celery AGAIN. Meh.. Thankfully the celery flavor wasn't as strong as juice 2 so it was still doable. Tasted rather similar to Oh My Greens though. Since I didn't have to eat, I spent lunch time shopping to distract myself from the food. Must say that it was very productive! ;)

310pm

I was looking forward to Lemon n Spice and W thought I'm crazy to like this one. Well the spice keeps me up during my boring afternoon meeting but I Can feel the burn again. 

517pm
Kaleidoscope. Oh hell this is the worst of lot. I swear all the green juices taste the same, mostly because they have celery in them. But this was just blearghh.

645pm 

Wednesday is running day with the group at Marina Bay. I'm damn amazed by these runners. The guys do like 3.5-4min/km. I'm at best 5.5. So we did 3 rounds of Benjamin Sheares Bridge and i even concluded it with a short sprint! Yay me! Obviously not one to follow the prescribed 'break a light sweat' option by Hic'juice. I felt surprisingly energetic!

Ended Day 2 with Coconut water which was yummy as usual. So winning this juice cleanse but the constipated feeling was still there. Well, I guess that's because everything was already out of the system on day 1 with my regular movements.

Dreading Day 3, mainly because of the yucky kaleidoscope. But I believe I can outsource the drinking to mummy. Heh. More on Day 3 soon!

Juice Cleanse is all the rage these days with the many juice companies sprouting up and beauty/lifestyle bloggers promoting the juices. Well, here is a food blogger/serial snacker's perspective on juicing. Granted I may not be the best normal person around to give you sound advice (yes I'm already skinny and I eat lots of veg and I exercise an average of 10h/wk) but you can bet on the tastiness of the juices if I tell you so right?

So the story went like this. A close gf of mine W was gonna get married and I thought that it was opportunity for bonding time if we do a juice cleanse together. Of course I kinda forced her into participating in my Ms Skinnyfat boot camp, which I paired the juicing with some hard core hot yoga in preparation for the big day (of course I don't believe in crash dieting duh). 

We looked at a couple of juice companies like Beauty Cleanse, Sana, Joob and decided on Hic'Juice because their glass bottles looked so pretty. Yes we're superficial like that and that's perfectly ok. :P

We did the 3 day intermediate cleanse aka Restore. Hic delivered all 18 bottles at 1 shot (6 bottles/day). If storage is an issue for you, you may want to find a company that delivers your juices daily. Thank god I have a spare fridge at home. And gosh the glass bottles are damn heavy. Probably not the choice of juice company if you're on the go the whole time. Also, the bottles are slippery when wet and W broke a bottle before we even started on our cleanse.

S only found out about the juice cleanse when it was delivered and complained about the ridiculous amount W and I are paying for the juices (it's $318++ for 3 days). Well but for the benefit of you guys and my curiosity in the taste, I guess it's ok? 

My only concern was the amount of fluids I had to ingest. 3l of juices a day?? Hello toilet bowl. My pea size bladder is certainly not gonna be able to hold much. 

HIC juice sent us our juicing guidebook to help ease us into the cleanse. It was advised that we eat more greens (preferably a raw diet) and sleeping early the day before the cleanse. Well none of that happened for me as i went for a tasting prior and then slept at 1am because I was writing. So day 1 started with me feeling like a train wreck. 

Day 1 39.5kg (my weighing machine makes me lighter so I'm probably 40kg). 

Got a reminder from S to start on my juices. BAH. Breakfast at 940am and I started on the Popeye Smoothie, a dense pulpy concoction of red dragonfruit, pineapple, banana, spinach and ionized water. I loved the color of this one and also the taste of the juice. Feeling good!

1140am

Juice 2 was Lemon n Spice. I read that many people can't take this juice because of the cayenne pepper but i like it! A hint of apple, mostly lemon and some spice. I did feel some burning sensation though but it wasn't entirely uncomfortable. But I did feel some burning sensation. My toilet breaks are started to become more frequent due to the fluids. 

1225pm

Had to run errands at the shopping mall and all the snacks were tempting me! I was feeling pretty full from the juices actually but I'm just being greedy I guess.

1pm
The horrible S was happily tucking into his Yu Kee Duck rice. The zen master will not be tempted and so I worked on the blog instead. Productive distraction turned out to be useful.

155pm
Started on Juice 3. Green Lemonade is made from Apple, Cucumber, Kale, Celery, Romaine Lettuce, Parsley and Lemon. The taste was quite cool due to the high cucumber content. This tasted a bit like herbal tea but was quite drinkable. Thankfully celery is not a huge feature in this one. 

