Search: “kuwait”

Looks like a pick-up truck event was held recently at the Kuwait Car Museum. No idea when exactly it took place or else I would have passed by myself to check it out as well as post about it. Check out the video below.

[YouTube]

Post by Amy Freeman

I remember in the early 90’s watching my nana and pop switch from butter to margarine, whole to skim milk and where possible, full fat to low fat. The 80’s and 90’s was the start of what would become a processed food epidemic. As Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig were constantly being advertised on TV and in magazines, leading the ‘weight loss’ industry and the ‘microwave meal’ industry, woman were becoming more body conscious and diabetes was on the rise. It became a highly publicized and popular belief that calories in and calories out was all that mattered, low fat was the key and all carbohydrates were equal. Enter the diabetes and obesity epidemic!

The unfortunate thing is that the belief systems that were used for weight loss in the 80’s and 90’s are still held in high regard to this day. Trying to convince people that eating natural butter is BETTER than processed margarine is a daily battle. Trying to convince people that full fat milk or cream is BETTER for your insulin levels than low fat or skimmed milk is hard to land with a lot of people.

The reason ‘Paleo’/Whole Food nutrition (or clean eating as I call it) has been so successful, is that it is taking people back to eating a very similar diet to those that lived in our grandparents era. Home made food, unprocessed junk food, lots of fruit, veggies and meat, this style of eating is identical to how our wirery, fit and non diabetic ancestors lived. Even though I remember my nana’s baking yummy desserts, they didn’t eat it in copious amounts and binge till they burst on a Saturday night. They worked it into their active, busy lifestyles and treated food as fuel and NOT as bribery or reward on a daily basis.

When my nana passed away and we were going through her bookshelf I remember the copious amounts of nutrition books she had collected over the years. Amongst what must have been around 50 of them, there were soup diet books, detox books, vegetarian diet books, liver cleansing books and a number of diabetes books. I remember feeling really impressed and proud that my nana had been so conscientious about being informed of health and wellbeing.

The problem is that behind all these diet books is a person trying to make money. Telling people to eat natural foods with correct portions and live a balanced lifestyle isn’t going to make the authors of these nutrition books any money. Instead, what sells is ‘14 Day Detox’s’,‘Lose 10 Pounds in 5 Days’, ‘Do the Dukan Diet’ or ‘Do the Atkins Diet’. Around the time that these books started becoming popular, curvy models were out and skinny was in and magazines really started to promote size 0 as ideal.

The amount of clients, family members and friends that I have seen fall into the trap of going on one of these unrealistic diets and rebound back from it (me included), is ridiculous. Through this a lot of people have developed unhealthy relationships’ with food from being convinced that low fat/ low carb is the only way to lose weight and then go 4 months without so much as one lick of an ice cream only to then rebound and go the other way and live in a chocolate coma for a month. Both extremes are as bad as each other and each time your body goes through this cycle is going to make it harder the next time you try to lose weight.

Being perfect, eating only grilled chicken and veggies, not socializing in case you slip up, feeling guilt when you have 2 eggs instead of 4 egg whites and doing 2 hours of cardio a day is not maintainable. Unless you are going to compete as a figure athlete and you are close to competition, quiet frankly, its stupid and absolutely unnecessary. I give it around 3-4 months before burnout and 4-6 months before you put all that weight you lost back on and then some.

Making healthy choices, eating whole foods like our grandparents and having a balanced workout routine and doing it consistently for 6-12-18 plus months is going to get you results that you can maintain forever. Yes you will need to be patient, it wont happen overnight and there will be times where you get frustrated but weight loss and well being should be treated as a marathon, not a sprint. It will be worth it when you have reached your goal and can still enjoy your life without feeling deprived of food or guilty every time you have a treat.

Happy Training Kuwait

Post by Amy Freeman, a Strength and Conditioning Coach from New Zealand and currently a Personal Trainer at Inspire Pure Fitness in Kuwait.

Image by akeelsworld

There’s currently a mega project that’s currently under way in Maidan Hawalli. Just over a month ago they demolished the Al-Maidan Cultural Centre and the Abdullah Al-Salem School that were both located there and since then they’ve been working day and night (literally) at the construction site.

My guess is its one of the projects that is being led by Al-Diwan Al-Amiri, the people who are also leading the Kuwait Cultural Center project. The reason I am assuming they’re behind it is because when I last met with them they hinted there were 5 projects in the pipeline and they mentioned one of them was going to be in Hawalli. The fact that this project is also moving really fast with work taking place around the clock is another sign that this could be them.

