Introducing... Me.

After all, it's all about me.  Well, at least, this blog is.   

First things first.  I am NOT a qualified fitness instructor, nor am I qualified to give fitness advice.  I'm just a chick with a massive appetite for food and drink, yet stubbornly wants to remain a size small.  Okay, small-to-medium, if you want to quibble about it.

I am motivated solely by vanity.  If I could eat an entire gallon of ice cream and not gain weight, do you think I'd bother to exercise?  If I wasn't deathly afraid of getting wrinkles, I'd be sucking on a cigarette right now.  Health?  I have no desire to live to a "ripe old age".  Fuck that.  "Die young, stay pretty", right?

 

So if you're looking for some serious fitness advice, go read Tim Ferriss' "4-Hour Body" or David Zinczenko's "The Abs Diet"?  Especially because I am anything but serious.   I like to poke fun at myself a lot and am certainly not politically correct.  So if you're easily offended, this blog may not be for you.

ANYWAY, back to me.  

It is my theory that everyone in the world is really an inch shorter than they think they are.  And about five pounds heavier.

I used to swan about thinking I was 5'6.5" (that "and-a-half" is very important, thank you), until I went to a doctor's office where they measure you with that device with a ruler that lays flat over your head, and there it was -  5'-freakin-5.5"!!!  (Thank you, gods of the universe for letting me keep the "and-a-half"!)  That's 166.37 cm., for those who use metric.  Which isn't very tall really, except maybe by Asian standards.

My parents' bathroom scale used to - and still tells me that I am at 115 lbs.  All the doctor's offices on the planet do not agree.  Yup, five lbs. heavier.  (120 lbs. = 54.43 kilos)  Grrr...

So I've been obsessed with getting my weight down to 115 lbs. ever since.  Well, ideally, 110 - just so that I have wiggle room - but 115 is hard enough to get to without starving...  So, yeah, at 120, I think I'm pretty average.  I just look skinny because I know how to play up my assets and hide my flaws so that, as my friends say, I "look long".

Am also not particularly sporty or athletic.  I'm quite dreadful at everything really and have no coordination.  Until last year, I couldn't even ride a bike.  My sense of balance is for shit and it's a struggle for me just to walk straight and remain upright. 

But I have been a member of gyms on and off for the past 15 or so years.  And when I'd go, I'd go everyday.  At some point, I was spending a minimum of two hours and a maximum of five at the gym.  (And, no, that doesn't include time spent in the changing room.)  But I've been living out of a suitcase - traveling for work and for relationships - since 1993 and gym time was often interrupted.  Sometimes, I'd manage to keep working out even while I was away but, often times, I wouldn't and, with the momentum broken, it was usually very hard to get back on track.

Last July 2010, I stopped working.  Forever.  (I hope.  Fingers crossed.)  Yes, I'm retired.  So I decided to get back into working out.  I didn't want to go back to traditional gyms as I don't think they've ever worked for me.

I had heard about Core Kinesis in Manila and in July/August 2010, signed up for 20 sessions with them.  I won't get into writing about that experience first but this video has information on what kind of workout they offer:

   

Then I left for the States for a month.  When I got back, I resumed my workouts with Core Kinesis but reduced the frequency, given their astronomical rates.  In January, I went to Thailand.  When I got back, I decided to try other new workouts I had heard about that wouldn't break the bank, until I found the perfect fit for me. 

I decided to start out with kettlebell training, alternating with TRX.  I was immediately hooked on the kettlebells and, from then on, I decided to make it my main workout, alternating with something different every month - so that I don't hit a plateau with my workouts.  Thus far, this is what I've done:

• February 2011 - kettlebells / TRX (with a week off in Bali)
• March 2011 - kettlebells / barre3
• April 2011 - swimming / boxing (in Cebu)

Which brings us to this month, May, and what I am currently doing which requires an entry of its own.  But I've decided to start chronicling what I've been doing - just so that I can get back to writing regularly and, hopefully, it will be entertaining and informative to those of you who've decided to share this journey with me. 

Comments

[Charlie]

Love your attitude to fitness and life. Love how you stopped working FOREVER! How'd you do that?

[Gai]

Hi Charlie!

My boyfriend and I sold our business. He's still working and I'm... well... being silly 24/7 now it seems. :-)