Home Hacks Design

Home Hacks Design for the bathroom such as Simple Hacks To A Prettier Bathroom. Similarly, this also feature Toilet Shopping Tips.

Another Home Hacks Design are for kitchen like Cleaning Tips For Your Dirty Kitchen and cleaning products that is perfect for cleaning.

Kitchen Hacks You Wish You Should Have Known Before like the other great use of paper towels.

Creating an effective cleaning schedule; divide it into categories; daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.

Cleaning schedule that you also need to consider are those that is done every 4 months such as air conditioner cleaning, pest control, and deep cleaning of windows.

Cleaning of roof and rain gutter are done every year. Cleaning/draining of the septic tank should be done every 3 years or 5 years.

Cost of home make over and DIY for cheaper make over ideas.

Bedroom decorations ideas and where to buy the cheapest bed lines.

Kitchen make over ideas and DIYs for cheaper make over ideas.

Tropical living room themed and where to buy cheap tropical plants.

Home make over ideas in the Philippines. Home interior ideas in the Philippines

Mommy Blog with home hacks topic in the Philippines.

Where to buy cheap wood furniture in the Philippines.

Price of Aluminum Screen Door in the Philippines. Price of the brown aluminum and silver aluminum.

Furniture stores in the Philippines. Abad Santos furniture store address.

Uratex foam custom cut online. Uratex foam price online.

Practical Shopping For School Supplies

Summer is almost over and for us parents, it only means one thing, school year is about to start! And that comes with school supplies shopping.

Well, I am almost done with school supplies (thank goodness for blog projects and direct advertisers) just a few more and we’re ready for school year 2012-2013. Like the previous years, I went to Divisoria to buy uniforms, socks and under shirts. This year, though, I got the chance to buy other school stuff such as coloring materials and pencils. It is so hard to say no to Divisoria’s budget friendly price. If not for the pots that I bought, I could have bought a lot more school supplies like notebooks and papers, artworks and pencil cases.

I bought polo for my boys as well as khaki pants. Divisoria price for white jacket style polo is at 85 PhP (size for 7-9 year old), for the khaki pants, it’s 115 PhP. I also bought 18 pairs of socks for 600+ PhP (a dozen is at 420 PhP). I was surprised with the undershirts price, I bought Loving Couple white sando (size 14) for 560 per dozen (tumaas ang presyo!). My suki for garments is located near 168, I learned not to buy items from street vendors and look for wholesalers instead.

Initially, my plan is to buy yellow cartolina for our Spongebob Party but seeing how cheap other school items were, I just have to buy:

T-Pencil (one dozen with 3 pencils free) 48 PhP
Crayola (16 colors) 171 PhP for 6 box
White cartolina for 30 PhP, 10 Pcs

I was tempted to buy notebooks, 85 PhP for 10 pcs! ang mura! kaso wala na ako pera 🙁 My suki for school supplies is located near Divisoria Mall, same street as the gulay street vendors.

For black shoes and notebooks, we went to SM Megamall to shop. I used GC that I got from blog events…2 pairs of black shoes from Chicco Store using Chicco GC. For rubber shoes, we bought their pairs from SM department store. We bought World Balance rubber shoes as we this rubber shoes brand is tried and tested… their first pair was 2 years ago and they’re still using it until now! ang tibay di ba! at mura pa.. less than 1000 PhP each 🙂

For the notebooks, I told them to choose Advance over Orions.. eh mas mura ung Advance.. kaso lang mas kaunti characters, buti may Avengers! Actually, I want the Orions (specially Phineas and Ferb!) designs and the quality of paper (mas maputi).. but I have to be practical. We also bought a few folders and envelopes and ball pen (baka mag pen na ang Grade 3 ko) and some pad papers.

From the school supplies section, we spent a little over 1000 so were entitled with a free Lego inpired notebook.. kaso it took the saleslady forever bago nacompute ung nabili namin sa section na un.. kumusta naman sa haba ng resibo! Good thing, the manager was really nice and gave us 2 notebooks instead of 1.. yay! Their school bags from last school year were still in good condition so we didn’t bought new ones.

We’re almost ready for SY 2012-2013.. Next week I will be starting new routines so that the kids wouldn’t have a hard time adjusting.

If you’re not yet done shopping, here are some practical tips in shopping for school supplies:

List down what your kids need. List everything, from uniform to socks to shoes, to erasers and sharpeners. After listing everything, see what you need to buy and what you can reuse or recycle.
Bring your kids when buying school shoes, they will be the one to use it, so you need to know and test if the shoes will be comfortable for them. And though it’s very tempting to buy a size bigger to your kids size, don’t do that, yes their feet will grew bigger in no time but it would be hard for them to walk on shoes bigger than their feet size.
The same applies to buying uniform, parents have the tendency to buy one size bigger with the idea that their kids will outgrew it in no time. Even so, it would just be uncomfortable for your kids to wear something that’s not their size. What I always do is to buy their exact size in limited quantities and buy another set in one size bigger. In that case, if ever my boys outgrew their uniform, I have a ready replacement.
If you are going to buy school supplies and you’ll be bringing your kids, buy earlier and not on weekends. It would be more tedious to buy on weekends specially on malls as people flock malls on weekends.
Use your credit card if you have one to avail of promos and discounts given to credit card holders.
And lastly, stick to your list and don’t buy anything that is not needed.

