Categories
Guest Bloggers Healthier Lifestyle Information

Building the Perfect Female – Part 1

Posted by Fahad AlYehya | Core Fitness – Kuwait

This generation’s females are anemic, bulimic, and anorexic. They deny those things ad infinitum, of course, but you can’t really trust anything they say. They think cupcake is a food group.

Because I want to be fair and balanced, I will write this post with my “female” voice. (Yes, I do have a female voice. I keep it locked away safe and sound though. And my female voice is still a beast that will scratch your eyes out. Don’t mess with Lupita, yo!) Take it away Lupita:

75% percent of us are ova’weight, ese!
It sucks to be fat and anemic at the same time; it’s like you’re fat for nothing. Malnutrition here translates into eating junk calories devoid of any essential vitamins and minerals, replaced by traditional wholesome food.

But you told us to satisfy our cravings in moderation, homes!
I worked with women who eat nothing but chocolate, cupcakes, muffins and donuts all day long. Eating desserts and sweets all day moderately is anything but moderate. Eat your 2-3 square meals first and enjoy snacking in between them but in moderation.

Psshhh, wha’eva fatty! I have a high metabolism and I can eat wha’eva ah want.
If only I had a fils for every time I heard that, I’d be able to cross all of Lupita’s 160 cousins over the border. Studies conducted in Kuwait have shown that females between the ages of 14-18 are playing Russian Roulette with high cholesterol levels and diabetes. You don’t have high metabolisms; it’s called skinny fat. A person with a high metabolism looks like an anatomy chart. You look like a skinny stripper with extra jiggle.

Like I could care less what you tink. I’m enjoyin’ life and I’m happy! And my momma tinks I’m too SKINNY!
My mother, Allah bless her heart, is overweight and your mother’s also probably overweight. Mothers should set better examples by teaching their children on how to eat properly. Unfortunately, mothers enjoy dessert and sweet consumption more than their daughters. No one wants to be fat alone, so listen to mommy and have that extra cupcake. With whipped cream. And mango juice. And ice cream. With fondue on the side. Maybe cookies. Screw it, I’m adding in cookies.

OK OK! I get it! Save me from my own demise, papi!

I thought you’d never ask.




Categories
Food & Drinks Guest Bloggers Healthier Lifestyle Information

Holy Sugar-Cravings-of-Ramadan Batman!

Posted by Fahad AlYehya | Core Fitness – Kuwait

The first day of Ramadan was a total bust. True epic failure. You guys would’ve been disappointed at the horrors that took place at my family’s futoor table.

Yet, like the phoenix, I rise again and avail in favor of sticking to my plan like every other dedicated fitness enthusiast, which lasted a few seconds right after the kanafa, atayef and cheese cake arrived, where I yet again continued to disgrace my will and testament in keeping my mouth shut and saving dessert for later.

Of course a few cups of sage, thyme, ginger, white tea, gymnema sylvestre and peppermint post pig-out should minimize the gut-damage, at least in accordance to my mother.  On a side note, I’ll be discussing more about those 6 herbs and how they can benefit you when indulging in belt-widening carby and fatty mixtures from hell.

This Post’s About Dessert BTW

I guide you how to eat dessert responsibly, I throw in a few jokes, then you follow my advice by eating dessert responsibly and we all live happily every after. The usual Q&A is available for any necessary inquiries in regards to the subject or any other relevant areas in fitness, health and nutrition.

Snacking Rules:

*Dessert should never go above 300 calories.

*Each snack should contain all macro nutrients, including junk-nutrients such as sugar and fat. Inclusion of all macros balance out the snack, providing a more subtle release of blood sugar.

*This is bullet point #3 and isn’t remotely relevant to the subject at hand.

*Snacks are to be consumed 2.5-3 hours after a meal or before a meal.




Categories
Information Kuwait Photography

Al-Qabas steals pictures from Bahraini blogger

A Bahraini blogger called Aysha was surprised to find out that not only did Al-Qabas newspaper steal one of her pictures and publish it in the newspaper but that the picture they stole was a picture of herself. She was completely shocked and surprised to find her picture plastered in Al-Qabas and now wonders if there is anything she can do. She has a full write up on her blog which you can check by clicking this [Link]

Sadly I doubt there is anything she can do about this and we all know this isn’t the first time that Al-Qabas uses pictures without permission.




Categories
Internet

The Internet

I always forget how terrible the Internet is in Lebanon until I get here and then I either want to throw my laptop out the window or save myself from this misery and jump out myself. I can’t live like this!

