#AIALive: Online day of wellness and fun

By Sharon Zhong | 20 Aug 2020

Video live streamed by AIA Healthy Living

AIA hosted its first-ever regional online health and wellness event on 2 August 2020, delivering a day of over 30 unique sessions filled with fun activities and inspiring talks that motivated and educated individuals and families from all over the world to live healthier, longer, and better lives. Key themes included mental wellbeing, exercise, activity and rest, nutrition, personal growth, as well as light-hearted moments of music and comedy.

AIA’s Global Ambassador David Beckham, who opened and closed the event, shared that he and his family had spent their time during the pandemic and lockdown in the countryside. “Spending time with the family, spending time with the kids has been very precious, and we’ve been walking a lot, so I’ve enjoyed that.”

In case you missed it—here are the event’s key highlights led by our local celebrities Andie Chen, Amanda Chaang, and Andrew Marko:

Cheers and Drills, Cheerleaders VS Coaches

Timestamp: 0:34:00

Coming together virtually were Tottenham Hotspur Football Coaches in Hong Kong, Anton Blackwood and Shaun Harris, and actress and host Amanda Chaang and Wildcard cheerleader Cheryl Chuah from Singapore.

The coaches shared some fun activities that anyone can do with football. Amanda followed along to do step-overs, jump-ups with the ball, and thigh bumps with the ball.

Try the coaches’ challenge: How many repetitions can you do in 1 minute?

After Amanda completed the coaches’ challenge, Cheryl joined in. Together with Amanda, they gave the Tottenham Hotspur Football Coaches a cheerleading challenge to complete.

Leading the challenge, Cheryl started the routine with a leg kick into heel stretch, followed by a lunge with an arm pump into the chest and a series of dance-like positions and poses.

Debunking that cheerleading is not always about pom-poms and side-line cheers, Amanda summed up the activity saying that cheerleading takes a high level of skill, precision, athleticism and plenty of practice.

Good Food for Good Health

Timestamp: 3:01:00

Two kitchens met virtually to whip up a healthy meal. On one side of the world, there was Andie Chen, actor and host from Singapore, and on the other, there was celebrity chef Jeremy Pang hailing from London. The School of Wok founder showed Andie the ropes to creating a healthy salmon dish to combat the stresses and the hectic schedule of an actor.

Unlike the usual cooking show where the chef shows the audience every step of the process, this cooking segment came with a twist. Andie had to figure out how to cook the meal without Jeremy showing or even guiding him as he cooks. Of course, before the cooking began, Chef Jeremy had five minutes to lay down all the instructions for Andie to remember.

Keeping to a strict diet due to his autoimmune disorder and a long list of allergies, Andie has a lot of things he can’t eat. Often eating clean meals, Andie admits he rarely gets to have flavourful food. So Chef Jeremy crafted a special recipe that will change Andie’s mind about healthy food tasting bland and boring.

The challenge was putting together a curated recipe for steamed salmon sprinkled with great toppings that add flavour and spice to the dish. With only 15 minutes to cook, will Andie successfully recreate this dish on his side of the kitchen?

Both Jeremy and Andie will have a lifeline to save this meal. Watch the segment to find out when they use it!

For more cooking tips and lessons, catch Celebrity Chef, Jeremy Pang deliver four other cooking lessons throughout the AIA Live event. In lesson 1, he taught us how to make Vegan Ramen, lesson 2, Quick Power Protein Balls, lesson 3, Oat Congee and in his last lesson, Healthy Swaps.

Marko My Words: Nothing can get me down!

Timestamp: 3:55:30

Actor and musician Andrew Marko got upfront and personal while sharing his personal struggles with body image.

He said he’d been overweight as a child, and he had faced a lot of bullying as people were laughing at him because of his size. Marko recalled that he would recede into “this little well of self-loathing and self-doubt.”

Having agoraphobia made it worse as he would fear being in a crowd or being around people. “That was very paralysing for me. I was constantly in fear, constantly sweating,” he said.

“So, I kind of decided that, if they’re going to laugh at me, I’m going to control what they laugh at. I’m going to make sure that they’re laughing at what I want them to laugh at.”

That was the turning point for Marko. He turned to comedy for that and realised he had a flair for mimicking accents and voice personalities.

Opening up about how he dealt with a lot of things in his life, Marko said it’s so important to have a good support system with people whom you can trust and to have friends that you can fall back on. “And even if you don’t, there will always be someone out there who cares for you.”

He reached an epiphany while he was climbing up a mountain in Nepal. Misguided on how “easy” the mountain looked like, he struggled to reach the top.

He recalled, “It’s like you’re hopeless, it’s like you’re trapped in the middle of the mountain, and you can’t take a break because if you take a break then the sun sets and it’s not a good situation. So you have to keep going.”

“In that moment, I kind of realised, like that’s exactly like life.” He added, “If you spend too much time looking in the past, and all the regrets and all the baggage that you take with you, it’s going to weigh you down, it’s going to scare you. And if you look too much into the future, at how much you have to accomplish and all the things that you’ve got to do, that’s also going to freak you out.”

“The best thing to do is to just look at where you are now and live in that moment. And that’s what got me through the mountain climb,” said Marko.

Relive AIA Live anytime to get you inspired and motivated towards living healthier, longer, and better lives with your families and loved ones! Catch a replay of the whole event on the AIA Healthy Living YouTube channel.