Recently, I started to write about two of the things that I am passionate about. Since I'm no writer, I was anxious and asked my friends to read my article and asked for their opinions. One of them suggested to talk about how I fell in love with this healthy active lifestyle. So I figured for this next article, I wanted to throw out a few more details about myself so that all of you can better understand who I am and why I'm doing this.

Then I graduated from college and I started working in an office. Having a mindset of never getting fat and earning my own money, I was comfortable with what I was doing. It was such a joy to have your own money and just buy whatever you want to eat. But then I noticed that I'm starting to gain some weight. Things just kept on piling up and I'm not just talking about the events in my life. Love handles and muffin tops were starting to show up and I told myself okay lang at least may laman na ako (I said it was okay at least I'm having some curves already). To spice things up, my six years relationship with my first boyfriend ended and then I started dating a new guy (Hi Honey!). Break ups and new romance means more ways to eat all the emotions you're feeling.

Well all in all I gained 35 lbs.

After a while of this (and trust me, it didn’t take long), I grew unhappy with my body and overall ended up feeling terrible about who I was as a person and what I looked like. Though I was never heavy, the weight looked like a lot on my weak and un-toned 5 foot 4 frame. 

So what did I do? I went to the internet and typed "How to lose weight fast" and groan under the hundreds of brand-new weight loss/diet/exercise/nutrition/juice article in the hope that one of those "How tos" will contain some magical insight that will allow me to transform my body from fat to fit…without having to sweat…eat spinach…or lever my big butt off the sofa. 

I tried almost everything. GM Diet, No Carbs/rice diet, Carnivore diet, eat-just-1200 cal-a-day diet, before six o'clock diet etc. And though some of these worked out for others (it maybe working out for you right now), it didn't work out for me. So I figured, fine let's do some exercise then. But the problem is I get easily distracted and I somehow made myself believe that since I'm working out it's okay to eat a lot. Basically what happened was I lost a pound a week then gained three pounds more during the weekend/cheat days.

This kind of lifestyle went on for almost a year until one day, my mom who was also overweight, met a client who owns a Nutrition Club. She then invited my mom to try this 10 days program in which she enrolled into and in just a few days I saw my mom looking smaller and well looking younger too. I was so curious and so I finally asked her what her diet was. The thing is she said she wasn't doing any diet. I can't believe what she was saying so after that, I went with her to take a look at this program. That's when I met Tita Baby who introduced me to what we call good nutrition. 

Ever since then I started learning about good nutrition and applying it together with my exercise. That was when I stopped looking for shortcuts and try to really understand and love my body. It's like when you're new in a relationship, you try to know more about the other person, her likes and dislikes, what will make her happy, what will make your love for each other stronger and so and so forth. 

That's what I did with my body. 

I started to learn to love the journey and accepted that it is never going to be that easy. I found out that with this process you need to eat a healthy breakfast and to never skip meals. You have to move and you’re going to stop spending every night on the couch watching tv and/or play XBox.

While I am going to write about health and fitness, I am also writing to express myself, share what’s going on in my life, and inspire and help others be their best self, despite the constant battle of giving up with their journey of being healthy. I wanted to be a friend instead of preaching fitness and making you feel that you have to look like me to be healthy. I want to share what I can to help you see that you can look after yourself without killing yourself to do it.

If ever you're reading this because you're starting out, or you're a pro, I want you to know that this blog is here to support you. In fitness and in life we are all different. But know that we're all in this together and that we work with what we got, because, face it, that’s all we can really do. We should all be working toward lifting each other up rather than beating each other down. That's what being healthy is all about.

Oh yes! Bikini season is here. And what better way to start this blog (I must admit I am smiling like a lunatic as I'm typing this. Sorry for the side comment, I'm a first timer. anywhoo...) by listing out some great ways to get that #fitspiration body.

Just to get things straight. Whether you're in your 20s, whether you are middle-aged, in menopause, or a beginner, I'd like to just share that when I first started out, I found out that getting fit and more importantly staying in shape doesn’t simply mean working out in the gym four times a week and leaving it at that. I mean if you're someone who thinks twice about spending your time and money but still aiming to get that VS body, you have to know that the process is a combination of 80% good nutrition and 20% exercise. I know a lot of people who try get into shape believe that they will achieve results simply by working out more often than they usually do without changing any part of their eating habits or worst they just simply starve themselves by skipping meals.

Let's face it, The first step is usually the hardest. As the Sheryl Crow song goes... "the first cut is the deepest", and it is not a pretty picture but it doesn't mean it's impossible. After all, you must admit that most of you have tried doing some crunches or eating less rice and more veggies more than once. The trouble, of course, comes with sticking with it. We get distracted by other things going on in our lives, or we don't think we're seeing results quickly enough -- and then we give up and fall back to our old habits.

So how can you become faithful with the process? Here are some of the things that worked out for me. Who knows it might fit you and help making health and fitness a habit in your life.