Is it fair? Sure or not?

During the Chinese New Year, my husband and I were always out in the malls celebrating and eating our hearts out.  Why not? we are celebrating Chinese New Year and we have a number of holidays and the best thing to do was to eat.


After that week long (yes we celebrated CNY for one week, although for Chinese it was celebrated for 15 days) celebration, my husband and I decided to check our weights because we just felt that we gained because of the food that we ate during the holidays.


True enough, both of us gained 2kg each. Now what?? We didn't regret eating our hearts out because we enjoyed ourselves.  We just need to do something about this 2kg increase.  Since we do not want to go to the gym, run or do exercise because of lack of time (or we are just lazy :D), we figured to lessen our carbohydrates intake by not having rice for dinner. Simple but we were sure that this will result to something.


For two weeks, we were successful to sustain our no rice dinner! Then here comes the moment of truth when we hit Mr. Weighing Scale... 


I lost 1kg! yey!  Then when it was Sweets' turn, he lost a whooping 4kg 
(wide eyes!) @_@

How did it happen!????
We do the same things
We do almost the same chores
We walk almost the same distance going to work (I even walk 10 min more than he does)
We ate the same food
We slept and woke up at the same time


What could have been wrong?!
There was nothing wrong! Sweets never did something extraordinary nor I did any miss for our goal to lose weight.


According to exercise.about.com men tend to lose weight faster than women.  this is unfair (i know!) but there are physiological reasons for the difference:


1. Men have more muscle. This allows them to burn more calories, even when at rest.
2. Women are predisposed to store and retain fat. Women have higher levels of estrogen, a hormone that works to keep fat on a women's body so it's easier for her to get pregnant.  That means women have to work harder to lose weight at the same rate as men.
3. Men's bodies respond more quickly to exercise.  Women's bodies, meanwhile, actually go into a sort of starvation mode, slowing the metabolism to hang onto more fat.
4. Women may have lower tolerance for exercise.  Women have smaller lung capacity than men, which make women feel as though they are working harder than men even if the women are working at the same level.  This can also make exercise feel harder in the heat of high humidity.


So what's up with that, we did not even had a single run or exercise! Hmmm..
Good to know about these things, thus now I know I need not compete with Sweets' in terms of getting slim.  


He can do it 3x better than I do! :D

There is something in common!

While I was doing my thrice a week dance routine (Yep, from daily to thrice a week), I noticed something from two of the MTV that I use for dancing.


This one is JLo's "On the Floor"

This is Taio Cruz' "Dynamite"



Aside from being part of my dance routine, they have something in common. Can you spot it? Hehe


Love music - Love to dance - Love to live!

What is Dieting?

Dieting is not starving yourself to get thin.  Basically, it is getting the right amount of nutrients that your body needs on a daily basis. There are a lot of sites that helps promote proper diet and this is based from our age and gender.  One may have more needed RDA (Recommended Diatery Allowance) if a person is pregnant or lactating, or if a person is younger or older.


You can identify your needed RDA by visiting the Diet and Fitness Today (RDA). Often, we may not be that conscious when it comes to the proper RDA that our body needs. We focus more on how much calorie intake we should take on a daily basis to make sure that we achieve the weight that we want.  I am guilty about this one because I focused more on my calorie intake rather than my needed RDA, well, it all depends on priority but we also need to be careful to make sure that we are still healthy.




On an average, a woman, should not take less than 1200 calories per day and for men it should not be less than 1500. Our calorie intake differs because it depends on; (1) your weight (2) amount of muscle you have (3) your activities.


What helped me find out my needed calorie intake was the Calorie Calculator.  This also showed me when I can achieve my ideal weight and being familiar with this made me create my own program for my weight loss.


Limiting our calorie intake may help us lose weight but generally it should always go hand in hand with exercise.  Best way to lose weight is to lessen your calorie intake by 500 (depends on the person) and lose more calories from exercise. 


This is when I started to read the labels of my food intake, I wanted to make sure that I am within my needed calorie intake.  

This took me some effort but I already got used to it.  Being familiar with our calorie intake is the first step in taking responsibility of our health and body.  We want to give the best for ourselves but moderation is always important.  What I did was to create my own spreadsheet, nothing fancy, but it helped  me monitor my calorie intake for the day and if I needed to compensate it for the entire week.

I was guided by the Food Browser of Calorie Counter and this gave me an idea about the calories that I took from food (for those that didn't have labels).  When I first tried this one, I had no time for exercise (Sedentary lifestyle) but it worked for me.  It also helped that I had the moral support of my husband!


Just a bit of evidence! :)


One intervention may be applicable to a person but may differ to another, so studying ourselves and looking at where we want to go and how far we want to do it will be our baseline in reaching our goals.  If we know that we can do more, then we can add a little spice with our diet and exercise; if we know that we can only achieve a little then that's it. We should take it one step at a time, not abrupt or we will just kill ourselves.


Have fun!

I also tried Boxing

In search of an effective way of loosing weight, another option that was presented to me by one of my friends, Yeyen, was boxing.  She was about to get married at that time and she needed to loose unwanted fats, thus the suggestion for me to join her.