Update: Ran a SpeedTest and ended up with the results above




Categories
Food & Drinks Information Kuwait Shopping

Lulu Hypermarket

I passed by the new Lulu Hypermarket that opened up recently. The place is huge and I found a ton of stuff that I hadn’t seen before. I do all my shopping at Sultan Center since they have a lot of imported US and UK products but I will probably be adding Lulu to the list now. This is just an example of what I found at the first fridge once I walked in: Diet Coke “caffeine free”, Diet Coke with lemon, Diet Coke with cherry, Fanta Zero orange and Fanta Zero lemon, Sprite Zero, and Dr Pepper Zero. They also had a whole variety of Tropicana juices I hadn’t seen before (and for a reasonable KD1.600) and even the UK brand Innocent. I didn’t take any pictures after that fridge since there were “No Photography” signs everywhere (not sure why). I did manage to snap a picture of a strange fruit I found, hadn’t seen one like it before (pictured at bottom of post).

To get to Lulu you take the 40th and then exit on the 208 heading towards the Wataniya Airways airport. It’s located on the main road so you won’t miss it. Check out some more pictures below.




Categories
Food & Drinks Kuwait

Kababji Responds

Dear Mark, Readers and Valued Kabab-ji Customers,

We would like to express our sincere respect and appreciation to the blog post comparing Kabab-ji with its competitors as well as the constructive feedback received by the blog readers.

At the start, the comparison shown within the initial blog post was misrepresented, we contacted Mark and he took the kind liberty to amend the post which is now accurate and resembles a fair comparison.

As mentioned within the amended blog post, it is true, we do focus and pride ourselves when it comes to high quality meats that are delivered to our customers at the highest quality standards.

We are passionate about our meat and care about where it comes from. We distinguish ourselves within Kuwait by utilizing Australian bobby veal meat which is an extremely tender & lean nutritious meat produced in South-Eastern Australia , inspected and certified for export by AQIS (Australian Government Quarantine and Inspection Service) and AUSMEAT (Meat-Standards Australia). No meat leaves Australia without accreditation and certification by the above bodies, on every shipment.

Being meticulously selected from Australia, our Hallal bobby veal meat is unbeatable in terms of quality. Most importantly, the animals used are growth hormone and antibiotic-free, are fed a vegetarian diet and of course, are humanely raised.

Furthermore, once the meat arrives to Kuwait, our production facility specialists handle it with utmost respect and attention to the BRC standards which is a leading global product safety and global certification program, which our production facilities strictly follow on a daily basis. You can read more about BRC on their website: https://www.brcglobalstandards.com/

In the end, yes, we may be a bit more expensive when it comes to our products, but our customers are also paying for unparalleled quality and flavour, with safety measures on a global standard.

Thank you once again for your initiative and we will do our best to continue offering our valued customers with the highest quality products and services.

We look forward to receiving feed forward from Kebab-ji fans and comments that can help us improve and better serve our valued customers.

Please do feel free to contact me directly on 97285651 or email me at [email protected]

Best Regards,

Miguel Angel Estevez- Gonzalez

KFG – Group
Director of Operations CD & IDD innovation Officer




Categories
Information Kuwait Personal

Fire in my building!

We just had to evacuate our office building due to a fire on the 6th floor. We had to walk down from the 21st floor. Will post pics and more later.

Update: I’m back home now so I can post about what happened. Our office is on the 21st floor of Jawhara Tower behind NBK on Fahad Al Salem street. It was around 10:30 I think and I decided to go down to the grocery to get some water. I took the lift and when I got to the ground floor I noticed a small crowd of people gathered outside the lifts but I didn’t think much. I was on the phone with Nataly and when I walked out of the lift area into the main lobby I noticed more people gathered there and I started to hear the fire alarm. I didn’t know what was going so I told Nat I would call her back. I then called one of my workmates up in our office and told him it looks like there could be a fire in the building since the fire alarm is on and there are people downstairs. He asked me what we should do I told him I would come up and talk to him.

So I casually went back into the lift and headed back to the 21st floor. When I was passing the 9th floor I noticed it smelled like fire. I was like WTF? I got to our floor and I started to tell people there was a fire. We weren’t sure if we should evacuate because everything looked normal on our floor. No fire alarms, no smoke, no smell and nothing unusual. So we were thinking maybe it was just a false alarm when someone noticed the elevators area which I had just come up from was now starting to fill up with smoke. That’s when we started evacuating everyone.

The building isn’t fully occupied yet, I think out of the 26 floors only 10 are occupied. We started heading down the fire escape, it was a long way down and for most of it uneventful until we hit around the 10th floor. That’s when we started to notice a bit of smoke. When we got to the 7th 6th floor we noticed the smoke got a lot heavier and that on the fire was on the 6th 5th floor below us. I snapped the picture above which was of the poor building security guard trying to put out the fire.

