I made up my mind
Health is not something that was in the forefront of my mind when I was a bit younger. Well, I am still young but I am already feeling the effect of my sedantary lifestyle.
In high school, it was not that noticeable since I am in school from 6:30AM to 5:00PM then there will be extracurricular activities and groupings. So I do move quite a bit and that is excluding the dance practices and other PE activities we do everyday.
During my first year in college, I also managed to get a lot of walkin in my routine since we usually move to different classrooms for laboratories. Then, when I am not willing to wait for jeepneys, I would walk from the University to our house.
So maybe calling my lifestyle before the pandemic sedantary is not quite right. But sefantary lifestyle fits as a description during the time when pandemic started. I was just lying on my bed most of the day, only getting up to go to the washroom, or to eat. My food intake also increased a lot since we have nothing else to do so my sisters and I just bonded over delicious food. We did this since 202o up to the last day of 2021.
My weight went from the usual 49kg at the start of my first year in college to being 59kg at the end of my 2nd year. I gained 10kg and my BMI was on the overweight category since I am short (I am only 5').
Anyway, I enjoyed the last few days of 2021 eating and relaxing since it was the holiday season. Then come January, I started to change my routine.
It is time to say goodbye
The first to go is our regular midnight snack. I feel that this contributed a lot to my weight gain since I would eat breakfast, small snack before lunch, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, then midnight snack. Most of the times I eat rice during those meals.
It is difficult to do. And for the sake of transparency, I will tell you that there were times when we gave in to our cravings.
But I was not too hard on myself since the number of times when we did give in are a lot smaller than the times we managed to resist it.
Say hello again
One thing that I have restarted doing is working lut from time to time. I remember there was a week or two during the pandemic where I was motivated to have a glow up but it disappeared when I realized I would be staying inside for a long time.
But on January, I started working out again. I did not aim to workout everyday since I know my body will not be able to handle it. My partner and I was supposed to do it at the same time but our body clock is not at sync with each other so we just decided to update each other about oue daily exercise.
The first week was easy
Since it is a new year, there is a great boost within me that gave me the motivation to push through the week with a lot of energy. I have decided to just workout for five days a week and to dedicate the 2 days as rest days.
Unfortunately, I was unable to keep it up since I had my booster shot against COVID on January 19. The side effects were worse than my other doses so I mostly stayed in bed to rest.
While resting, I had a bit of realization about why working out seem to be a chore instead pf something that I want to do.
I did not enjoy the workout videos that I am following. I enjoyed them at first but after a while it became boring. I was yawning while working out even though I should be feeling energized.
I looked back to the time where I genuinely enjoyed moving and I realized that I am veey fond of walking.
So once I got better from the side effects of the booster shot, I switched my routine. Instead of looking for workout videos, I decided to just walk in place for 30-45 minutes. I was just walking in place since I did it inside my room.
This is my exercise tracker. As you can see, I started with a weight if 59.5kg and at the end of the month my weight went down to 57.2kg despite having some midnight snacks and skipping exercise for days. This weight loss brought my BMI back to normal although it is still close to overweight.
Unfortunately, I forgot to write down my measurements so I am not sure how much my body changed in terms of inches.
Closing words
I planned to write this last month but I ended up forgetting about it until now. This is my article lined up since I am writing articles on my free time. I am not yet sure when I will publish it.
Anyway, there will be a continuation of my fitness journey next time. In that article about my February routine and my weight at the end of that month too.
Thank you for reading this article!
If you want to read some more articles of mine, I have monthly summaries here:
December 2021 Articles Summary
November 2021 Articles Summary
Wow, good job sis! Ako rin I gained weight after my vaccination kasi I did not worked out for 1 week and eat lang ng eat. I gained a kilo after. Now, I am on control again hehe. Keep up the good work,sis!