Happy Lunar New Year, and a Happy Valentine’s Day and 人日! To all our dear friends and clients, we hope that the Lunar New Year has been a fruitful time of family bonding, rest and well-spent time with your loved ones! With LNY comes all things sinful: from pineapple tarts, bakkwa, cookies, to multiple meals a day at every single house visit you go to! It’s no surprise if you feel that your pants are a little tighter, and your stomach is now bulging out over with a slight muffin top from all the festive indulging.
Fear not, because here’s our cheatsheet to lose that extra few pounds you put on during the past week or so! There’s still another week of Lunar New Year celebrations to go, and these tips will definitely prove useful over the next week!
1. Watch out for the packaged/canned drinks
It’s so easy to accept those packets of sweetened drinks that seem innocuously innocent (green tea, chrysanthemum tea etc) or even allow yourself to agree to a can of beer, but as you already know, these sugar-filled drinks are unnecessary calorie bombs! Just a couple more of these drinks a day would be equivalent to an additional 500g weight gain in just a week! And that’s just drinks alone! Instead, ask your host for a glass of plain ole’ H20 for a zero-calorie thirst quencher.
2. Snack on the healthy stuff
Instead of reaching out for calorie-dense foods like pineapple tarts and kueh, our best advice to you this LNY is to snack on the healthier options you can find, for instance, Mandarin Oranges, which are abundant during LNY! Keep your fingers off those addictively delicious cookies, pastries and bakes, and you’ll be just fine.
3. Take one-third off your plate
When you eat dinner out or at a friend’s/relative’s, reduce the temptation to clean your plate by setting aside one-third of your meal! Remember, everything in moderation, and especially when it comes to second helpings of fried/processed food! Simply reducing every meal’s intake by 30% could subtract more than 500 calories a day! Visually, using a smaller plate also helps to fool your brain and stomach into thinking that you’re still eating the same amount, when in fact you’ve actually cut down on your intake.
4. Get movin’ in the evening!
Go for an evening walk daily, or whenever you can make the time to! Exercising at any time is good for you, but evening activity may be particularly beneficial because many people’s metabolism slows down toward the end of the day. Thirty minutes of aerobic activity before dinner increases your metabolic rate and may keep it elevated for another two or three hours, even after you’ve stopped moving. What it means: those dinner calories have less of a chance to take up permanent residence on your hips!
5. Give yourself a break!
No one says you have to reach your goal without making mistakes along the way. Tell yourself you can succeed in losing weight by taking things one step at a time and starting fresh whenever you slip up. If you overeat one night, just get back on track in the morning by focusing on what’s worked for you in the past.
Even if you’ve been battling weight loss your entire life, we here at Slim Couture believe that there is hope for every single lady to lose weight successfully and attain your dream silhouette that you’ve always wished for! With Divine Slim treatments, you can lose weight not just quickly and effectively, but also healthily!
Slim Couture is a home-grown Singapore company focused on helping women lose weight safely. Through the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, Slim Couture prides itself in providing successful weight loss solutions to female clients with weight issues since 2010. With its client-oriented approach and quality services, Slim Couture has been awarded the Singapore Quality Brands 2013/2014 and the Top 100 Singapore Excellence Award 2013/2014.
For a free consultation and body/weight analysis or to find out how TCM can help you slim down quickly and healthily!
Just when you thought to yourself.. Phew! Christmas is over! The feasting has ended. My waistline can go back to normal, and my diet can resume! I can work towards that svelte figure I told myself I’d get in 2016.
Well, not so fast! Just one mere month after the Christmas season, comes Chinese New Year. This Asian celebration is not to be underestimated… the festivities usually last for at least a week for most Chinese people, with intense binge eating and reckless gorging happening during most of those days. It’s impossible not to stuff your face with delicious treats like cassava chips, pineapple tarts, grandma’s cooking and steamboat food! Since most of these foods only make a rare appearance once annually, why would we miss out on the opportunity to enjoy them while we can? With all your relatives and friends gathered under one roof, there’s bound to be a lot of eating. If there’s one thing Asian parents are good at besides disciplining their children, it’s over-feeding their children. Don’t know about you guys, but I’m not allowed to walk away from the dining table until I’ve been stuffed silly at every reunion dinner!