We decided to cut across to the other side of the building and take the fire escape on the other side since I figured there should be less smoke and water there. When we crossed and got to the second fire escape we noticed it was filled with construction material. Large rocks, pieces of metal, foam, nylon bags… I wish I took a picture. We cleared some out of the way since there were people coming down that fire escape and the trash was slowing things down. There was a line of people going down the escape and it was moving pretty slow since there was a woman who seemed to be exhausted going down and we were all waiting behind her. Someone was helping her go down but it was still just very slow. By the time we got to the second floor I noticed one fireman coming up that fire escape and then finally we got out of the building.

Now that I am home I am thinking of all the mistakes that occurred like why didn’t the fire alarm go off in the whole building? If I hadn’t gone down to the ground floor by coincidence I wouldn’t have heard the fire alarm and I wouldn’t have been able to warn people upstairs. Also usually when there is a fire the elevators stop working and all automatically go down to the ground floor. The elevators in our building actually allowed me to go up to the 21st floor during a fire! Thirdly the fire escapes contained a lot of items in them which made our escape hazardous and slowed everything down. The security guards although were being brave to try and put out the fire shouldn’t have been doing that, if anything they should have been helping people get out. They didn’t have any masks on or proper gear and I am sure they are all now suffering from smoke inhalation. Hopefully they all made it out ok. I didn’t experience that much smoke and I am already blowing out black sooth from my nose. Because they also had the fire escape door open when they were trying to put out the fire, that resulted in the whole fire escape filling up with smoke and making things dangerous for the people escaping.

This all brings me to my final question. The other day the elevators weren’t working in my apartment building so I took the fire escape down. It was dark so I used my phone to light up the way and there were a ton of obstacles in the way which made it very difficult for me to go down. Who can I call to complain to so they can come and check our buildings fire safety? I am sure it’s illegal to fill up the fire escapes with garbage. Below are some pictures I took with my iPhone of the fire in our office building.

Update2: Sorry just proof read what I wrote and noticed a bunch of spelling mistakes and grammar errors. Didn’t have time to do that earlier. Also the fire turned out to be on the 5th floor not 6th.




Categories
Food & Drinks Guest Bloggers Healthier Lifestyle Kuwait

The Super Duper Guide to Losing Fat and Maintaining Muscle in Ramadan

Posted by Fahad AlYehya | Core Fitness – Kuwait

I would first like to apologize for my long absence from the world of blogging and greatly appreciate all my supporting readers for being patient and understanding. Moreover, I’d also like to send my sincerest apologies to those of you who have emailed me but haven’t recieved a reply. I’d like to thank you all for putting up with my crap and style of writing, which by-the-way will only get worse. I’ve stated this a million times. If you’re not cool with my writing nature, then don’t read me. I should warn you, though; you’re going to miss out on some epic nutrition advice.

Before I begin preaching, I’d like to clarify how this guide will work:

1) I’ll list down all the basics of Ramadan eating and training to provide a brief understanding for the readers.

2) The reader will then post his/her goal, physical stats (height, weight, bf % if available) and Ramadan lifestyle (exercise timing, family gatherings, favorite/worst foods, etc).

3) I will then reply with a customized optimal plan for that reader’s goal

4) Other readers/haters who are too lazy to comment/hate can read/[go-kill-themselves] the Q&A’s below so that they may personally implement on their own.

The Q&A below will serve as a guide to unanswered questions anyone might have about Ramadan. Please refrain from emailing me since the goal of this post is to publicly educate through the written facts/opinions/experiences and the associated comments.

Credibility and Experience

It took me around 3 Ramadans to fully understand how my body works when it comes to losing fat and maintaining muscle when fasting. From eating small portions of food to indulging in every calorie dense food item, I’ve realized the only way to survive Ramadan is by doing the exact same thing.

1st Attempt: I dieted in Ramadan, performing 30-60 minutes of cardio 2 hours prior to breaking my fast, and weight lifting 1 hour after a light futoor, followed by a light dinner and a light suhoor.

Result: Managed to lose 10kg in 1 month.

Damage: Managed to lose a lot of my hard earned muscle. Fail.

2nd Attempt: I gorged on endless calories, weight-lifted with less intensity and did absolutely no cardio.

Result: Gained 5kg.

Damage: 5kg of fat; but I kept my muscle. Epic fail.

3rd Attempt: Dieted 3 months prior to Ramadan (low calorie intake, 60 minutes of cardio, 30-45 minutes of weight-lifting). Stuck to the same level of calorie intake and workout-intensity in Ramadan, eliminated cardio completely.