Juice 4

4carats is a carrot, celery, cucumber and apple mix. I used to hate raw carrots and cucumber but I've learned to enjoy more vegetables as I grow older. This drink had a cooling igh carrot content. This went down easy too.

5pm 

Went for a short run under the sun. Feeling energetic! The Coconut water was a nice cool relief at the end but it's probably the most expensive coconut water I've paid for and yes it's just regular  coconut water.

8pm
Ended the day on Juice 6 which is Nut Milk. It's made from Raw Cashews, Raw Almonds, Vanilla, Medjool Dates, Himalayan Salt, Cinnamon and Ionized Water. Everyone said that this is tasty but I found the high oil content to be rather disturbing after a day of clean juices. It had a bit of the unappealing oily taste. Good thing there's only 1 bottle of this.

Yay to the end of day 1. It was pretty easy but i was already missing my snacks! 

Stay tuned for day 2 and 3 coming up!

For more on Hic'Juice, here's their website link with pricing and all (click here).

Looking for a different outdoor activity to participate in other than the usual soccer, marathon and the likes? Well, check out Forest Adventure, the first tree top adventure course in Singapore. I was surprised that Forest Adventure has been opened since 2007 at Bedok Reservoir Park! This kinda shows that we hardly venture outdoors! Terrible terrible us.

The aerial course through the trees comprises ladders, bridges, swings, nets, trapezes and slides where participants move unaccompanied, from tree to tree, through 34 obstacles, 5 meters above ground. Don't worry, you'd be harnessed and hooked on to the line and will not fall off if you've performed all the safety checks. 

Before embarking on the Grand Course, we went through a 30 minutes safety briefing to operate our safety harness. We then started our 2 - 2.5 hour adventure through 4 sites. 

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I have a little issue with heights and was pretty nervous when i started up the first course. I felt a little more reassured with S around. Well.. at least till he pushed me off the first zip line and then some.. :/ 

The obstacles focus mainly on balance and some strength (when you lack the balance). It is also a lot about conquering fears (at least for me). Once i got the hang of the safety system, the height wasn't so much an issue. 

There are some “extreme” sections made of extremely physically challenging obstacles which require some jumping from log to log and hanging around. Not to worry, there are escape routes available for those not yet ready for such challenge. D doing his Tarzan thing over here.

Jumping through hoops!

Just hanging around with friends. D doubled as our photographer and also instructor for other people in the group and here's V, S and i on the trees. :)

At the end of each section, participants descend from the trees, over the waters, to the forest floor. The longest zip for the Grand Course is 200m and it's really relaxing! Take time to enjoy the views of the waterfront and the park as you zip around. 

Of all the courses, the greatest challenge for me was the 12m Tarzan swing where participants jump from a 8m high platform and swing into a rope net 2 m below! I was all ready to chicken out but the instructor on the ground was goading me. There were many WTF moments before i climbed that platform. So here's me and my terrified face and cheeky S waiting to push me off again.

Took the plunge before S could do anything stupid. Yes i screamed like a girl all the way. AHHHHH!

And I DID IT! And the entire Bedok Reservoir heard it. Weet weet! It was exhilarating but no way in hell am i gonna do it again. Yes i'm a chicken but WEV. Interested in experiencing it for yourself? The Grand Course that we attempted is $44/pax. I would highly recommend it for couples or groups.

There is also a 16-stages Kids Course priced at $32 for 1st hour and $10 for subsequent rounds. The children are connected to a continuous safety line at the start of the course and will not be disconnected till the end. Family packages and annual passes are also available.

So yea! Time to have fun under the sun! Here's the location map.

Thank you Forest Adventure for the invitation!

Forest Adventure

Bedok Reservoir Park 

Grand Course- Daily 10am - 6pm (last departure at 4.30pm)
Kids Course- Weekends, Sch Holidays and PH 10am - 6pm (last departure at 5pm)
Closed on Mondays except PH.

You guys probably know that i'm quite a yoga fanatic and if time allows, i'd be at my studio for 3 to 4 hours everyday (those were the days). With less time to yoga, i've recently decided  that more cardio is required to spice things up a bit. Well it is certainly timely that i was invited by Virgin Active to try out their newly launched Zumba® Step workout.

I'm sure you guys have heard of Zumba® and some of you would have tried it as well. Well, i can't do Zumba® for nuts because i simply don't have it in me to be sexy. I swear that i look like a retarded robot trying to move my hips and it provided much entertainment for my fellow blogger friends who were at the workout session with me.