Pretty sure any normal human being would feel heavier and bloated after Chinese New Year. You’re almost certain that you have piled on a few extra kilos. But how do you know for sure, without stepping on the scale because you don’t have one at home?! Most people may not have the habit of weighing themselves regularly, so we thought we’d come up with a list of ways to know you’re gaining weight.. especially when you’re not realizing it! Are these telltale signs creeping up on you? If they are, perhaps it’s time to do something about those new found chubs!
Your skin tight jeans and clothes don’t fit right anymore.
Clothes are a constant in our lives – we wear them every single day. So there’s no excuse to be given when your staple underwear which used to fit nicely now feels too tight, or when that well-fitting jeans give you a bulging muffin top. Skin tight clothes are pretty much one of the best ways to tell if you’ve packed on a few extra pounds or not, because we always remember when we look good in that ONE super tight outfit, and get disappointed when we don’t anymore. Did you use to look great in that bodycon dress, but now find one too many bulges on your body to consider it attractive?
Relatives have a ball pointing out & poking fun at how “fortunate” you look, during Chinese New Year visiting.
If you are a chubby person, all hell breaks loose during Chinese New Year. Your relatives will probably go to town with all the teasing remarks, especially if you are significantly younger than them! As a child, they’ll come and pinch your cheeks and go “sooo cute!”. Then when you’re slightly older, the remarks will probably lessen to a more subtle degree: “Wow, life has been good recently, hasn’t it?” When an Asian relative playfully asks you if life has been good, they’re not actually asking you if life has been good. They’re asking how come you’re so fat now.
You avoid taking photos because you don’t like the way you look.
Low self-esteem, apart from actual physical problems, is probably the worst side effect of weight gain. If you’re avoiding taking any self-portraits or group photos, you’re probably not that comfortable with your appearance and feeling lousy about the way you look. Life is too short to live it hiding yourself.
Sucking in your gut becomes a natural reflex, because somehow, it always seem to stick out now.
What happens to everyone after a buffet? Our stomach bulges out! Even if you’re not actually fat, as soon as you over-consume and binge for just one meal, your stomach is likely to stick out from being expanded more than it is used to / meant to. It’s okay to have a bulging stomach after the occasional heavy meal, but if it is constantly hanging out and you find yourself having to consciously contract the muscle to keep it in, you have a problem..
You are bloated all the time.
Bad eating habits are highly associated with weight gain. And bloated-ness is a direct effect from bad eating habits and poor lifestyle choices. When you keep stuffing your face with food, especially at a quantity much higher than your required amount, you’ll feel bloated.
Your energy level has hit an all-time low.
Eating food gives you energy. But eating too much food at one go doesn’t give you an outburst of energy, in fact it might do the very opposite – overeating can make you feel tired and needlessly lethargic. Your body gets so overwhelmed by the influx of food and working to digest it, that it goes into a sluggish mode. This happens frequently when you consume a high amount of carbohydrates. Overweight people feel tired all the time because their body is not in an ideal physical condition and their diets are poor.
Round is now the shape of your face.
Apart from our stomachs, the next most common place for fats to appear when we gain weight would probably be our faces. If your jawline starts getting less prominent and more round, it can only mean one thing – you’ve made food too much of your best friend recently. Even if you don’t wear tight clothing or notice how your body looks in the mirror often.. surely you can tell just by one look at your own face!
Hunger pangs & sugar cravings hit you more than just a few times a day.
Your meals should not just be adequately portioned and timed, but also nutritionally beneficial. When you don’t eat at the right timings, or eat the right amount of fibers, grains & protein, you can gain weight easily. If you’re always eating and yet always hungry, you’re not eating the right food (or you are one of those rare people gifted with crazy metabolism). When we eat junk food, our stomach fills up temporarily but it doesn’t get the required nutrients, so we feel hungry again too soon after. Your stomach is a muscle that expands when its overfilled. So the more you overeat, the more often you’ll find yourself starving at random intervals. The best way to avoid this is to not binge eat and always regulate your timings for meals.
