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The obvious solution to effective weight loss that you might have easily overlooked

It's the new year, 2015, new resolutions, new goals, you have a sudden surge of motivation and drive to set out and achieve higher goals. Zoukout 2014 has just ended and you didn't attend because you weren't confident of your body. Just like Zoukout 2010,2011,2012,2013, you tell yourself, I will be ready for next year's event with that beach-tested Kratos (God of War, for those of you who didn't catch the reference) body.

But we all know, it's easier said that done. If you could have done the right thing, you would have achieved your dream body years ago. There must be something wrong with your game plan. So, let's break it down on what you've done so far to move towards your goal.

No.1- You signed up for lessons at Onyx MMA

This is one of the best choice you have made in your life! All you have to do, is get your lazy bum out of the bed, make the trip down to the gym, and everything else is handled by the coaches over there. The training program here has been tested and proven effective for achieving healthy weight loss (More on that in our future post).

You're a month into training at Onyx religiously, healthy weight loss shown on the scale, but your body is nowhere near to the Channing Tatum poster that you have pinned in your room for motivation. So there must be something wrong with what you're doing. (No prizes for guessing the correct answer)

NO.2- DIET DIET DIET DIET DIET DIET DIET

There are many different school of thoughts as to achieving effective weight-loss. But there is nothing more paramount then following this rule.

To achieve effective weight loss, the following is the universal rule to stick by.

Weight loss is 30% EXERCISE 70% DIET

Yes it's that important. You can have a stellar workout programme but have a half-baked diet plan, it's not gonna take you anywhere. If you simply do not have the time, knowledge or discipline to follow a strict diet plan, look no further, salvation is here.

Introducing Food Aesthetics Singapore



One of the pioneer companies to come up with healthy meal plans for people on the go. You might have heard of such concepts from the States, UFC fighters having their  nutrition and meals planned out and delivered right to their doorstep.

For busy individuals, this is really a godsend. Just like Onyx managing your training programme, you have Food Aesthetics managing your diet for you, and that is not even the best part about Food Aesthetics; with FA, food can be extremely tasty and appetising yet healthy at the same time (Yes we are not kidding you, it's true). FA DELIVERS THE FOOD TO YOU TOO.


Food Aesthetics recently held an event at Onyx MMA where they prepared samples of their dishes, engineered by their nutritionist where all the macro-nutrients are carefully calculated and calibered to make sure you get your daily needs to lose weight and still be able to perform at the gym.


Couscous Tuna Rolls
Of the various sample dishes offered, we loved the grilled chicken breast, quinoa and tuna roll. It is a known fact that most of us hate eating chicken breast (though it is the healthiest), comparing it's texture and taste to that of cardboard. Surprisingly Food Aesthetics has managed to make an unpopular dish, tasty. The flavours were there, and we could taste the freshness of it. It definitely makes it easier for one to diet with the help of their dishes, because, Taste is king.

The flavour, the taste, with killer looks.

So do give Food Aesthetics a try. It's everything we have wished for, and now. Eating clean can be made tasty and less torturous for our soul. Imagine this, you're training, you slug yourself to come for the 1130 boxing class, and after sweating buckets, you're hungry as hell, and wished for some food. You go to the counter, and BOOM! FA's nicely packed lunch bentos are there, hot, smoking, and ready for you.

Give it a try, you won't regret it. For more info, please visit http://www.foodaesthetic.com/ or go to their FB page at https://www.facebook.com/FoodAesthetic

For all the curious Onyxsters, fret not, we'll work something out with them to get a good deal for you!

Why should you opt for Muay Thai as your striking discipline in MMA?

Dos Anjos giving Nate Diaz a beating of a lesson, (Photo from USA Today)

If you've watched yesterday's UFC on FOX 13, you might have caught this one-sided fight between Rafael Dos Anjos and Nate Diaz. Nate is well known in the sport for being notorious with his words and actions, but also known to walk the walk within the Octagon.

If you've watched the fight, you would have easily guess the determining factor in which Dos Anjos was able to dish out the brutal beating. If you haven't, here's a short highlight clip:


The leg kicks that Dos Anjos rained throughout the fight was the key deciding factor. Leg kicks; the proper, hard ones that don't go "piak", are extremely painful, and worse, slows you down. Dos Anjos easily dropped what? 20 or 30 leg kicks on Diaz, the rest was history.

From a theoretical point of view, it echoes the fact that Muay Thai remains the most effective striking art for MMA. It saddens me on the number of MMA fighters that do not invest time in dwelling deeper into Muay Thai, while those who did, reaped huge benefits (think Anderson Silva, Matt Browne). 

But learning from the Dos Anjos and Diaz fight, Nate's proper and real mistake was standing in a side stance against a Muay Thai kicker, and worse, a low-kicker. The reason why the Muay Thai stance is mostly squared, is to give proper balance to shin-blocking left, right. The side stance that Nate was standing on then, reveals his right thigh for kicking, which Dos Anjos properly did. I hope this becomes a case study for MMA fighters. When the right combination of striking ability, matches up with the right combination of striking inabilities, the results can be devastating. 

