Well hello May 2016!

We've been into four months of this year and a lot has happened! For me, the last months were spent trying to escape my sedentary lifestyle and to begin burning up some fat! Well I'm proud to say that I've done things that I never thought I would be doing! Let's recap all the physical events of the year, shall we?

With my colleagues - Marquee and Abril at the Crossfit Mad Minute gym  (📷: Marquee)

We first attended their "trial class" wherein they conduct a session for free. I think six of us from the office went there for the free trial, but only four of us actually bought the DealGrocer vouchers. After the free trial, we were actually disappointed because the experience was not that fun. We are not talking about the exercises by the way. The atmosphere there is a bit intimidating, especially for beginners. All of us in the group felt that way. Unfortunately, we already bought the vouchers so we had no choice but to continue attending the classes.

Me trying out these ropes. (📷: Marquee)

The latter sessions that we experienced in the gym were more tolerable - the coaches were nicer and the workouts felt (a bit) easier. The coaches were really pushing the people to do their best in every routine. They knew we were really tired already but they were shouting and cheering us to push our body. I specifically liked the jogging part of the WOD (Work Out of the Day). I think this is where I developed a better jogging form, because I remembered this one session wherein jogging felt easier.

To know more of this crossfit experience, my colleague Marquee also wrote his thoughts here.

Yoga @ Yoga+
It's been one of my goals ever since to master yoga. I've already learned in the past that yoga will not make me thinner. Thus, I take classes just to improve my flexibility and to relax my mind. I still had some classes left with Yoga+ and I continued taking them for this year. I usually just take the Hot Yoga sessions because I enjoyed sweating a lot! However due to the increasing summer temperature, I stopped going there (last time I went there, I nearly fainted). So I guess I'm letting summer pass before I return to the mat again. :D

Boxing @ Elorde
Through my colleagues' encouragement again, I got to try another workout, this time - boxing!

I think the most challenging parts for me in the routine were the three-minute jumping jacks and the "ladder exercise". I felt like I was close to dying because I was so tired. To think that those were just warm-up and strengthening exercises! The actual boxing routine was also hard, it pushed my arm muscles to their limit! When my instructor asked me to do 30 curl ups, I died inside. All my life I cannot do even just one curl up (I remember skipping that part during our physical fitness test in elementary and highschool xD). Well I had no choice then but to try my best. My ab muscles were on fire after. (T＿T)

At the end of the exercise, the instructor gave us a massage. (。⌒∇⌒)。I liked the instructors here more than those we had in our crossfit classes :p. They were more respectful and they tell us to stop if we cannot take it anymore. Also, one instructor there has such nice abs. （*´▽｀*）

I was only able to try one session there though. I have no photos to share, but Marquee wrote another blog entry about our experience here.

Hiking @ Mountains
Hiking is one form of exercise that I liked the most. I didn't expect myself to actually enjoy it, but the more I hiked, the more I wanted to climb and explore other mountains too. So far I've been at the top of 6 mountains (4 of which I climbed this year - Pinatubo, Manabu, Talamitam, Pulag). Manabu and Talamitam were the turning points wherein I realized I wanted to climb mountains for a reason. I tried to begin that sacred journey with Pulag, but unfortunately I failed (more of this on my blog post entry soon). I am actually currently in hiatus in terms of hiking mountains, because I am still mending some knee injuries which I still have not consulted with the doctor (inspite of my colleagues' consistent nagging for me to do it) because I am still giving my body a chance to heal itself. How I wish my soul could heal with it too （；へ：）.

Insanity Sessions @ the Office
We've done several sessions of this, wherein we reserved one conference room after office hours and did our workouts there. We followed a series of video workouts by Shaun T.

Jogging @ Ayala Triangle & Our Village
This is one of the exercise routines that I've managed to do throughout the months, maybe because its free and very easy to do (just change into your costume and run away!). Every week, me and a colleague would jog around Ayala Triangle. Meanwhile every weekend, I also jog around our subdivision. I find it very fulfilling when I was able to run as far as 3 kilometers in 30 minutes. Google Fit comes in handy when measuring the distance I've traveled during my runs. Also, I love listening to Spotify's Running playlist. It makes my runs more enjoyable. :D

Jogging also became my training when I joined fun runs. So far, I was able to participate in the ScholaRun and NatGeo Earth Run this year. :D

Swork It @ Home
For almost a month now, I am doing home workouts with the help of an Android app - Swork It. It has been very useful that my new room has enough space to lay out my yoga mat. I'm trying to make it a habit that upon arriving home from work, instead of changing to home clothes, I would change to my workout clothes and exercise! So far it's effective for me!




This year, I realized that having a regular exercise routine is more my priority than looking at the scales and checking if I did lose some pounds. For me, what is more important is that I achieve a regular exercise routine, something I can stick to for a long period of time and be part of my everyday life. Exercise for sanity check has been my mantra. My main goal is to pump up the heart rate and sweat it out. Weight loss will just be one of the after-effects of this goal.

Thanks to my colleagues for being my gym and workout buddies! Special shoutouts to Marquee who has started his blog this year to start with his own weight loss journey.