Recognize one or more of these signs in your life?
There’s no better time to start working on it, than right now. One year later, you’ll wish you had started today. Be it changing your lifestyle, diet, or picking up a new exercise regime and even trying out the highly popular Divine Slim treatment at Slim Couture which uses beneficial Traditional Chinese Medicine methods to get your body back in shape, we wish you the best for the rest of your 2016!
Gong Xi Fa Cai and Happy Chinese New Year to all our friends & clients! We wish that you’ll have a HUAT-ful year ahead, and may everything in your life prosper.. except your waistline!!!
For a free consultation and body/weight analysis and to find out how TCM can help you slim down quickly and healthily, call us at 6536 8586 / 6336 8665 or visit our website at www.slim-couture.com.
Let’s have a show of hands, how many of you have gained more weight than you would’ve liked over the festive period? December is absolutely notorious for celebrations and feasting, which is all fun and games and completely lovely… until you step on the weighing scale. You look down at the increased figure on the scale in open mouthed horror, and then not too long after, you find yourself writing in your notebook: NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS.. 1) Lose Weight!!!
Sounds familiar? Welcome to being human! Losing weight, keeping in shape and staying trim and healthy are definitely one of the top few in EVERYONE’S New Year resolutions, alongside with being happy, getting rich, and other lifelong goals. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of people, by the time they’re into their second week of January, they’ve forgotten all about how badly they wanted to “finally get in shape this year”.
Real life and complacency takes over, busy schedules turn into bad eating habits and unhealthy lifestyles.. the vicious cycle continues. But you know what? That doesn’t have to be YOU this year. 2016 is your year to look and FEEL great about yourself. You can’t be completely happy if you don’t have a body you’re comfortable and satisfied with. As long as you feel insecure or bad about your figure or the way you look, you’re always going to have self esteem issues, no matter how insignificant they may seem on a daily basis because you tell yourself not to be “so superficial”, it will have an inevitable effect on your mental health in the long run. Most people set unrealistic goals for themselves that they don’t end up committing to because of lifestyle or discipline issues, but at Slim Couture, we would like to highlight the fact that a healthy lifestyle begins with small baby steps. You don’t necessarily have to visit the gym 3 times a week to lose weight, after all, haven’t you heard? Abs are made in the kitchen. And changes are made on an everyday basis.
In order to help you get in the right mindset and track for the coming year, here’s Slim Couture’s 16 tips & tricks to stay in shape for 2016! Some are extremely simple and achievable, while others may seem more difficult to do, but it all relies on one thing – your own determination. If you adhere to this guideline, we are sure you’ll be enjoying visible results before the half year mark! You know what’s the best part? Not ONE of this includes going to the gym. WOOHOO!
So here goes. Are you ready to be shape in 2016?
1. Cook at home more. ✓ Kill two birds with one stone by cooking at home. It’s wallet-friendly and also healthier because you get to monitor your ingredients and portions. Forget dining in restaurants or cafes, because you’ll tend to over order and over eat. Besides, you don’t know how much oil and preservatives they actually put in your food!
2. Start cutting fattening foods in your diet one by one and slowly. ✓ Most people give up on their diets because they’re too hard to stick to. Want to see long term results? Then do something you won’t have to struggle with. Unable to give up carbs completely? Start by eating 3/4 a bowl of rice instead of your usual 1 bowl everyday, then eventually reduce it to half a bowl, or limit your twice weekly bubble tea indulgence to only once. Small steps eventually lead to big results.
3. Go window shopping often. ✓ You don’t actually have to buy the clothes (unless you really want to). What you should do is just try on different styles of clothing on your body to appreciate it more, and this will help you understand the type of body you have. Look in the mirror. Like what you see? Nothing makes you more sheepishly aware or proud of your body like a tight bodycon dress. You’re going to want to put in effort to look GREAT in GOOD clothes.
