Balik Alindog 2015

Hi friends, how was your weekend? Mine was spent entirely at home for some reason. I have separation anxiety na with the mall. Chos.

But I have several stories to tell. Let's begin with my newest journey to lose weight.

I love you, goodbye.

See, I checked the scale and found out I am now more than 10 kilos heavier than I was the year I gave birth. While some women want to have their pre-pregnancy weight back, I want to go back to my post-pregnancy body. I posted this photo during last year's attempt to lose weight and I'm posting it again:

Sorry for the bagong-gising face, but look at those arms. Well, one arm. Oh those arms. I want them back! Haha. Kasi that's the slimmest I've been throughout my adult life. Thank you, breastfeeding! And I'm determined to lose weight again and keep it off - for real this time.

I attempted to lose weight last year. But even if I consistently worked out and ate healthy, I had to stop during the notorious rotational brownouts in the city. We had 7-hour daily brownouts and I just didn't have the energy to work out and diet anymore. That caused my downward spiral.

Hopefully, the situation this year will be different. For example, I'm taking it easy this year. I just started working out last week and I didn't do the 45-minute runs I used to do last year. I think rigorous exercise would only burn me out and I might quit easily.

So what I'm doing now is using this nifty app called Sworkit. I love it. It's nicely designed (important app criterion!) and easy to use. Best of all, it has a wide variety of exercises and I can choose my comfy level. Oo, beginner. Haha!

Apart from cardio, I'm doing some yoga (not prayerfully but only for the exercise) and Pilates. I'm going at 20 minutes now, but sooner or later, I'm going to intensify my workout naman. Amazingly, the constant knee pain that I've had since I have birth suddenly went away!

Another great thing about it is that it is synced with MyFitnessPal.

Yes, like last year, I'm still into calorie counting. I know some will say that it is not necessary and eating healthy is more helpful. But not in my case. I ate only brown grains and no meat yesteryear and still gained weight. I know kasi that I can only discipline myself if I see numbers. So calorie counting is the way for me.

I still find MyFitnessPal the best because of its huge food database. Again, it's also connected to Sworkit so my burned calories immediately reflect on MFP.

Can you guess the third app that I use? It's simply Facebook Messenger. Why? Because I need to use it to communicate with my accountability partner, Christine. I need to lose weight and she needs to gain some. Talk about fairness! But at least she's serous about it. She's working out more often than me, in fact. So by talking to her, I am actually pressured to get my act together!

But unlike last year, when I focused more on working out, this year, I'm focusing on improving my diet first. I learned kasi that you can't sculpt individual body parts and expect them to look slimmer (unless you're already lean). Instead, you need to lose all those fat first and concentrate on toning next.

Whew, I can do this!

Apart from the apps, here are some of my current best friends:

Blueberry-blackberry-acai berry for nutrition and boosting the immune system
Apple cider vinegar to improve my digestion (also lowers cholesterol, I believe)
And different kinds of nuts as protein-rich snacks to replace my usual sugary ones

The problem is that we still have a lot of ~~tempting~~ unhealthy food waiting to get eaten. Just last week, we received two Christmas baskets containing every yummy food imaginable. Exagg, but you know what I mean. What I do instead of totally resisting them is to eat one bite at a time just to satisfy the taste buds.

Hopefully, I will last.

What about you? Are you in a Balik Alindog program, too? What do you do?