SAY NO TO CHEAT DAYS

Hello my fellow friends. I come back to you with a rather odd post, something out of my element.

Recently, I fell in love with health. I realised how I was in the worst stage possible, weighing in exactly 100kg. That was the highest I have ever experienced. I was on a consistent 75 to 80 kg but my weight just flew up this high within 2 months. In that 2 months, I realised my unhealthy relationship with food. I started eating 2-3 portions per meal, and if I do actually eat only a portion, like I'm supposed to- I end up snacking a lot. Pit a pat, pit a pat, that made me gained 20 kgs in 2 months time. I was bewildered when I saw the scale and that was went I knew, it's time to make a change.

As I had such an unhealthy diet, it was hard for me to transit from eating McDonald's Spicy Ayam with fries & coke, to grilled chicken breast with asparagus on a daily basis. I'm not going to lie, even though I managed to stick to the plan, there were times were I sneaked a biscuit or 2 in, because it was a sudden transition and my body was definitely not used to it. Because I had such an unhealthy diet back then, its hard for me to completely cut out a normal meal. After doing tons of research, I decided to do 3 cheat days a month, so that I would still keep my sanity in tact.

First week of healthy eating & exercising was most definitely tough, my whole body ached and my muscles were sore.  I did not give up, because as much as I hated sweating and exercising, I hated what I saw in the mirror more than anything else. I gained so many stretch marks and my belly was bugging out, it was honestly disgusting. First week through, I decided to reward myself with a cheat day on a Sunday.

Mark my words, the side effects were awful. I am still a student currently studying at university so that meant early classes. As my body started getting used to the diet, my body was used to the energy deficit I've created, with my low carb diet. I had pan mee for lunch and pizza and coke for dinner on my cheat day. These food were no doubt high in sodium and carbs, making my insulin level increase dramatically converting the sugars in my blood to glycogen and fats. Because of my cheat day, I was depriving from energy, I felt so lethargic and tired even though I got a full 8 hours of sleep. As I wasn't so sure about the side effects of a cheat day yet, I decided to just follow my plan and started eating healthy again the next day.

Tick tock, tick tock, it was 2 weeks now. 2 weeks of consistent healthy eating and exercise, I felt great and my body got stronger. Then during the weekends, I've decided to have a cheat day, but a less guilty one. I had IKEA hotdog and tea live pearl milk tea for lunch and a typical chinese dinner at a chinese restaurant in Puchong. I even cut back on the rice during my dinner to make myself feel less guilty. Even though the cheat day was not as bad as before, I felt even worse than I did before.

My body was so not used to the food, it started causing my leg to swell up, the high sodium levels in food cause water retention and my body ached. Slowly, my head started hurting and I eventually felt so lethargic and weak after my cheat day.

In many health blogs, they do recommend that you do a cheat day. A cheat day helps regulate your metabolism, as a sudden high level of sugar enters your body, it causes our body to respond quicker and our body would be able to deal with all the addition sugar causing an increase in metabolism. This means that when doing the same exercises, you might lose more weight as you have a higher metabolism. However, I don't think its worth it. The excruciating pain and suffer after a cheat day still hunts me till today, I'll definitely say no to anymore cheat days anytime soon.

SEVENTEEN (세븐틴) KPOP BAND: MEMBER PROFILE

Seventeen is a K-POP band formed by PLEDIS Entertainment.

Debut Date: 26/05/2015

Number of Members: 13

Why is Seventeen so successful? 

- They are the first self producing KPOP group. Self-producing means that the members are the ones who:

• Write the lyrics
• Compose the songs
• Choreograph the dances
• Sets the themes 

What differs them from other KPOP groups? 

- They have the most number of members in a group

- Their group consists of 3 sub-units:

• Vocal Unit
• Performance Unit 
• Hiphop Unit

Fun Facts of Seventeen 

• They are the first group who got an hour long live debut broadcast on MBC 
• Their album ranked ninth on the Billboard World Albums chart a week after its release and peaked at eighth, staying on the chart for a total of eleven weeks
• 17 Carat later became the longest-charting K-pop album of the year in the US and was the only rookie album to appear on Billboard's "10 Best K-pop Albums of 2015" ranking
• Their album Boys Be was the highest selling Rookie album of 2015
• They are so successful that they are now the 3rd highest net worth KPOP group coming after their Sunbaenim EXO and BTS 

Vocal Unit

The vocal unit consists of 5 members who are:

Woozi 

Stage Name: Woozi

Real Name: Lee Ji Hoon

Position: Vocal Leader/Composer/Producer

DOB: 22/11/1996

Height: 164 cm 

Facts: 

- He is the shortest member of Seventeen

- He has the worst sleeping habits

- He is so dedicated to music that he never had time for a girlfriend 

Jeonghan (17's Angel)

Stage Name: Jeonghan

Real Name: Yoon Jeong Han

Position: Vocalist

DOB: 4/10/1995

Height: 178 cm

Facts:

- When he was asked to choose 4 members to save from a stranded island, he picked Joshua, S.Coups, Seungkwan and DK

- He is closest to Joshua amongst all the members (95 liner!)