I was pretty upset at first when I found out they had demolished the Al-Maidan Cultural Centre but if the Al-Diwan Al-Amiri is behind this project then I know whats going to come up in its place is going to be something much better. If it’s anything like the Kuwait Culture Center I’ll be more than pleased.

If I find out what the project is I’ll post an update. The exact location of this site is near Shaab Park on the Gulf Road. Here it is on [Google Maps]

Last year when I was in Dubai having lunch I started chatting with the waiter and it turned out he had just moved to Dubai from Kuwait. He was in Kuwait getting training for just a short period of time before being sent to their Dubai branch. I asked him what he thought about Kuwait in the time he had spent here and he replied saying he was surprised at how dirty it was. Usually the most common response is that Kuwait is too hot or the fact they hated it because there was no social life or alcohol but that was the first time someone had told me they thought Kuwait was dirty. That comment stuck with me ever since because it made me realize, I’ve kinda gotten immune to the garbage like I’ve gotten immune to the heat or the fact that there is sand everywhere.

The photos in this post are my latest submission to the Deera App. All this garbage is located in a sand lot behind my apartment building, the same sand lot which at one point someone had dug a large pit to dump all the garbage in.

The way I see it there are a few things that need to be done to solve the garbage issue:

1) Clean up the garbage. Not sure how much money is allocated to cleaning up the garbage but either they should allocate more money or work more efficiently. In this one sand lot behind my place a quick solution for now would be to add more bins. When people dug a pit in the lot to throw garbage it was because the 7 bins weren’t enough. Instead of adding more bins to solve the issue they removed two leaving just 5 so obviously the garbage is going be overflowing. But its also not just about the garbage bins, there is litter all over the floor all around Salmiya and that never gets cleaned up.

2) Educate people. A nationwide anti-littering campaign would be a good start. I can’t even remember the last time there was an anti-littering campaign in Kuwait, maybe back in the 80s.

3) Fine people for littering. This is far fetched of course because I’ve seen cops let people run red lights and not chase them so I doubt they’re going to fine people for littering.

4) Finally put me in charge of Salmiya because whoever is in charge now obviously doesn’t give a shit about the area.

Update: Just a quick note, it took two trucks but thanks to the Deera App the garbage was all cleaned and the building that had caused most of the waste in the first photo was also fined.

Failed Kuwaiti carrier Wataniya Airways is reportedly planning a comeback as soon as the first quarter of 2015. The airline has begun efforts to re-launch by attempting to raise KD24m ($85m) and lease an initial two planes, according to Kuwait Times.

The company has asked the Ministry of Commerce to publish the minutes of an extraordinary assembly meeting held this week and will then contact the Capital Markets Authority so it can prepare for a new initial public offering (IPO). The airline needs a minimum of KD11m in capital to re-launch operations, a company source was quoted as saying. [Source]

Looks like Wataniya Airways is finally coming back to life. I wonder if they’ll fly out from Sheikh Saad Terminal along with FlyDubai or if they’ll be joining the rest of the airlines at the main terminal?

Looks like the runaway maids account @mn7asha which I posted about last week got closed down. Yesterday Aljazeera posted about the account and when I tried to access it today on Instagram I got a user not found error. I am not sure yet if instagram shut down the account or if the owner did but whatever happened the account is gone for now.

According to @KuwaiT_ALYoum, British authorities are looking for a Kuwaiti teenager who was filmed hunting ducks with a slingshot in Hyde Park. I couldn’t find another source for this information but I did find the video that went viral and you can watch it below (its safe).

[YouTube]

A few days ago I posted about how the construction of the new Kuwait airport was been put on hold indefinitely and oddly enough, some people were actually pleased with the news. One of the comments was that the new airport would make Kuwait very difficult to live in (because more people would come to Kuwait) while another person didn’t think anything was wrong with the current airport.

[YouTube]

I personally would love a new airport especially the Foster + Partners design that got approved (watch the video above). I travel a lot and arriving at a clean, bright and organized airport is a much more positive experience than arriving at a crowded, gloomy and depressing one. I’d love to pass through an eGate and avoid the long lines at immigration or wander around a large duty free to kill time before my flight. Also the first thing new visitors to Kuwait will see is the airport and first impressions matter. Kuwait is so much better than what the current airport leads you to believe.

But that’s my opinion, I’m curious to know if I am alone in this because I don’t think I am. Do we need a new airport?

Post by Amy Freeman

This post is a little outside the box from the usual fitness and health stuff but I feel it is an important issue especially in this day and age where most woman (and men for that matter) are striving for perfection. It is really easy to see why, especially with all these ‘reality’ shows, celebrities and now social media that give a very idealistic view of real life.