Result: Nothing. Kept my muscle, maintained my superb condition.

Damage: Refer to the above. Boo-Yeah.




Categories
Funny Kuwait Photography

Small World

I got a forward in my email today that contained a picture I had taken at the Kuwait Airport back in 2005 (pictured above). I had spotted a sign that had been placed in front of a security camera and thought that was pretty stupid and took a picture of it. Now 5 years later, it’s become one of those “epic fail” kind of pictures that gets forwarded around. Pretty cool. [Link]




Categories
Animals & Wildlife Funny Sports

Psychic goat tries again

Ok so he got the Uruguay vs Germany game wrong but even psychic goats make mistakes (blame it on the humidity). For the final game he’s predicting Spain will win over Netherlands. [YouTube]




Categories
Kuwait News Sports

The Gel Team

A reader sent me this article that appeared in The Guardian a few days ago about the state of Football in Kuwait and the UAE. The article talks about Kuwait’s football achievements in the 80s and the demise of it today.

While middle-aged Kuwaiti men are genuinely proud of the football team their country produced in the 1980s – champions of Asia in 1980, World Cup qualifiers in 1982 and Gulf Cup winners in 1982 and 1986 – the same cannot be said of the current crop of players. Dubbed the “gel team”, these shebab (young men) have been branded prima donnas by the older generation, more concerned with applying gel to their intricately styled coiffures and handing out their phone numbers to doe-eyed female admirers than with training and winning.

The article starts off with the question, “Is it because family riches spoil potential players that these countries’ sporting glories lie in the past?”. Personally I have no idea why football in Kuwait today is not as good as it was in the 80’s and early 90’s, but maybe someone else can answer that question. [Article]

Thanks Pureorama




Categories
Kuwait Personal Sports

Cannondale in Kuwait

My favorite mountain bike brand is Cannondale and I’ve posted about the local Cannondale dealer a few times including on my Miskan blog 5 years ago. Thing is since I first got my bike in the winter of 2004 until now the dealer really hasn’t expanded, improved or changed in any way. It’s very sad and not sure why specially since more people bike today than they did 5 years ago. Maybe the dealer doesn’t care about the brand anymore but it’s very disappointing. I passed by yesterday to get my bike and Nat’s serviced and they didn’t even have transmission cables available. Luckily GoSport has a good collection of Shimano bike parts and so was able to pick up some cables from there and dropped them off to the dealer. The dealer doesn’t have many Cannondale bikes for sale as well, they had only 2 models available. I guess thats a good thing since if I did see a bike I liked I might have ended up buying it.

On the bright side I’m glad that GoSport carry a good collection of bike accessories and parts. Nothing hard core like Fox shocks or disc brakes upgrade kits but still a lot better than nothing. For everything else there is Amazon.




Categories
Blog Info

Kuwait Blogs 1.2

The update for the Kuwait Blogs App is now available in the store. If it isn’t there yet give it a few hours while all the App stores world wide sync. Anyway it fixes the incompatibility issues with iOS4 and I’ve also added the Some Contrast blog back. Now someone this morning made me aware of the fact that the Some Contrast blog was actually loading the feeds of Tidbit Du Jour in the updated App. That’s my mistake, I was in such a rush to get out the update I didn’t test the App and this mix up slipped by. So, I just submitted update 1.21 which fixes their feed. That should be available sometime end of this week. [Link to App Store]




Categories
Interesting Kuwait Shopping

Q8Limited.com – Kuwait’s premier luxury site?

I found this local website by mistake and I’m actually impressed. Not at the design or anything like that but on the items that are listed… luxury watches! There seems to be a good range but I am struggling to find out whats used, whats new, whats from the local dealers and what’s gray market. I am guessing the Rolex Deep Sea for example is used since it’s listed for KD2,250 while it retails for KD3,250 locally before discount. They have the Audemars Piguet Offshore Diver listed for KD4,250 but it retails for KD4,500 at the dealer although they’re out of stock. The Panerai section is beautiful, they’ve got my favorite which is the very limited PAM 26. The Hublot section… lets not even go there. Basically I would have to agree with their tag line, it has to be Kuwait’s premier luxury site since I am not aware of any other one. [Link]




Categories
Apple Apps Information

Kuwait Blogs App + iOS4

For those of you who’ve updated to iOS4 and noticed problems with the Kuwait Blogs App like the back button missing I am working on the fix right now. I should have checked and seen if there were any issues with the app and iOS4 earlier but I’ve been really busy. The update should be available in the app store in the next few days.

Update: Here is a quick temporary fix until the update is available in the App store. To see the back button again just click on Leave a comment at the end of the posts. Thanks Aziz for the tip.