- He is voted the best personality amongst the members

Joshua (American Hyung)

Stage Name: Joshua

Real Name: Joshua Hong Ji Soo

Position: Vocalist

DOB: 30/12/1995

Height: 177 cm

Facts:

- He is a American Korean who lives in LA

- He loves anime

- He is known as Seventeen's gentleman as he talks politely and greets everyone he meets

DK (17's Smile Man)

Stage Name: DokYeom

Real Name: Lee Seok Min

Position: Main Vocalist

DOB: 18/02/1997

Height: 179 cm 

Facts: 

- He is one of the most naive members along with THE8

- His nickname is internal voice. The members call him that because he’s noisy when he’s practicing his singing and it sounds like a speaker

- He is rated as 17's funniest member 

Seungkwan (MC Boo)

Stage Name: Seungkwan

Real Name: Boo Seung Kwan

Position: Main Vocalist 

DOB: 16/01/1998

Height: 174 cm

Facts:

- He is known as 17's crybaby 

- He is Seventeen’s nice atmosphere maker. If they are feeling down, he would go to the members and do voice imitations (ex. their CEO) to make them feel better. 

- He has the most celebrities contact as he is a very outgoing and friendly person

Performance Unit

The performance unit consists of 4 members who are:

Hoshi (10:10)

Stage Name: Hoshi

Real Name: Kwon Soon Young

Position: Performance Leader

DOB: 15/06/1996

Height: 177 cm

Facts:

- He can speak Korean, Japanese and Chinese

- His stage name “Hoshi” means ‘Star’ in Japanese. The name was given to him because of how charismatic he is on stage

- He was voted the mostly likely leader if S.Coups was not around as he is charismatic and very hardworking 

Jun (Quiet Handsome Boy)

Stage Name: Jun

Real Name: Wen Jun Hui 

Position: Performer

DOB: 10/06/1996

Height: 182 cm

Facts:

- He is an actor in China and he is from China

- He likes to hide a lot of Chinese and Korean snacks in his bag. He doesn’t eat them all at once, but eats them many times but the members eat all his snacks sometimes. Jelly snacks are his favourite. 

- He is known as the mother of the group 

THE8 (Fairy)

Stage Name: THE8

Real Name: Xu Ming Hao 

Position: Performer

DOB: 7/11/1997

Height: 179 cm

Facts: 

- He was the last member to join the group

- He won Martial Arts Competition before 

- He always makes sure to eat his meals without skipping any. Even if he has to wake up at 3AM, he would wake up 1 hour before and eat as he is not able to gain weight

Dino (Korea's Michael Jackson) 

Stage Name: Dino

Real Name: Lee Chan

Position: Performer/ Maknae

DOB: 11/02/1999

Height: 170 cm

Facts:

- His role model is Michael Jackson. He listens to “Beat It” a lot and says “Billie Jean” is a song that describes him and gives him a lot of energy

- His favourite fruit is apple

- His stage name is an abbreviation of the word Dinosaur. It was given to him because he will dominate the stage

Hip Hop Unit

The Hip Hop Unit consists of 4 members who are:

S.Coups (Daddy Thick Legs)

Stage Name: S.Coups

Real Name: Lee Seung Cheol

Position: Team Leader/Hip Hop Leader

DOB: 08/08/1995

Height: 178 cm 

Facts:

- He created his stage name himself. The S stands for Seungcheol and Seventeen. The Coups means big success. As a rapper, he wants to have his own cool name.

