NURUL NADHRAH ZAINAL

21/01/2016.

January 21, 2016

Today was… serene. Hot (temperature wise) but serene. I went to bed when I’m supposed to last night and finally beat the funk I was in for over a week; which is sleeping past my alarm and only coming into consciousness by 9 a.m. Which isn’t acceptable, not by my standards.

Spent the hour after morning prayers doing yoga ala Nadhrah and some core and arm exercises – happy to say that I’m pleased with how I look in the mirror. Working out and switching over to a pesco-vegetarian diet has done wonders for my body. The next hour I spent swimming in the pool we have in our backyard, that I’ll admit I’ve taken for granted far too often. Note to self; swim more.

The morning sky was particularly beautiful today; the clouds a mixture between stratus and altocumulus… at least from my personal unscientifically proven deductions anyways.

Checked up on the flowers I flattened a week before and am excited by the results. I could definitely see myself being an obsessive flower presser. Although next time I should consider doing it properly as a couple pages of great books were spared from whatever water/liquid that came out of the flowers as they are being weighed down.

And that’s the day so far. As of now it is 1739 hours.

(expand post for more photos)

Daily, Food, Health & Fitness, Life

A LIFESTYLE CHANGE.

November 5, 2015

GAINING WEIGHT

All throughout my third year in architecture school, the only form of ‘exercise’ I did regularly was my commute to and fro from where I was living in Manchester to where I needed to be by bicycle. And to make matters worse; most of my days, if not all of them, were spent sat on my desk and I only ever get up for toilet visits and accepting takeouts.

So the combination of an almost intense level of inactivity, inhaling an unhealthy amount of egg cress sandwiches, fried chicken and pizza and a severe lack of exercise – I gained weight.

But because I was incredibly busy throughout the year (and also because I’m notorious for making up excuses not to) I wasn’t able to put in any serious effort into getting myself back in shape. Along the way, I had also rather successfully convinced myself that it was enough for me to just be doing 100 squats and a number of half-assed weight training a day. Quite possibly the only real effort I’ve put into being active, was my foray into running.

PURE DETERMINATION

However, when I returned home to Malaysia I was determined to make a change. My parents agreed to pay for a secondhand road bicycle, and I cycled (on the trainer) almost everyday, day and night all throughout the fasting month, and results began to show. I began to lose the pounds I gained, and lost a lot of fat on my upper body and that in itself was sufficient enough to motivate me into working harder and harder to get into shape.

I’ve never been the type to be concerned about my weight; because I believe that as long as I personally feel that I look good and actually feel good – I’m a happy camper. So instead, I judge my progress by monitoring my body’s fat and muscle percentage.

FALTERING

I’ve continued to exercise nearly every single day (I can’t go a day without doing any exercise, despite it being a rest day) but unfortunately I’ve not been having much progress for over a month. My weight remained the same, my fat and muscle percentage were stagnant, and I was running out of ideas as to why there were no changes to my body. I wasn’t even losing inches… anywhere.

Thus I decided to go back to basics.

Daily, Thoughts

Writers Block.

November 3, 2015

Now while I clearly am not a professional writer, I do think of myself as one… a writer I mean. And it is because I love writing and see it as the best way to express myself. I do believe that I am more honest in my writing and I don’t hold back (unless I absolutely have to).I still write but it is kept strictly between the pages of my diary and frankly, while I find that a diary is the best place for me to vent out my emotions I still do miss writing on this platform – and by that I mean my blog. On here, I feel that my writing evolves and get better with every post because I do feel the need to please a (perhaps nonexistent) audience and am being judged for the way I write, while the scribbles in my diary are drafted almost purely by my emotions thus grammar is the last thing I’m concerned about.

The lack of content on this blog isn’t for the lack of trying though. If you could peek into my Drafts then you’d know exactly how many posts I’ve written but stopped halfway because… I just couldn’t continue. I can’t pinpoint exactly why I haven’t been able to write, but is it crazy to assume that its because I’ve been largely ‘inactive’ and ‘unproductive’? Both words are put into quotations because it isn’t that I’ve not been doing anything with my days, just that it isn’t anything prominent. I find that I am most productive when I have so much on my hand, that I am almost forced to be productive. And I don’t mind it one bit. I love occupying myself with tasks, be it large ones or anything as little as picking up my mother’s dry cleaning or buying groceries.

This is exactly the reason why even though the thought of starting work soon terrifies me, it also excites me because not only does it give me a sense of purpose, but it also pushes me to make the most of what little time I have to have everything I want to be done, done.

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21/01/2016.

A LIFESTYLE CHANGE.

Writers Block.

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