4. Pack meals to places that don’t offer healthy solutions. ✓ We know you’re not lying when you say that there are no healthy options sometimes. Perhaps the only food choice that’s convenient for you that day will be full of greasy or carb-laden options. So if you already know that you’re going to be put in that situation, plan your meal ahead, a day before! Prepare a pre-packed meal for yourself to eat without guilt and excuses.
5. Drink a lot of water. ✓ Water is great for you, and somehow everyone knows this, yet most people just don’t drink enough. Water keeps you hydrated, your body functioning well and your stomach full for longer.
6. Do not use social gatherings as an excuse. ✓ It is possible to go out in a group for a company dinner, a birthday celebration or a party without stuffing your face. It might be a true test of your will, but it is completely possible. Don’t tell yourself, “Just this once!” because you know it never happens once. Keep disciplined at all times.
7. Know when to reward yourself. ✓ Deprivation isn’t the same as dieting. Dieting is keeping your portions and calorie intake in moderation. Deprivation is being irresponsible and ill-informed, such as skipping meals or avoiding carbs completely. A once a week treat to reward yourself for being good also isn’t a bad idea! You deserve it.
8. Keep a weighing scale at home. ✓ Then weigh yourself at least once a week to keep yourself in check. You ought to know if you’re gaining or losing weight. Don’t wait till your jeans don’t fit you right anymore to tell you that you’re piling on the pounds, be in charge of the situation!
9. Avoid supper like the plague. ✓ Because you probably won’t be able to burn off all those calories before you sleep. And when you sleep, all those extra calories get turned into fat. Just, don’t. We know how amazing supper can be, but don’t do something you will regret in the morning.
10. Encourage the people around you to eat and live healthier, too. ✓ If everyone in your office or home is insisting on fried chicken, you’re likely to give in to eating fried chicken as well. But if you’re surrounded health-conscious and like-minded people, you’ll find that the overall attitude towards food choices and lifestyle habits will improve for everyone.
11. Stay active even if you’re not hitting the gym or doing a work out of some sort. ✓ You don’t need to hit the gym so often, but you do have to move your body. Instead of taking the lift up two or three storeys, take the stairs. If you can spare the time, go for a long walk instead of a bus ride. Did you know that even shopping could burn you 75 calories per hour? Get off your butt. Go and live.
11. Upkeep your household chores. ✓ Laziness is universal. Encourage yourself to embrace things you don’t usually like doing, such as chores, assignments or exercise. Understand that they are all part of life. Having a conducive and clean environment at home makes for better living. Housework is a physical activity that keeps your body active, and it is 100% productive.
12. Eat breakfast every morning and light meals inbetween. ✓ Instead of large meals at long intervals, get your metabolism going as soon as you wake up, and then take small bites or snacks throughout the day to make sure your food is digested in the most efficient manner.
13. Find out what healthy foods you like. ✓ To think that all diet-friendly foods are not tasty just means you haven’t been eating the right stuff! Healthy food can be absolutely delicious, and you need to figure out what you like. One of my favorite diet food is roasted vegetables. I brush vegetables like pumpkin, broccoli, onions and tomatoes lightly with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt, then leave em in the oven to roast for 40 minutes.
14. Replace your favorite fattening snacks with a better alternative. ✓ If you’re one of those people who just can’t stop munching on things, then get better alternatives to snack on. Replace your potato chips with roasted nuts, candy with fresh fruits, etc. Nothing makes you fat like junk food does.
15. Remember not to skip your meals. ✓ The longer you’ve gone without food, the more you’d want to binge during the next meal. Even if you don’t think you’re that hungry for breakfast, lunch or dinner, always have something light, like a salad, to avoid binging later on.
16. Get freaky in the bedroom. ✓ We saved the best for the last. For 18 and above only, please. What better way to be more self-aware of your own body than some sexy time? You’re going to want to look good for yourself and your partner. You’re going to want to be able to get into different positions and you’re going to want to be butt naked and still sexy as hell, instead of worrying about your lumps and bumps. You will want your partner to worship your body. If that’s not motivation, we don’t know what is, really!