- He was formally a member of ‘Tempest’ before Seventeen was created

- He does not exercise much but his muscles are thick 

Wonwoo 

Stage Name: Wonwoo

Real Name: Jeon Won Woo

Position: Rapper

DOB: 17/07/1996

Height: 182 cm

Facts: 

- He said if he could create a new unit, he’d want to be in it with Seungkwan, Mingyu, Hoshi, DK and Dino and he would name it ‘Comics’

- He started off as a singer but people told him he had a good voice for rapping. Since then, he looked into the Hip Hop scene and got noticed as a rapper and became apart of the Hip Hop team

- He is the king of the 'cheeseburger' aegyo 

Mingyu (Visual Tree)

Stage Name: Mingyu

Real Name: Kim Ming Yu

Position: Rapper

DOB: 06/04/1997

Height: 185 cm

Facts:

- He is known as Nasty Mingyu due to his dirty habits 

- A lot of people tells him he has good hand skills. He can repair broken things. When he was young, he made a sailing ship with chopsticks. When he is bored at the dorm, he changes the interior. He’s also in charge of changing the light bulbs because he’s tall. 

- He is the member who eats the most in the group

Vernon 

Stage Name: Vernon

Real Name: Hansol Vernon Chwe

Position: Rapper

DOB: 18/02/1998

Height: 175 cm 

Facts:

- He's from New York but he moved to Korea when he was 5 years old

- He wishes to be a dragon 

- He prefers Korea over America 

CATCH SEVENTEEN:

Weekly Idol Episode 222 (Seventeen's Appearance)

One Fine Day

One Fine Day is a short reality show starring Seventeen who unexpectedly got casted to a small island and using minimal resources, watch these 13 castaway boys battle to survive.

I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT! :)

Kylie Cosmetics (Birthday Edition): Worth the Hype?

It's 2016. Year of Monkey, or Year of Kardashians? No doubt, the Kardashians are one of the most influential family in the world now. With Kim K trying to break the internet twice, to Khloe's new slamming hot bod', and Rob getting Blac Chyna (Tyga; Kylie's current boyfriend's ex) pregnant, well I don't know how they do it but they are just always the hot topic.

Kylie Jenner, the young influential social media user who launched a new cosmetics line- Kylie Cosmetics in 2015 which broke the world by storm. Time and time again her lip kits would sell out as fast as 30 seconds and for those who knows what I'm talking about, the god damn refresh page which shatters millions of our dreams.

She recently released a new collection which is the Birthday Collection prior to her upcoming birthday which took the world by storm once again. I personally tried to get my hands on the Mini Lip Kits for 4 times which was all a failure even though I clicked as soon as the webpage was opened. After numerous times of failure, I decided to buy the whole Birthday Collection which was a staggering 195 USD (RM 805) and let's not forget the standard 14 USD (RM 58) shipping rate. So I spent a total of RM 863 on makeup. No need to makan already la that month, my wallet fly to Kylie already!

Spending this much money, I definitely expect good quality products and the result? Not quite what I expected.

Before we get started, I just want to apologise for doing swatches on my face itself as I have acne prone skin and it's the time of the month so my face is really greasy and I don't want to have any make up products on my face to avoid further breakouts.

A little backstory:

I placed my order on their last restock, 10/08/16. It was successful and I even received a confirmation mail about my order which is confirmed.

An hour later, I received an email stating that my order was cancelled and i was honestly super bumped and I demanded for answers. Keep in mind that the payment was not rejected and payment was not cancelled.

I instantly wrote back to the Kylie Cosmetics Customer Service and that was when I finally understand why people were constantly shaming KylieCosmetics Customer Service.

It took them a total of 2 weeks to reply.

"Hello Ms. X,
 I have just sent you an invoice via PayPal.
 Please confirm when payment is completed so that we can proceed with recreating your order in our       system.

 Thank you for your patience,

 --
 Best, Glimar D
 Team Kylie Cosmetics"

After recreating my order, I paid the day after receiving that email and wrote back regard about the payment.

Again, after 4 days they replied stating about how the order is now successful and will be shipped asap.

Well, I thought everything would be good and all, but they sent my parcel 3 days after I confirming the order and everything was delayed.

As they do not ship to Malaysia, I had to wait even longer for the parcel to be shipped to Malaysia and it took a total of a month and 4 days for my parcel to finally reach where I am.

1. The Packaging

Well, the packaging was definitely really cute and as you can see from the picture, the side of the box has foam pads and you could tell that they did put in effort to ensure that the parcel would not be damage and I seriously appreciate that. 

Packaging: 9/10

2. The Make Up Bag (42 USD = RM 173.75)

A very simple bag and it is pretty self explanatory. It's rectangular, travel friendly (travel size) and really good quality. 

As you could tell from the picture, the seaming are perfectly intact and the zipper is definitely of good quality. 