I have had a lot of insecure woman that have had children admit to being ashamed of their bodies, specifically stretch marks on their stomachs. Some wont even let their husbands see their body and in some extreme cases I’ve heard of woman that are back in the gym a week after birth, eating next to nothing and breast feeding all in the hope to reach that pre baby body in minimal time.

This has been playing on my mind for a while and it makes me feel sad that these woman feel so much pressure from society that they are so hard on themselves. On top of that they are so consumed with snapping back into shape, they aren’t able to enjoy the first weeks of their baby.

Pregnancy is such an individual thing and everyone’s experience is different but the bottom line is nobody has the right to make a woman feel ashamed of her body for growing a human. I mean even Kim Kardashian stayed out of the public eye for around 3 months post baby because she didn’t want to be seen.

The media has a lot to do with causing this shame amongst woman. It seems like a lot of celebrities can get back into shape no problem at all and a lot of woman are influenced by this totally screwed up, twisted reality.

The reality is that it usually takes around a year to lose baby weight safely. Yes, sometimes it takes less time and sometimes more, this also depends on whether you had a C-section or a natural birth, it depends on any complications, how much abdominal separation occurred, it depends on your genetics, it depends on what kind of shape you were in pre and during pregnancy, it depends on how many children you have had and it depends on your age. The list goes on.

So, I thought that I would include some of my tips that I give my clients that have had a baby, on what I think are key things to help you shed the baby weight while staying healthy.

– If you are breastfeeding your body’s metabolism is higher than usual which means you might be hungrier. Make sure you fuel your body with nutrient dense foods to fill you up like fruits, vegetables, nuts, salmon, lean meats and carbohydrates such as brown rice, quinoa, sweet potato and oats, also include lots of healthy fats rich in omega 3.

– Make sure you are drinking 2-4L of water per day.

– Don’t do any form of exercise till your doctor clears you.

– Remember that your body will still be recovering from birth for at least the first 6 weeks post birth so start with very light exercise and if possible, hire a trainer so they can keep you on the right track.

– Once you start your exercise routine just keep an eye on your milk quality if you’re feeding. In some people, long periods of intense exercise can reduce the milk quality so just keep an eye on it.

– Don’t be hard on yourself if it is taking longer than you thought to lose the baby weight. I 100% believe that consistency over time is what gets results, not perfection for a short time. Trust the process and be patient.

Just to finish, here is a photo of one of the most beautiful women in the world. She was and still is idolized all over the world by both women and men. Cindy Crawford, after 2 children still embraces her body with stretch marks for the world to see. So to mothers out there, give yourselves a break, train regularly, eat clean consistently and don’t get caught up with perfection because it doesn’t exist.

Happy training Kuwait.

Post by Amy Freeman, a Strength and Conditioning Coach from New Zealand and currently a Personal Trainer at Inspire Pure Fitness in Kuwait.

The construction of the new airport terminal that was designed by the architectural firm Foster + Partners has been placed on indefinite hold after most of the contracting companies quit bidding due to the conditions they were required to agree to.

Construction was originally set to start back in 2012 and it was a project everyone in Kuwait was looking forward to seeing completed so this is pretty disappointing news.

I’ve never been a fan of the GoPro cameras so that’s why when I wanted to get an action camera a couple of years ago I ended up getting the Contour+ instead, it had some exciting features the Contour lacked as well as a slicker form factor. But, that wasn’t enough to overthrow GoPro since two years later, GoPro is still here while Contour collapsed last year due to financial difficulties. Now it’s Garmin’s turn to try and take on the GoPro with the new Virb action camera. Garmin are known for their navigation devices and this is their first attempt at an action camera so the local dealer in Kuwait passed me one to review.

I’ve had the camera now for around two months and I think I’ve got a clear idea of what I think about it. I’ve used it to record my bike trips, I’ve used it off roading in Lebanon and I’ve even tried using it as a dash cam. Generally I like the camera, it’s not perfect but it has some cool features that might make some people choose it over the more popular GoPros.

The biggest feature I think that will win people over is the durable water resistant rubber shell. The camera feels very well built and can take abuse which is why I wasn’t afraid of dropping it. Actually during this one trip the camera flew off my ATV while speeding on a rocky mountain trail. Not a scratch, not even on the lens. But even if I did scratch the lens it’s a cheap $20 part I could replace myself. Garmin wants me to put this camera in risky situations not be worried about damaging it and I love that.

Another great feature is the fact the camera has a large color LCD screen which you could use to help you frame your shots, for playback or to adjust any of the settings. The camera also has a large record toggle button similar to the one I used to have on my Contour camera which means I can turn on the camera and start recording by just moving the switch forward. Specs wise the camera can shoot 1080p at 30fps, 720p at 60fps and for extra slow mo, WVGA at 120fps. It also has GPS, wifi, bluetooth and even ANT+ so you could connect it to your heart rate monitor or other ANT+ device and overlay that information onto your video.

