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| Photo credit: www.leanitup.com |
Apart from the frequent bouts of flu, chronic grouchiness and feeling darn lazy and lethargic, I have been avoiding looking into the mirror because I don't quite like what I see. Hurhurhur.
And on top of that, we've just had a complimentary health screening at work, and the truth stared back hard into my face - it's time that I start to do something about my health. The numbers aren't looking good (and this includes my BMI), and I was rather affected by what the implications were. Now that I'm still in my twenties, there must be some things I can do to become healthier (and lose weight, as you can see from my list on the right).
I didn't quite know where to start, and the possibilities were endless - slimming pills, Atkins diet and the myriad of the other diet plans you see on the market... or just eat 1 fruit a day.
I had a talk with a friend, who had her epiphany 6 months ago that she had to do something about her health, since her lifestyle could become healthier... and she shared with me what she did to achieve her current healthy and fit body - no slimming pills but with lots of determination and discipline.
The below is Daniel and my version of our "keep fit" plan, revised and adjusted according to our lifestyles:
First, we started by loving ourselves more... That means watching what we put in our mouths, and not allowing our dietary habits harm our bodies.
Instead of the easily accessible fast and junk food, we made a pact to totally avoid (since it's either yes or no completely, right?) the following for the next 6 months:
Isabelly's 5 no-nos
1. Alcohol (i have taken enough of them for the past 5 years, thank you very much *points to beer belly*)
2. Bad Carbos (white rice, white bread and the likes)
3. Soft Drinks (yes, this is damn tough for someone who drinks AT LEAST 1 coke a day....)
4. Fast food (goodbye Macs, KFC, Popeyes, Mos...)
5. Fried food (sigh... let's not even start....)
Of course, it's easier said than done... we started this on 1 July, and the first week went fine (simply because I have this ability to have fiery passion for a task for the first few moments), but the first friday, it was scary. It was as if I had
withdrawal symptoms for Coke... -.- *shudders*
That said, other than avoiding unhealthy food, we focused more on eating healthy (or healthier...) food. That's the beginning of loving ourselves :)
Focusing on healthy/healthier food intake
Everyday, being caffeine-holics, we need at least 3 cups of coffee to function (yes, another addiction that's hard to kick...) so we changed our drinks to kopi-O-kosong... iced, for me. Trust me, it felt like drinking diluted sewage water, that was so difficult to bear.... but after 3 weeks, it has become normal to me already.
We make sure we get our daily servings of fruits by picking grapefruits, watermelons, lychees (sometimes), mangos, strawberries, blackberries, for our fruit juices. Our juices are prepared not with those juicers that remove all skins - in fact, we picked this
Shake 'n take Smoothie Blender from Groupon (yes, I'm addicted to that as well -.-) which blends exactly what you put inside... so in way, you don't have to worry about losing the nutrients/vitamins when you make fruit juices with machines that remove the skin of the fruits...
Calories intake
Just like our life, everything requires a fine balance between input and output. Similarly, for a good dietary plan, we have to make sure that your calories intake cannot be more than the daily recommended amount, in order to maintain your current weight. From what I read, ladies are recommended to have a minimum of 1,200 calories to avoid what experts call "starvation mode" which would decrease your metabolism.
So of course, if you are looking at losing some weight (the recommended amount of weight to lose every week is 1 kg - the more weight you lose at the beginning esp through crash diets, the faster and more you gain it back, and it's therefore a poor strategy), make sure that:
Your nett calories = not negative
Your NETT Calories = Calories Input - Calories Output
If you notice, we focused more on our dietary plan than the exercise regime (which will come later) because from what we read, 70% of reaching your ideal healthy weight is from your diet and 30% is dependent on your exercise/fitness regime.
Of course, eating healthy is so darn tough, especially when Singapore is a food paradise and our busy schedule is always a good excuse for grabbing unhealthy food (often convenient):
My personal favourite excuses:
"I'm running late - I'll just grab a burger and fries from Macs!"
"I'm too busy to buy veggies/fruits from the supermart - anyway my wanton mee got veggies already, what..."
"One coke a day won't kill... I'm not drinking 10 cans anyway..."
The truth is, it's too easy to eat unhealthily. Even if I were not to be concerned about my gradual weight gain these few years (i.e. I am not looking at losing weight), I have begun to worry how I allow myself to eat so much non-nutritious and even harmful food...
And all our lifestyles are highly stressful, filled with horrid addictions, and the last thing I want to put my body under is bad junk/fried food...
And of course, one underlying reason I have begun to have the slightest concern for my health is because of KJ. He left us when he was so young, leaving behind his loved ones... and I don't wish to leave my kids behind or have Daniel leave me behind... one less sin (unhealthy food) cut down, is better than none, i say.
Exercises
This is the toughest part, not only because I HATE to get my butt out doing some strenuous running/jogging/brisk walking, but also because I am always overly ambitious and I try to start something unachievable, and end up burning out/being depressed that I couldn't reach my goals.
So Dan and I decided to start slow - for someone like me who hasn't ran in years... since I was 18? (that's 10 years ago...-.- ) we decided to pace ourselves and get our bodies ready...
The first run was so bad, as expected... I ended up running like perhaps 1km and stopping for 2km... At the end of the 1st run around Dan's place (that's about 1km), I wanted to kick myself for this foul suggestion of running...
Trust Dan to still look so happy... I looked so incredibly happily ugly that I had to crop myself out...
But the hardest part about starting an exercise regime...is actually not the beginning... it's the continuing...
It's too easy to say "Not today! My legs are still sore!", "Let's run another day!" or "I'm too tired", so we didn't give ourselves (too many) excuses to be lazy... we ran 2x the 1st week of July, but we stopped entirely for the 2nd week as we flew to Taipei that weekend (tickets had been bought to celebrate Mr Dan's birthday... and yes, excuses like "we are busy with work in anticipation of the weekend trip" really did happen).
But the best thing is, we noted that we had stopped in 2nd week... so we told ourselves that we had to do something about it... so we made a note to work harder in the 3rd week (this week).
Guess what? We ran 4x this week (Mon, Tues, Wed and Sat) and of course, other than being utterly tired, I'm so proud that we've been improving (no matter how slightly) our stamina, our pace and our discipline!
Of course we are not going to complete 3km in 15mins any time soon - not excuses, but to be really realistic - but we are doing something positive to improve our health and we are keeping this going, without just ignoring the health facts that we are becoming increasingly unhealthy. That, I do think, deserves 2 big thumbs up!
That's why these few days, as I tell Dan, I'm not quite self-conscious in sucking in my tummy - I know I'm unhealthy, but I'm doing something about it! ;)
x x x x x
It's been a good 3 weeks - and with a healthier diet plan and lots of water (very impt!), I actually feel much happier and less lethargic (but of course, my legs don't feel like they're mine anymore...) - I hope that in another month's time, we are still carrying on strong! :)
Off to zzz,
Belly