With the festive season in full swing, I’m sure the month of December will be one filled with tons of dinner parties and get-togethers for you. December has never been too kind to anyone’s waistline. While we are not going to stop you from feasting and making merry during Christmas, don’t be too surprised when you step on the scale and find yourself a few kilos heavier! It’s pretty normal for people to gain weight at the end of the year. I mean how could you not, when good food is everywhere? We know it’s difficult for you to hold yourself back, when everyone around you is making merry. Watching your diet becomes practically impossible. But fret not, because Slim Couture is here for you any time of the year. We may not be Santa Claus, but we promise to be the fairy god mother that will whip you back into shape.
If you’re considering taking up a package with us, here are 10 Frequently Asked Questions that we hope will put your worries at ease and also provide you with a deeper understanding of what it is that we do here at Slim Couture. Most people’s New Year Resolutions also include “slimming down” as one of them, and we can help you achieve that in 2016.
1. Are Slim Couture’s methods of TCM slimming safe for my health?
As compared to taking slimming supplements and crash dieting, TCM slimming method is healthy, does not have side effect, and the results are long-lasting. Moreover, it helps to regulate blood circulation, internal secretion, detoxing, improve metabolism and digestion, which helps to promote the overall healthy effect on slimming. It is not always as simple as in the case that the more you eat, the more weight you gain. Most people believe that weight is gained from overeating, which is in fact true for most cases, but it fails to explain that how can some people simply can lose weight even though they are heavy eaters while some just simply gain weight easily, even just by eating small portions of meal and drinking only water. Traditional Chinese Medicine studies the relationship between having healthy internal organs and the overall well-being of a person.
There are some centers using fire therapy where burn injuries can be a concern if the procedure is not done well. Patient can suffer a second or third degree burn as a result of direct dry heat to the skin. Practitioners should take all precautions to prevent burn injuries and be trained in first aid to handle burn injuries. Place of practice must be equipped with first aid equipments and burns dressing. Fire treatment should not be done on patients with hypertension and diabetes. We would strongly suggest for the safety of all patients not to take risk of receiving fire therapy. At Slim Couture, our cupping is done be an advanced suction and electromagnetic technology.
2. Why is it priced at $220 for one treatment session?
Slim Couture treatments are advanced, yet traditional and scientific at the same time. Slim Couture uses gua sha (刮痧) and cupping (拔罐) methods to aid the body in raising its metabolism rate and promote localized healing. The suction and negative pressure provided by cupping can loosen muscles, encourage blood flow, and sedate the nervous system.
Cupping is used to relieve back and neck pains, stiff muscles, anxiety, fatigue, migraines, rheumatism, and even cellulite. Like acupuncture, cupping follows the lines of the meridians. By targeting the meridian channels, cupping strives to ‘open’ these channels – the paths through which life energy flows freely throughout the body, through all tissues and organs, thus providing a smoother and more free-flowing qi (life force).
When Gua Sha is applied, it quickly releases blockages in your body that has been caused by stagnant blood. It actually mimics sweating and promotes circulation of your body fluids. By doing so, it helps to normalize cellular metabolic processes and release toxic waste from your deep cellular tissues.
These meticulous treatments are carried out by our highly trained & dedicated staff who will make sure you’re as comfortable as possible during your session, which lasts about 1 hour long.
3. How effective is the treatment itself if I do not follow the diet?
While Slim Couture encourages all its customers to follow the diet as strictly as possible in order to achieve maximum results, it is not uncommon to hear of our clients managing to shed a few inches and kilograms without even following the diet at all. This highly depends on individual basis, how your body reacts to the treatment and the type of food you are consuming. It is also highly likely that you will still be able to see visual difference in appearances of cellulite and lumpy silhouette when undergoing treatment, even if you have not been keeping to the diet well, because of the treatment’s natural detoxifying effects.
4. Is the treatment painful?
Like the old saying goes – no pain, no gain. Most of our customers find our treatments to be slightly to moderately painful but still very bearable, while some can even comment that our gua sha technique feels relaxing on their back. The sensation will take awhile to get used to, especially if you have never done gua sha or cupping before, but it is within the acceptable range for most people and if at any point you do not feel comfortable with our treatment, you can let our therapists know how you feel. It will be less painful as your number of treatments increase, and your body adapts to the treatments.
