Health – Losing Weight

Walk home, Vera

Finally, I have done it.

Walk home from work, that is. 🙂

Lord knows how many times I had thought of stopping and hailing a cab to take me the rest of the way home, but I had to push myself to plod on. That it would be so worth it, in time. It must have taken 3000 steps or so. It doesn’t sound much, I know. But that is a good way to start me off on having any physical activity incorporated into my day.

Why’d I do it?

Because on Saturday morning, Alfred and I walked from ABS-CBN to Morato. That isn’t too far, but we both broke a sweat. For overweight people like us whose physical activity consists only of walking to the cab, from the cab, in and out and up and down the house, that was already a lot of walking. We hadn’t had breakfast when we did that, so we were quite hungry too. We passed by several breakfast places and considered stopping right there but we didn’t. We agreed that we would walk all the way to Kopi Roti, break fast there, then walk the remaining distance home (Kopi Roti was probably half or a third of the way through).

So I had coffee, two slices of french toast and shared a Kopi Bun with the boyfriend, while he ordered hot choco and toast. I’d already consider that light breakfast. It was there that we decided to see a movie, but not after walking a bit more. We left the cafe at around 9AM and walked around the Scout area. I snapped a few photos too, and I even tripped (ouch!). We hailed a cab upon reaching Scout Reyes and went on our way to Greenhills. Yucky right? We didn’t even go back home to change out of our sweaty clothes? To be quite frank, we didn’t sweat all that much, we started very early so there was hardly any sun, and there was a cool wind blowing too. We sweated, but we didn’t stink. Haha.

Besides, to go home would just break the momentum 🙂

Another good thing that came out from Saturday’s walk was that it gave us another way to bond with each other. You can never have too much bonding naman right? Now, if I can just convince the boyfriend on the benefits of doing this more regularly…

Here’s a photo from Google Earth of the route we took from ELJ to Kopi Roti:

eljroti

Checkout the few photos I snapped from Saturday, over at my new photo blog!

Anyhoo, today, I took a slightly different route today. I went through Scout Borromeo, Timog, and then Scout Tobias. I even passed by the intersection where I tripped on Saturday!

My legs weren’t sore when I finally arrived home. But they were too hot, I was wearing jeans see. I don’t think I’d be up to taking a huge bag of clothes to change into everyday. One step at a time.

If I keep up with this, I can lose weight without spending any additional money on weight loss products. I also wouldn’t need to be on the never ending search for diet pills that work. In fact, I can save at least 55 pesos for the fare I would have paid a cabbie to take me home!

Cinnies

I am once again giving P-Dub’s Cinnamon Rolls another try. My first attempt was a semi-success. It tasted good, but I didn’t get the consistency I expected.  But it was really good.

This time, I’ve decided to make all of them in small bite size pieces and call them cinnies. Haha. I don’t have a counter top that I can use to properly roll out dough you see, so I’ve got to part the dough several times and then roll and spread some yummy goodness, cut and bake.

The boyfriend is supposed to be helping me, but he doesn’t want to wait for the hour that the dough needs to rise. He says he’s sleepy. At 7PM!

We’ll see, if he gets any sleep. If he does, then we’ll see if he gets any taste of my cinnies. He didn’t get any the first time around.

What I really should be trying to bake are the oat bran muffins that Delaney sent over a few weeks back. If I make them healthy muffins, I’d need not buy any other weight loss supplement to curb my appetite or make me flush out the excess fats in my big body. That’s my next target.

First, I gotta perfect my cinnies! Wish me luck.

I’ll post pictures later 🙂

Shout Out to my July Top EC Droppers!

Interesting how this set of top droppers has changed since the previous month’s.

Thank you so much for coming by, specially for the comments some of you leave along with your ECs 🙂 As a token of appreciation, I’ve decided to place ads on your widgets, so expect to see me there, hehe 🙂

jeansquared

What hasn’t changed though, is my weight. I am still very much obese, and I can’t even say that I have increased my physical activity to help burn all the calories I take in each day. I do hope though that going out to shoot photos on weekends will help change that. I saw these Kettlebells and thought these may be a fun way to build strength on my arms/upper arms. It gets tiring carrying a bag or lugging your camera around everytime, hehe 🙂

The boyf and I have the same work schedule now, which makes it easier for us to save on transpo on the nights he stays over. But it has also opened up the idea of us walking home together in the morning. I’d have to bring a big bag to work though – for both our trainers and more comfortable clothes to change in. That idea sounds good to me, and it does to him too. Just that it’s been raining a lot lately making it impossible to walk without getting sick. I used to walk the two kilometers from Mother Ignacia when I started working there four years ago. Since getting promoted though, I’ve only done it sporadically – I find the idea of walking home unappealing after a long and stressful business day. Walking Alfred though would give us an opportunity to just be together and talk too.

Heart of Beads

I  super appreciate that Ruth (my immediate sup) bought another yummy cake for me and my team on Wednesday early morning at work because my fellow TMs already ate the first one she got.  And I was very humbled at the many well wishes I received at work that day.

