Happy New Year 2019!

The MOM-MA – Emiza Merican & Hani Nadia from Energise Kids would like to thank all our followers for sharing an amazing parenting journey with us and for the great support in 2018.

In this new year, we wish to share more interesting and helpful parenting videos with all of you on our Youtube channel, so please make sure to subscribe our channel!

Find out more about the MOM-MA on www.energisekids.com

Thanks for watching!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meet Hani Ramli

Where do I start?

(I actually stared at the screen for a solid 5 minutes before any sentence came out from me!)

I’m the MAma in mom-MA Rants. I have 2 beautiful healthy kids, a girl (Ayra) who’s turning 8 in April and a boy (Elhaan) who just turned 4 in January. Since I’m going to pour my heart, soul and life into this I might as well tell you how I got here and why I started Energise Kids.

Choosing to feed the kids, healthy food was no brainer for me especially so for Ayra, my first born. Everything had to be home-cooked. No salt before 2 years, no processed food, no excessive sugar and all that jazz. I was pretty sure I could keep her in a bubble but then pre-school happened! They have birthday parties EVERY SINGLE month, they party harder than we do. We party? What party? My thoughts exactly.

I know some pre-schools are strict on party packs, good for them and bravo for you moms and dads for making sure you chose the right school. Mr. MAma (my babies’ daddy) and I, we made our decision based on a lot of other factors and well we overlooked this itsy bitsy tiny part. Instead of beating ourselves to death, we decided to educate Ayra on what is healthy and what is not. We can’t control her life (What do you mean? Of course you can, she’s 8!). What I meant is, instilling healthy eating habits early in life is important for our children to grow up knowing what is good for them and what is not. We’re not always there to tell them what they can and cannot do (even if we want to desperately).

Choosing to be fit and stay fit. Now that’s a struggle. I was a fit kid, played sports actively until I was 17, then I turned cold turkey and totally stopped. I avoided sun like a vampire, all I cared was trying to be fair (Asians can relate). I was lucky, blessed with good skinny genes. Credit goes to my high metabolic rate. For the next 13 years or so, I didn’t gain that much weight (please, don’t hate me) even though I wasn’t mindful of what I was eating or whether I was exercising. Little did I know skinny doesn’t mean you are healthy (I know that now).

Then along came Elhaan, my youngest (for now maybe forever). Like Ayra, I breastfed him. So I had no problem bouncing back to my pre-pregnancy weight. That was all that mattered to be back then (hello, shallow hani). Again, I took it for granted. Elhaan was 2 years old, when I realized I was getting sluggish. I didn’t handle stress very well, I wasn’t sleeping well, even though I had enough sleep I would wake up feeling so tired the next morning. Worst of all I had no stamina whatsoever, I’d be out of breath climbing a flight of stairs. I was SKINNY FAT.

You would think, I was tired because I was juggling 2 kids, a husband and a demanding career. Nope! I had a full time live in helper by then. So no, it wasn’t because of that. It was because I was not exercising plus I was enjoying too much good food and desserts. Mr. MAma on the other hand started a cycling club with his buddies and was cycling on an average 100km weekly. Did he inspired me to start? Perhaps, that and the vain pot in me got a shocked of my life when I could no longer fit in my POST pregnancy jeans. Just to prove this is not a typo, I repeat POST pregnancy jeans.

I am forever thankful to a close friend of mine (shout out to Nivin!). She practically dragged me to yoga and signed me up for my virgin 10km run. My lifestyle slowly changed. I was not only eating healthily but keeping fit at the same time. I would go to my yoga classes on weekdays and do my runs on weekends.

Our weekly routine would start with me going running first then the kids get their turn when I’m done. They get to choose to either go running, cycling or sometimes roller-blading. Ayra normally can’t decide (a chip of the old block), she wants to do it all. Elhaan will choose cycling always, like father like son. We’re blessed to be in Malaysia where it is sunny (mostly!) all year round. Unless it’s raining, there is no reason not to go outdoors (ok except when it’s scorching hot, common sense is required here).

Has it been easy? Hell no! It’s a constant struggle and still is for me personally. There are days I’d rather just lie in bed to read or binge watch my favorite TV series.

