Entering China, lululemon style You may be surprised to hear that lululemon’s Unroll China event is their main event to showcase to the world that they’ve officially entered the China market. That’s because they’ve been very slowly, but deliberately planting the seeds of their core values in Shanghai and Beijing for the last four years! I remember that early beginning very distinctly because they reached out to me before they even had a store, a
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The Body Mass Index (BMI) has long been used by doctors and health professionals as the main screening tool to determine your health risk of metabolic disease. Even to this date, your physical check-up examination will tell you your BMI results. Unfortunately, studies have shown it to be highly unreliable and that there are better screens out there for you to check if you are at risk. Firstly, why is the BMI screen unreliable? The
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In a previous blog, I wrote about how to motivate yourself to train during the winter months. This time, I’d like to share a few points why I actually prefer to train in the winter! 1. There are less distractions during the winter! Because it’s so cold outside, there are less events held outdoors - less barbecues, less, outdoor concerts, less beach volleyball days! People organize less social outings so that gives you more
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I’ve blogged a lot about the power of the community, and why it’s so important to have a social support network. There’s even a study that says improving your social support network is valued up to £85,000, and your health worth a whopping £300,000! Okay! You’re ready for a change in lifestyle, you’re motivated and ready to kick some ass in life! But how do you go about building one up so you and your
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It happens to all of us. We can’t always have high motivation in working out, eating healthy, and life in general. Inevitably, things slow down and our moods change. Having a good strategy to manage your high’s and low’s will help in keeping you focused on the long-term goals that you have set out for. But what if your low’s are prolonged with no end in sight? You know you’re in a rut, but you
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The lead-up to the Tough Mudder weekend was full of excitement! We were looking forward in running the mud course together as a team as we all spent a lot of time and money training up for this event. The energy we put in to organizing a team, coordinating with each other to get the details in order, reaching out to sponsors for support, committing time to meet together for training, all required energy from
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With less than a week to go before the the debut of Tough Mudder in China, Team Olive Branch is ready to take to the obstacle course and test what they’re made of. It’s only fitting that this week’s blog post be centered around being ‘tough’. So what does it mean to be tough anyways? From Merriam-Webster Dictionary: physically and emotionally strong : able to do hard work, to deal with harsh conditions, etc. Sounds
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Now that October Holidays are over, and we’re all back to the regular swing of things, some of us struggle to get back on the regular workout routine. It could be due to the depressing weather here in Shanghai, or the mundane day-to-day tasks of working again, or perhaps it’s because we’ve lost ground on our once awesome fitness level. One way to ease the transition of getting back on your workout routine is
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Survivorship Bias Similar, to my earlier blog Misconceptions: Swim, to have a swimmer’s body! this blog talks about the perils of the pervasive cognitive flaw - survivorship bias. Exercise programs that you frequently read on fitness magazines and social media platforms almost always depict a famous athlete giving his/her workout routine and telling you should follow it too if you want to get a big chest, skinny waistline, broad shoulders, slender legs, 6-pack abs,
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Don't want to build muscle? This is a very common question that I get asked especially by women when I suggest that they add some strength training into their routine. From my experience, it’s very hard to convince many women to build muscle. This may be related to a mild stigma in society against women building muscle for fear of looking “butch”. But another reason many women hesitate
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