I also can’t describe how moved I was that Arianne, Y and Mayeen even thought of celebrating my birthday on Y’s bridal shower last Saturday.

But this heart of beads that the kids made for me is by far the best gift I received this year.

heart beads

A few days before my birthday, Esban (7) and Adam (9) came to tell me that they already have my present. They argued about giving it to me right away, or waiting until the actual day.  On Tuesday morning, they both came up to the house again to say the same thing.  I was sleeping on the couch that afternoon, thanks to the awful awful migraine that lasted for more than 24 hours.  E crept up to my side to kiss me awake, and say: “Birthday mo na bukas!” (Tomorrow’s your birthday!)

So after spending a few hours at work on Wednesday, and then a yummy early lunch with Alfred at Chocolate Kiss – Roces Cafe, E and A welcomed me with the warmest greetings and their masterpiece – my heart of beads. All their names are on the paper: Esban, Adam, Dalnes (13), Shanti (14), Butchik (14), Hannah (9) and AJ (5).   I’m sure this project was the older girls’ idea and they helped the little ones make it. A real team effort 🙂

You can tell this really was made for me: the bear in the middle, and the purple leaves all around.

Hay, thanks kids!

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On to a totally unrelated topic…

I’ve decided not to buy the cookie diet I mentioned in a previous post.  I figured I should do some fat burner exercises instead, or do something like the fat burning soup diet I used to follow back in high school. It’s a seven-day diet that’s mainly based on this soup that has a lot of cabbage and other herbs and veggies. It’s a full plan of what to have for meals in a seven-day period. It’s probably a good way to cleanse my system before I go on another regimen. Delaney also sent me some muffin recipes from the 8-Week Cholesterol Cure. (thanks again!), those are sure to help me burn fat!

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, if I want long term weight loss, then I have to work for it and not rely solely on diet fads.  I will still probably turn to some diet principles, and maybe still try fat burner pills but they will only be there to support my efforts – not be the only effort. Know what I mean?

Confessions of a Heavyweight

I have a confession to make.  I am seriously considering spending money on what may just turn out to be another fad diet.

There’s a kiosk at the ground floor of our office building selling supplements of all sorts.  Mostly, they have health supplements for body builders and others like it.  I’ve seen green tea based supplements there too. But the other day, I saw something I’d been reading about all over the net before but thought wasn’t available locally: boxes of the Hollywood Cookie Diet.

hcdietSo today, I went online and searched for reviews.  There are celebrity endorsers for the Hollywood Cookie Diet, probably that’s why “Hollywood” was attached to the product name. But I remember reading about Dr. Siegal’s original formulation.  It seems that Dr. Siegal’s is more feasible because it’s a companion to eating well and exercising, rather than the HCD’s complete replacement for both breakfast and lunch.  There’s also no mention of exercising while on the diet. Hehe.

I don’t think it’s healthy and that it can be used on a long term basis. I do think though that it will help jumpstart what I need to happen to get out of the obesity zone.

Of course a box of the HCD bought there is more expensive than what’s available online. I figured I’d give it a try and if it’s okay with me, I’d purchase more through their main website.

I have hopes that this will work. I frequently skip meals anyway, but I will munch on regular cookies, or biscuits or bread or a cupcake or two.  So I guess it’s better to do it officially, and munch on something that will still give my body some or most of the nutrients that it will need. I will have to plan my sensible dinner though.  In my world, the sensible dinner will have to be taken in the morning – after my shift.  Hmm…

It’s that or buy diet pills.

I’m not sure I can live with the discomfort that some diet pills cause.  Like the frequent line of poop that is said to come with Xenical and others like it?  For someone who can’t poop while in the office, that would be a nightmare for me.  There’s gotta be something out there though that won’t cause such.

There are diet pills endorsed by local celebrities. Those don’t seem to have the side effects I’m talking about, but I’m not sure how effective they are. And I don’t want to just go ahead and test them on myself.  I’ve heard so many horror stories of diet pills gone bad, I don’t want to follow in their footsteps.  There was one from work (she’s not there anymore though) who was using diet pills and she’s lost a lot of weight already.  She wouldn’t tell me exactly what she’s taking though. Hmm.

Now don’t go lecturing me about self image or about exercise and healthy eating being the only way to real and sustainable weight loss.  I’ve heard all about that.  Plus I have no self image issues. I know I am beautiful.  Yes, I am.  I know I’m sexy 🙂  I also don’t think I miss out on anything significant in life just because of my weight.  But I need to lose weight. At least when I go back to my OB and I’ve lost weight already, they might finally stop blaming it for my PCOS.  When I’ve slimmed down, I can wear the wedding gown of my dreams when it’s time to walk down the proverbial aisle. Haha. 🙂

Hay. All this talk reminds me of an article of mine that got published in Peyups.com many years ago. Fat is Beautiful.

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