If you are as challenged as me in the sexy Zumba® arena but still wanna reap the benefits of the cardio workout, then Zumba® Step is perfect for you (psychomotor skills still required unfortunately). It combines offers a balance of traditional fitness (30 percent), dance (40 percent) and step aerobic moves (30 percent) to encourage participants to use more energy to lift their body weight against gravity.

We were all surprised at how tiring the class was and in my opinion, it was tougher than Body Combat because it requires balance and certainly more hand leg coordination as well.

Expect to feel the burn in targeted areas like glutes and legs for a lower-body sculpting workout. Yes those dreaded steps are required for a nicer looking behind.

Do not expect to be perfect during your first class. In fact the first session may be a little stressful. I was trying not to fall to my death or break something. Doris, our super hot instructor told us that it takes about 3 lessons for students to be familiar with the routine and that's when you'll be able to relax and enjoy the class.

I obviously take my stretching very seriously. Always remember to do a proper cooling down to prevent those terrible aches.

Happy sweaty shiny people! To find a Zumba® Step class, contact Virgin Active or visit zumba.com. Thank you Virgin Active for providing a great workout for me every time.

Virgin Active
One Raffles Place, Tower 2, Level 5-7, Singapore
Tel: +65 6908 7878

I dislike going to public gyms, those with membership included. There is something terribly disturbing with all these bulky sweaty shirtless men pumping weights and showing off. It is also intimidating because hello, i can't lift peanuts and i do not enjoy being gawked at while i work out. Well, Virgin Active changed my impression of gyms when i checked out their Asia flagship at One Raffles Place. 

The focus at Virgin Active is to provide a fun, friendly and encouraging environment to promote health and fitness. Find exercising a chore? Virgin Active has made working out a hassle-free activity by providing you with cool workout gear, you only need to bring yourself and your shoes. An RFID membership card/bracelet takes care of the lockers and cashless payments at the delicious snack bar (food supplied by Salad Stop). Their mobile site allows you to book classes on the go as well.

Starting with level 3, the high energy area. Here is where you get pumped up with the machines. Virgin uses the ARTIS line of Android powered fitness equipment from Technogym.

Each piece of ARTIS equipment is designed for connectivity, allowing members access to his or her own world: training programmes, training data track record, web bookmarks, apps, and social networks. In addition, it employs cloud technology, so members can track their workouts wherever they are in the world.

One of the special workouts at Virgin is the THIRTY TRYHIT, a new small-group training zone based on the principles of high intensity interval training. Fresh new workout every week, it is guaranteed to keep things exciting and fun and very very sweaty.

Another high intensity workout is Zuu, and it increases joint mobility, promotes fat burning and building lean muscles. I call this the animal workout as it is based on movements of animals.

On level 2, there's the spin studio with a digital landscape that changes to the beat of the music. Nothing as intensive as SoulCycle, which i tried in NYC but certainly one of the cooler ones in Singers. 

There's also the PowerPlate workouts to strengthen your core musics and to help with toning. 

Level 1 is what I'd call the OM zone. Of course i signed up for the Anti Gravity yoga class!  

Let me set your expectations right. For a beginner class, do not expect to get a workout from this. Or maybe i'm too hardcore. It was extremely relaxing for me and the hammocks made inversions so easy. It's perfect for those who wants to experience inversions but do not have adequate core strength, balance or confidence to get into a headstand or handstand. 

Looking forward to the tougher classes! 

After a sweaty workout (or not), enjoy a luxurious shower with rain shower in every cubicle and complimentary Molton Brown amenities provided for members’ use.

Virgin Active also offers a Relax and Recovery Zone which will soothe your nerves. There are steam rooms, ice rooms, experience showers and foot baths with complimentary use of bathrobes. I love the peppermint infused ice room and showers.

There is also a salt room with ionised salts that aid in skin rejuvenation and purify one’s respiratory system. Great place to nap if you don't mind lying next to strangers.

If you need a private power nap, do not miss out on the sleep pods on level 2. These are the Google beds! I'm definitely gonna try these sometime.

Are you wowed yet? For a frequent traveler and foodie like me, working out when i'm traipsing around the world is a necessity. With access to 170 clubs spread across UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, Australia and now Singapore, i can certainly stay my skinnyfat self while holidaying. They certainly need to open one in the States!

Virgin Active Raffles Place’s flexible membership consists of a one-time activation fee of $199 and a weekly fee of $42.50. It goes by blocks of 2 weeks so you could terminate or put it on hold. Membership includes access to Virgin Active’s worldwide clubs and facilities.

It's time to get Active!

Virgin Active
One Raffles Place, Tower 2, Level 5-7, Singapore

Tel: +65 6908 7878