HAPPY SHOPPING!

Immuvit MetaFit Challenge Final Week

Allow me to humiliate myself….

Now, let me justify.. the first photo, that’s 4 kids, 5 hours a day on the PC (lunch included), there’s frappe in there, and can you see the nutella? or how about the doughnuts and cups of rice? not to mention ZERO exercise. Wag nyo na ako kutusan, I already did that more than once. Yes I acted like as if I don’t care about my health and my body. When I was diagnosed with Kidney Stones, that was my wake up call. I became more conscious with my health and the food I eat. That was also the time that I started moving and exercising. So when I was invited to join a one month weight loss challenge I did not hesitate. See the result? (obvious naman di ba)

Let me make it clear ha, the challenge, I learned was not about loosing weight but more on getting fitter (and losing weight was one of the benefits). And as you can see, my tummy’s reaping the reward 🙂 Aside from the big change on my bulge, I also feel a lot stronger (note: hindi na ako hinihingal magpanhik panoog sa mga overpass sa Makati! woot!) and my resistance is better too, not to mention that I got a lot compliments on how young I look nowadays (teehee).

Say hello to MetaFit.. old time readers are familiar with this by now.. been blogging about it every week. This week is the final week for the challenge, hence I posted my photo. Here’s a short summary (short lang promise) on how I achieved a smaller tummy (without going under the knife hehe):

Of course I do Metafit every day (or almost, I think I missed one or 3) and with the help of Immuvit, I was never out of energy. Immuvit is a herbal dietary supplement that contains 2 kinds of ginseng that gives energy boost.

Aside from MetaFit and taking Immuvit, here are some other things that helped me:

No colored drinks (coffee, milk tea, juie, etc) as mush as possible, stick with water. It was hard, specially the first week, then I learned that cold turkey is not my game, so I allow myself to have a taste of drinks from time to time. And if I do, I make sure that I do MetaFit more than once.
I also avoided sweets and count my calories intake, I limit it to 1200-1500 calories a day. Yes I spent some hours researching about calories.
I also sleep earlier and drink more water.

Coach Jim also told us to eat 6 small meals a day, and though it’s hard, specially that I am used to eating 3 heavy meals a day, I obliged. I usually have cereal drink and banana in the morning, banana and bread for 2nd meal, 1/3- 1/2 cup of rie + viand for 3rd meal, bread on the 4th, banana on the 5th and rice and viand as my 6th meal. There were days that I missed but my body and stomach got used to it after some days.

As for doing MetaFit, I record the rounds I did for the day (example, 5 rounds + 5 push ups). In that way, I can tract my progress as well as beat myself the next day (or next MetaFit). There were times that I do MetaFit 2x a day. My ultimate goal is to do it 3x a day. It’s only 4 minutes, so there is no reason why I should not.

I do my first set in the morning, as soon as I wake up. You know we all have the tendency to put it off, thinking it is only 4 minutes, but we end up not doing it. So it would be better to do it as soon as you wake up… it’s only 4 minutes! Another advantage of doing it as soon as you wake up is, you still have enough energy to do MetaFit unlike when you delay it and then you’d be too weak to even raise your hand that you need to eat in order to gain energy and of course if you eat first, you still have to wait 2 hours before doing since to allow digestion of food. Got the point?

After MetaFit, I drink Immuvit then eat my breakfast. I learned that eating right after doing MetaFit is very effective specially in weight loss management. Right after working out, your body’s still burning calories, so just imagine the benefits of eating while your body is burning calories.

Lastly, a tip from Coach Jim: if you feel like MetaFit is easy, then you’re doing it wrong. It should feel like the longest 4 minutes of your life.. ung tipong minumura mo na ung 4 minutes, bakit ang tagal tagal?!?

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You might wonder why only 4 minutes? and no warm? no cool down? MetaFit is a short high-intensity cardiovascular exercise that was designed to reverse Somatopause. This is a health condition where our body’s production of growth hormones decreases. Short, high intensity work out is a way to reverse somatopause as during the work out, when oxygen debt has been reached, it triggers growth hormone release. Oxygen debt is the time when you are almost out of breathe, your body answers by trying to replenish oxygen through raising heart rate.