I thought it would be fun, especially if I am with a friend. It is always encouraging and motivating when you are doing something with friends, it does not only help you achieve your goal, you are also building a relationship!

Yen already figured out which boxing gym to go to and so I went along with her.  We went at the Elorde Boxing Gym in Ortigas.    

I was excited because I will learn a new skill plus it will help me achieve my goal of loosing weight.  When we arrived, first thing we did was to register, we decided to get a membership so that registration will be cheaper every time we have a session.  We did boxing sessions for twice a week (if my memory served me right).

Boxing is also an entire body workout and will definitely help you loose those unwanted fats plus other benefits.  You will have warm up first and then you will do the punches, you have a trainer who will guide you along the way so nothing to worry about. Each session run for an hour.  Remember that it's not how long you have worked out that matters, it's how hard you've worked out.

We had several sessions before and one of which was when I was with our other friends, Erika, Gami and Dave!

We added fun with our workouts and thus made it even more exciting to come back!

This was a very nice comic made my Dave!

I believe I lost at least 8 lbs, i just did the following:

1. 2 months with twice a week session

2. Balanced diet

3. A lot of determination

Go ahead, try it.  It can be a way to loose weight, a good self defense, bonding time with family and friends and stress reliever.

You can be an inventor!!

We should all know who invented one of the greatest technologies that we have now, the telephone.  This was invented by Alexander Graham Bell last 1876 and after him, many other inventors invented the telephone.

This was made because of his interest in educating the deaf, this led him to invent the microphone and then the telephone.

For me inventions are always made out of curiosity, from an idea or thought. Something that you asked yourself, something that you want to do or to achieve.

One of the very frequent things that I think about and would like to do is to loose weight! Who would not want to loose weight?? For girls, it's like a trend.. we always want to loose weight, we always feel we are fat.  Have you ever heard a girl/woman who said they are thin? rarely! Almost everyone tells that they are fat.  Well that includes me!

For me, being in good shape is a gift that I can give to myself and everything else will follow.  Being fat is not bad at all but I always prefer to be fit and healthy.  I am not thin, thin, but I believe that I am just in the right shape. We always have this aspiration to get healthy but when and how to start is the next question.

It will definitely not happen over night, a week or over a cup of coffee. It will all start within us.  I have figured it out by myself with the use of a lot of interventions and I would like to share them!

From the movie My Big Love of Toni Gonzaga and Sam Milby, I captured the 5 very simple steps in loosing weight, just remember them by heart and we are ready to go!

1. Goal Setting - whether this is to save money, get thin or be promoted.  Everything starts in setting your goals. This is free of charge!

2. Start Today - or else your goals will just be goals, it will not move by themselves.

3. No shortcuts - do it the right way, no fast forward

4. Motivate yourself - how would you like to look like? do you have a dream body?

5. Be Happy!

When I thought of it, seemed pretty easy but in reality, it was not.  One should have the determination and discipline to start. My goal was to loose weight and to start a healthy living.  I will do this not just because I want to loose weight and be on top shape but because this will be a good way of living in the long run.  Starting to live a healthy life means not having the goal to loose weight at all since it's already a habit .

Now where did I start. I thought of the things that I needed to do to loose weight and one of the most common ways that I have read was to eat a balanced diet with proper exercise.  This way you are not just loosing your weight but you are also giving your body its needed nutrients.  Exercise seemed to be pretty boring for me, the mat, large mirrors, counting and everything so I thought of doing something that I enjoyed the most, Dancing! 

Doing something you enjoy and love means not doing the work at all, I don't need to drag myself to jump and stuff because I love what I do (this is a similar scenario in working).

I checked out videos from YouTube and found relevant dance exercises that I wanted and knew I will enjoy dancing.  I have created my own program (this worked for me, not sure if this will also work for another person but it should do with a little tweaking!).

Like any other exercise programs, we all start with stretching.  This will not only help us move but it will help our body perform at its best.  It does not only make our body flexible and at ease to movements, it will also prevent injuries for sudden movements and pressure.

Stretching can be done with our without music, but I prefer with music so I have a beat to follow.

Then I will proceed with the dance exercises that I have chosen. It really depends on us, on which type of music we want, what's important is that we are burning those calories.

1. Warm Up 1 (once)

2. Warm Up 2 (once)

3. Arms, Legs and Hips (twice)

4. Simple Arm exercises (twice)

5. Cardio (twice)

6. Arms, Legs and Hips (twice)

7. Arms and Legs (twice)

8. Warm up after the dances (once)

I just specified which body parts worked the most in the dances but dancing in general is an entire body workout. We let our entire body move and it also helps our breathing. Know more about the benefits of dancing to enjoy it even more!

Then it should not stop there, you also need firming. What I liked to firm up are my shoulders and abs, thus I did some exercises related to them. You can find some firming exercises at RedBook and you can also do Upper toning.

After completing everything, you have done an hour of exercise for the day. now whether you would like to do this on a daily basis (if you have luxury of time) or every other day it all depends on you.  Remember that it is not how frequent you exercise but how hard you exercise.

At the end of the day, it's what enjoys and excites us that matters. If you love to run, then loose weight by running or jogging. If you have any sport, then so be it.

I hope this article will be beneficial.

More about healthy eating in the coming days!