So what is it that keeps me going? My kids. They keep me in check. On days I don’t feel like running, I still have to bring them out. Technically, I still run because I’m forced to chase after them. Hey, win-win situation! I get my workout, they get their workout. They spend more time outdoors now compared to when I was a couch potato (a skinny potato one mind you – not trying to rub it in, I promise! Haha!). Less screen time too. Don’t get me started on screen time, I’ll tackle that in another post. We’re still working on it.

Well, that’s how I got here. It took me a long time but I’m here and I’m moving forward. I worry about a lot of things and I worry more when I became a mother. I’m sure you can relate. I worry when I read the rate of obesity slowly increasing in children around the world, especially so in Asia. Am I doing enough to teach my kids the importance of eating right? Do they have enough exercise? Are my kids happy? Will I raise kind kids? Will my kids develop empathy? All those questions led me to wanting to read more to find more information and talk to parents (or “stalk” on social media) to see what they are doing and how they do it.

My partner in crime, the MOMmy (Meet Emiza Merican) in MOM-ma Rants, is one of my go to moms I would talk to seek advice, exchange notes because our kids are BFF. We have a lot in common, our girls being diva daddy girls and all. It started with just us wanting to make a positive difference in our own children lives but we felt we could do more. That was how Energise Kids was born. We hope to create an open platform, to build a community that inspires, encourages and supports each other when it comes to our children wellbeing.

It’s not something that will happen overnight but it is a conscious journey in ensuring that we are creating a sustainable healthy lifestyle for our children. Together, lets’ make it our mission to cultivate healthy habits from young!  

 

Love, Hani Ramli (MAma)


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My name is Emiza Merican.

I am a foodie, bookworm and also a Certified Child Specialist Nutritionist. Most importantly, I am a mother to two lovely girls, Elayna who is 8, and Dzeeya who is 3. My girls are the reason behind Energise Kids.

In 2004, I started dating Mr MOMmy, my future husband. Like me, he loved to eat, so the initial days of our relationship was based entirely on food. We were constantly trying out new places to eat, and that was the excuse we used to spend time with each other. At that young age, health and fitness were the last things on our minds, and the blessings of youth meant that we could eat whatever we want without putting on any noticeable weight.

After we got married, our habits still did not change. It was only after my first pregnancy that my lifestyle started to change. Being a first time mother, I had mixed emotions. I was excited at the thought of experiencing something new, but yet worried because I had no idea if I was capable of being a good mother. This was when I started reading books and doing online research on pregnancy and babies. I had the usual morning sickness for 6 weeks, and put on 20 kgs during this time, mostly due to the fact that I was binging a lot on burgers and nachos. Elayna was breastfed, so this helped me lose weight post-natal, but I realized at this point that I would have to relook at the kind of food I ate. If I wanted Elayna to eat healthy, then I would have to eat healthy too.

During Elayna’s first year, all her food was entirely homemade, no salt, no sugar, and no artificial colouring or flavouring. There were some challenges getting her to eat vegetables after she started going to playschool when she was 2. Somehow, she picked up the idea that vegetables were “yucky”. She refused to eat her vegetables and the battle to feed her started. I tried to trick her in many ways but it all failed. Then finally, when I was close to giving up, I came up with the idea of hiding her vegetables in her pasta sauce or smoothies. And it worked, she had no clue that she was eating vegetables, and she even said the food was “yummy”.

This was the road to us eating healthily, but after a while, we realized that eating healthy alone was not enough. There were some health tragedies that happened to some close friends of us, and that was when we realized that exercise was important too. So we started a weekly routine of exercising, and it was a good way of spending time with Elayna too. When Dzeeya came along, we continued the same pattern of healthy eating and exercise, and teaching Dzeeya how to eat healthily was easier due to what I learned with Elayna.   

My love for my children made me want to do something that can benefit all parents and kids. Mr MOMmy and my good friend, Ida, persuaded me to create a platform that shares my experience on how to lead a healthy lifestyle. I started discussing this with Hani “Mama”, who happens to be Elayna’s best friend’s mom. Because of our daughters, we were already really close and when I discussed my idea with her, she immediately jumped on board. Like me, she is equally concerned on health and fitness, and because of this, Energise Kids started.

Energise Kids is here to help make things easy for parents’ to make their children’s lives better