The one month Immuvit MetaFit challenge involves doing different kinds of exercise every week, two alternate exercises on the first week and on the fourth week, it is an alternate of the exercises from the past week.. Here’s a short summary:

Week 1: (alternate Set a and set b for week one: read my Immuvit MetaFit Week 1 experience here)

Set A exercise: 10 jumping jacks, 10 squats, 10 push ups, 10 lunges (both legs)…10 jumping jacks, 10 squats, 10 push ups, 10 lunges (both legs)… 10 jumping jacks, 10 squats, 10 push ups, 10 lunges (both legs)… until 4 minutes is up
Set B: 10 sealed jacks, 10 power squats & 10 push ups…10 sealed jacks, 10 power squats & 10 push ups…10 sealed jacks, 10 power squats & 10 push ups…until 4 minutes is up

Week 2: (click here to read my Week 2 experience and to watch my video for week 2 routine)

10 touch toes, 10 squat jumps and 10 alternate lunges…. 10 touch toes, 10 squat jumps and 10 alternate lunges…. 10 touch toes, 10 squat jumps and 10 alternate lunges….until 4 minutes is up

Week 3: (click here to read my Week 2 experience and to watch Pinoy Biggest Loser Eric Limatog demo of week 3 routine)

10 mountain climbers, 10 half burpees and 10 ski jumps…10 mountain climbers, 10 half burpees and 10 ski jumps…10 mountain climbers, 10 half burpees and 10 ski jumps…until 4 minutes is up.

Week 4: Alternate the routines from week 1 to week 3..

Day 1 is week 1a routine, Day 2 is week 1b routine, Day 3 is week 2 routine, Day 4 is week 3 routine and so on.

After a month of doing it, I actually have no idea what to do next but if I would not get an update from Coach Jim, I guess I will have to continue doing the routines, beginning again from week 1 routine and so on. I guess it will be some kind of a cycle every month and will just have to beat my record every time.

Let me give you a little run down of how my week 4 transpired. Based on my record, this is the most routine I can do in each rotuine:

Week 1 Routine A: 4 rounds + 2 lunges
Week 1 Routine B: 5 rounds + 5 power jacks
Week 2 Routine: 5 rounds + 6 squat jumps
Week 3 Rotuine: 5 rounds

On Week 4 where I have to do it alternately for a week, I made it a point to beat my record:

Week 1 Routine A: 5 rounds + 10 jumping jacks
Week 1 Routine B: 6 rounds
Week 2 Routine: 5 rounds + 6 alternate lunges
Week 3 Rotuine: 4 rounds + 10 mountain climbers

Hopefully, each week I can do more rounds. I also have to work out on achieving the oxygen debt stage.. which sometimes do not happen. So I really need to be more intense with the routines.

I will post another update after 2 weeks and we’ll see if by the end of second month, I’ll be reunited with line of 2 waistline.. (I lost 5 inches on my waist line by the way).

FYI, from being Large in race singlet, I am now Medium! After a month, let’s see if SMALL will fit me 🙂

Immuvit MetaFit Challenge Week 4

Week 3 went by so fast, and though I committed myself to do it 3 times a day, I failed. Week 3’s busier than I expected, my 3rd boy turned 4 this day and we’re cooking a party on Saturday. It’s my nephew’s 4th birthday too so it’s bigger than I expected and yet we have so little time to prepare.

I will be shopping for party supplies tomorrow, where else but Divisoria. Knowing the amount of people shopping at the bargain capital of the country, I am not a bit worried. Immuvit proves to be my best ally whenever I need a boost of energy. I know that even if I spend half the day shopping, I wouldn’t be that tired.

The week 3 routine includes 3 steps: mountain climbers, half burpees and ski jumps. At first glance, it looks really hard but when I tried it, it’s not as hard as I though it is. The exercise, I think, targets the abdomen as I can feel the movement on my tummy. It also targets the legs as I noticed my leg strength was better after week 3.

I planned on doing the routine 3 times a day but was not able to do so. In fact I missed two days. Last week was my busiest week ever, and that I have to manage, on how I should make Metafit my priority in the morning. I spend 3 or 4 days working really late and just as expected, Immuvit knows what my body needs and I was sleepy most of the week.

This week, as we enter on our last week of the challenge, I will devote more time doing MetaFit. I have to do it 3x a day!

For those who’s with me for MetaFit, here’s a link of a video of week 3 routine. As mentioned, the week’s not so nice to me, didn’t had the chance to take a video..If time permits, I will edit this post and add a video 🙂

To those who haven’t tried it, I suggest you do. I cannot count the compliments I get for being younger and more active than before and that I look better now, I know it’s the growth hormones produced by doing MetaFit and the energy that I got from Immuvit. Let’s all fight aging, reverse somatopause!

To know more about Immuvit and it’s health benefits, do check Immuvit Facebook Page.