5. Who would be suitable candidates for Slim Couture’s treatments?
As our treatment are non-invasive and 100% safe with additional health benefits, most people are suitable to undergo our Divine Slim therapy, most notably women who are at least one of the following: obese, overweight, feeling chubby, want to lose a few extra inches off their problem areas or just women who feel like keeping svelte is getting more difficult as they get older. From young adults to elderly women, we welcome beautiful ladies of all ages to join us. However, if you have one or more of the following, it is best to arrange a consultation with us to see if this treatment is truly suitable for you: severe coronary artery diseases, liver and kidney impairment, generalise edema, dermatological disorders, burn injuries, thrombocytopenia and haematological disorders.
6. How many sessions do I require in order to see results?
You can see result from as soon as the second session, both in your measurements and number on the scale, as long as you have been good and followed the diet to a reasonable extent. Customers have been known to lose at least 1kg and up to 3kg from the first session!
7. What makes Slim Couture different from other TCM slimming centers out there?
Some places claim to offer healthy TCM methods for you to lose weight, but one of the requirements for their treatment includes drinking very little water. To us, this makes no sense at all. While slimming down and losing weight is our primary goal, we want you to be able to do so in the healthiest and most natural way possible. There are some centers asking clients to drink 300-500 ml water a day while undergoing their slimming treatment, which we feel is not the right way.
Hydration is important to keep the body going in all activities of daily living. As such, it is important to have adequate hydration. Restriction of fluid will lead to dehydration and possible medical conditions. Normal requirements for a healthy adult is between 1.5 litres to 2 litres, and if the person is on a slimming program they should increase their intake depending on personal requirements. This should be advised by the therapists. All our staff are professionally trained by Dr Colin Chan. Slim Couture believes in doing things the proper way as if the cupping is being performed on the wrong acupoint, it can end up causing a reverse reaction, harming the customer’s body instead. Because of our 100% success rate, we are confident enough to offer you a money back guarantee should you not be seeing any results at all, so you can be assured of the quality of our services.
8. Can I choose to work on target problem areas only if I’m not generally overweight?
Most definitely. Even if you are not actually overweight or chubby, but you feel like you have flabby arms, a stomach that could be a lot flatter, or thunder thighs, we will be able to work on those problem areas for you and target them specifically. If you’ve always had baby or stubborn fat that you couldn’t shed off no matter what sort of exercise or diet you’ve tried, then it’s time to place yourself in our good hands!
9. Do I need to exercise regularly while on the treatment?
Ladies, you will love to hear this: the answer is no. In fact, we discourage you from doing vigorous exercises as it may interfere with our treatment. If you have the habit of working out, it is recommend that you partake in light exercises only every now and then to keep your body fit, but it is not actually necessary to do any exercise while on our treatment as Divine Slim will do all the job for you. One session of Divine Slim equals to burning 2,000 calories! Imagine the amount of effort and time you’d take to burn that off in the gym!
10. Will my weight rebound after I stop the treatments and if so, how can I prevent this situation?
The great thing about our treatment is that because your weight loss was achieved through a wholesome method and not through taking diet supplements, crash dieting or some other unrealistic slimming fad, your weight will not pile back on the moment you stop your treatment with us. In fact, Slim Couture has a very high success rate of customers managing to maintain their weight even after their treatments have ended, because our recommended diet encourages a healthier lifestyle and moderate food portions. Of course, the results of weight rebound also highly depends on how much calories you consume on a daily basis, and no matter what slimming treatment you explore, the weight will still find its way back to you if you over indulge in excessive portions more often than you should. You can continue consuming carbohydrates and your other favorite fattening foods in moderate amounts. Moderation is the key. It is also suggested to our clients that they should come back every now and then for some maintenance sessions, just so we can also keep an eye on you – we don’t want all your hard work & efforts to go to waste! We understand it’s easier to keep to a diet when you’re being watched!
With that, Slim Couture wishes everyone out there a very blessed Christmas and a fantabulous year of 2016 to come!!!