[YouTube]

I think the biggest issue with the Virb is the weight of the camera. Because the camera is built like a tank it’s heavier than the GoPro and that might turn some people off. Also the majority of the footage I shot was coming out slightly underexposed and desaturated as you can see in the short video above. Finally the color of the device turned out to be problematic. The Virb I received for testing was white but after having it for a couple of months now and the abuse its taken from me the white now has a bit of a brown tint where it fell into the dirt and I had difficulty restoring it. Getting the black version would be the easy fix here.

The majority of the people interested in an action camera will most likely get the GoPro because thats the one everyone gets. But, that doesn’t mean it would be the best option for you. If you’re looking for a camera that can take some abuse or a camera in which you could overlay data onto your video like the speed you’re traveling or your heart rate, then you should consider checking out the Virb. The price of the Garmin starts at KD85 for the normal Virb or KD109 for the Virb Elite which is the one I tested.

Kuwait based graffiti artist Monstariam held his first Street Spray Soup event a couple of nights back and it turned out pretty successful with many of Kuwait’s most talented artists dropping by to exchange ideas and create some interesting pieces. Check out the video below of the event by TJC Films.

[YouTube]

The Cube is a new plaza that’s opening up next to Ibis Hotel in Salmiya near Sultan Center. I originally posted about it back in 2012 but it looks like it’s nearly done now and there are a bunch of places set to open there. From what I could see Xcite will be opening there and my favorite Lebanese restaurant Leila. BGR The Burger Joint, Health Stop and Caffe Vergnano 1882 will also be opening there. If anyone knows what else is opening leave a comment below.

Post by Amy Freeman

As the saying goes, ’There is more than one way to skin a cat’, the same goes for fat loss and improving body composition. Just recently social media seems to be more swamped than usual with opinions on what works and what doesn’t and the funny thing about the fitness industry is that many of the people and trainers that have an opinion, believe that their way is the right way and the only way to get results.

I try to remain open minded, as fat loss and improving body composition isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ protocol, just like nutritional requirements will vary person to person. But, in my experience I have found that the German Body Composition Training is a good place to start. Now, like I said at the start, there are many people that have achieved massive results in a variety of ways but for the purpose of this blog, I’m going to talk about what I find works and if you are needing to change up your routine, or looking for some direction in the gym, then this may help.

German Body Composition (GBC for short) isn’t for the faint hearted. With that being said, everyone has to start somewhere so you can adjust exercises and rest times until you increase your lactate threshold and are able to handle more. Usually during a session of GBC I experience a high heart rate, I might feel a little queasy and am left dripping with sweat, but that’s the beauty of this little gem. You can achieve a lot in a short period of time you just have to tackle it head on and full heartedly.

GBC is good at increasing fat loss, increasing muscle mass (when you decrease fat and increase muscle, it results in that common term ‘toning’) and its also good for increasing muscular endurance. I also found it also took my anaerobic fitness to the next level.

Typically for GBC you will use compound movements to maximize muscle recruitment. When you train in this style it creates a lot of latic acid in the muscles which as a result releases more growth hormone. That is the ideal situation to be in for both woman and men when trying to lean out.

There are a few ways it can be programmed but for the purposes of this post I’m going to give an example super-setting an upper and lower body exercise for a full body workout. At first glance a lot of people will have a “That’s it?” look on their face but trust me, if you keep to the tempo, the rest time and use the correct weight and reps, you should have the same response as myself and my clients feel after a session, which is: ‘OOOOOOOOMMMMGGGGGGGGG’

Back in April I posted about Deera, an iPhone app which allows you to report issues with public services. The way it worked was fairly simple, you snapped a photo of the problem, specify what the issue was along with the location and then submit it. But does it work? Yes it does!

Last night I decided to use the app to report a garbage issue I spotted on my way home and just a few moments ago I got tagged on Instagram with the issue sorted. That’s a turnaround of under 12 hours. By flipping through the reported incidents in the app and then checking the Deera app Instagram account you’ll see that the majority if not all the incidents are getting fixed right away.

I have to say I am pretty surprised and impressed. Not just at the app but at the fact that the people behind the app are able to coordinate and get action from the different municipalities so quickly. Theres actually a huge pile of leftover construction material right in front of my building that has been there for months which I can’t wait to report now. If there was an award for best local app of the year this would have to be it.

If you want try this app you can download it for free from the Apple Store either by searching for Deera or by clicking [Here]