Make Up Bag: 9/10

Price: 2/10

Worth the Hype?: No

Would I Buy it separately?: No

No matter how good the quality is, this bag is definitely not worth anything more than RM 50. It's a really good quality bag, but sorry Kylie, I would never buy it on its own. 

3. Leo Lip Kit (30 USD = RM 124)

Leo is a deep burgundy shade which most people claim as a "fall/autumn shade" but for me, I'm just a dark coloured lipstick aesthetic, hehe. This was my most anticipated product in the entire lip kit as the colour literally screams my name. 

However, I was really really disappointed after trying it out. Trust me, it's nothing like what you see in the pictures. 

Most of the swatches and instagram pictures were taken under professional camera lighting and that's what made it look the way it was. 

Leo on Kylie

Leo on my hand. All of the matte liquid lipstick were applied with only one layer except Leo. Leo was extra patchy for some reason so i applied two coats of it and you could still see some of the patchiness showing through. 

Leo Lip Kit: 5/10

Price: 6/10

Worth the Hype?: Yes 

Would I buy it separately?: Yes

4. Kyliner (38 USD = RM 157.15) 

The Kyliner consists of:

- Dark Bronze Pencil Eyeliner

- Dark Bronze Creme Gel Eyeliner

- Angled Brush

Personally, I like the glitter in the eyeliner as it gives a slightly more glamorous look and the colour may look light but on the eyes it looks darker. 

*Not my pic, credits to the owner* 

Dark Bronze Kyliner: 8/10

Price: 6/10

Worth the Hype?: Yes

Would I buy it separately?: No 

I would not buy it separately as I do not like creme eyeliner and my favourite type of eyeliner is liquid. So, I wouldn't mind using the product buy I would not reach out to buy the product. 

5. Creme Shadows (20 USD = RM 82.70) 

The creme shadows each costs RM 82.70. 

Creme Shadows Shade:

- Rose Gold

- Copper 

Left: Rose Gold

Right: Copper

This was my second most anticipated item from the birthday collection. Since I received my bundle so late, I saw a lot of youtubers who raved about the creme shadows and they were all really impressed with the quality of the creme shadows. 

Personally, I absolutely love it. It is very pigmented and a little goes a really long way. It stays on the whole day and this is something that I really love about it as I have really oily skin and with Malaysia's weather, I do sweat a lot. The shadows stayed on really well and I really love the rose gold shadow. 

Rose Gold Creme Shadow: 10/10

Price: 9/10

Worth the Hype?: DEFINITELY

Will I buy it separately?: HELL YEAH 

Copper Creme Shadow: 8/10

Price: 9/10

Worth the Hype?: Yes.Yes.Yes.Yes.Yes.

Will I buy it separately?: No...

I personally loved the copper shadow too but, the copper shadow doesn't compliment my skin tone really well as it doesn't look as it I put anything on my eyes except for glitter when I put it on. 

6. Lord (19 USD = RM 78.60)

Lord is a metal gloss which is gold

Lord is really pigmented and it's texture is smooth and creamy. 

Lord: 7/10

Price: 4/10

Worth the Hype?: Yes

Will I buy it separately?: No

Although Lord is a good quality metal gloss, it is not a very practical colour to wear itself. Also, because it is so pigmented, putting a little over a matte liquid lipstick also did not work well for me as I did not fancy the end result. 

Lord on top of Posie K 

7. Poppin (16 USD = RM 66.20) 

Poppin Gloss

Personally, I felt that Poppin is kind of a translucent beige tone with glitter and like Lord, I feel that it is not something which is practical to wear alone. 

*Not my pic, credits to owner*

I think that Poppin could be paired with matte lipsticks which would give it a glossy finish and also a glittery finish which I like and would not mind wearing.

Poppin: 7/10

Price: 8/10

Worth the Hype?: Yes

Would I buy it separately?: No 

8. Mini Matte Lip-kit (36 USD = RM 148.80) 

And finally, the item that sells out instantly for every restock, the mini matte lip kit!!! 

Mini Matte Lip Kit consists of 6 different shades which are:

- Exposed

- Dolce K

- Koko K

- Candy K

- Kristen

- Leo

Exposed on Kylie

Dolce K on Kylie

Koko K on Kylie

Candy K on Kylie

Kristen on Kylie

Leo on Kylie 

Mini Mattes: 10/10

Price: 10/10

Worth the Hype?: OF COURSE

Would I buy it separately?: IT WAS THE ONLY THING I WAS PLANNING TO BUY 

Well, that's the end of another review. I hope you'll like it!