But I must humbly admit that, MMA is not a Muay Thai fight. Muay Thai is but a tool/weapon for utilisation. Matt Browne may be an excellent Muay Thai fighter, but he gets pounded on quite abit as well. Anderson Silva who was once thought to be invincible, beaten by a broken shin; the irony.

So, come. Let's do some kicks and then roll on the mats.

UFC & Reebok Sponsorship Deal - The Ripples


Sneak preview of what might be the UFC-Reebok future
A couple of days ago, at a highly anticipated press conference, the UFC announced an important and somewhat secretive 6-year contract with Reebok to outfit all UFC fighters and events. The word that was frequently seen in reports was the "uniform" that the fighters have to don whilst on the fight event, as well as event week. Erm, does that mean we don't get to see our favourite brands and designs?

At first glance, it seems so. This sponsorship deal effectively means that all UFC representatives would now be wearing Reebok gear albeit some amount of customisation. I don't know about others, but at second glance, Reebok...? They will need some serious serious design power house to make them cool again.


My last memories of a cool Reebok remained at the Pumps era. Since then, I've admittedly walked into a Reebok factory outlet hoping that they've magically become cooler. But as far as I can remember, they remained largely boring and I remained largely, unexcited.

But now comes UFC, with all of its glory, gory, lights, actions, and cool factor. Before this sponsorship deal, the UFC sponsors were made up of a few prominent brands (think Muscle Pharm, Hayabusa, Affliction etc), and some not very prominent brands (think Dynamic Fasteners). But regardless, the UFC opened up a niche-but-not-really-niche avenue for sponsors to get their brand in, rumoured to be at a relatively low cost too. Suffice to say, prior to the Reebok-UFC deal, MMA sponsors were actually getting a bang for their buck.

I'm not going to over analyse the situation and give you charts and bars of data and money signs. Instead, let's look at the more localised problems.

Apparels (especially T-shirts) Sponsors

Seriously, almost all UFC fighters walks out with a T-shirt sponsor. You might be familiar with some of them such as Hayabusa, Torque, Affliction, Bad Boy, Venum, Dethrone, etc. Some of these brands have also ventured into MMA/Boxing gears of their own, and have reaped moolahs. I know for a fact that in Singapore, Hayabusa gloves sells at a premium over the Thai brands.

Now imagine, no more walk-out tees from your favourite fighter's brand. It will now, be replaced by a Reebok tee. Where will your loyalty lie now? The fighter or the brand?


Do a simple search on Google, and it's not hard to find a consolidated response page from the current T-shirt brands. Some were obviously unhappy, but others chose to stick by the fighters. But to be honest, having your greatest source of exposure (PPV events, press conferences, training videos, etc) removed can't be good at all right? If it was up to me, I think i'd spend my remaining contractual period left milking out what's left before Jul 2015, and after that sell a bunch of those leftovers as memorabilia.


Retailers/Vendors

In Singapore, there are a couple of online retailers that have profited from the rise of MMA popularity. These retailers were able to either obtain distributorship, or stock these MMA apparels at wholesale prices from the usual brands. Now that the landscape is changing, I honestly don't think that Reebok would distribute these MMA shirts out for these online retailers.

INSTEAD, think World of Sports, Royal Sporting House selling MMA gears and tees!

I'm no retailer, and these are just my thoughts, but I would think that the Reebok deal would hurt the revenues of these retailers by a significant amount; so much so, that I think a new strategy might be necessary to keep these businesses afloat.

Again, I am no retailer, but if we look back at say, sneakers. There is actually a viable and sustainable market doing niche product lines. Let's imagine, a shopfront that sells exclusively, MMA stuffs. I don't mean gears or apparels, but STUFFS; posters, gloves, figurines, t-shirts, shorts, etc. I promise, i will be a regular customer there. Better if you're able to obtain exclusive franchise of UFC merchandise from Dana White! Worth considering if you have a couple of million inside your bedside drawer.

So? Your point being?

Most of the time, change seem like an adversity to people, and the Reebok-UFC deal is a huge change. I'd dare say that the top guns at UFC must have had done their number crunching. For starters, a layman like me would be very interested to see our RSH and Sportslink selling MMA merchandise. Naturally, it signifies an increased outreach.

But it irks me to see that all UFC athletes would be "One-Brand". In the NBA, the players all wear the same team uniform. But hey, at least they have different shoes, and because of this, it laid out the possibility of big brands like Nike, Adidas, to think hard about their design. When the uniform is uniform, people do pay attention to the supple differences (shoes in the case of basketball, or soccer).

But last i heard, MMA fighters are bare footed. Maybe start designing ankle guards?


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