What Made Me Start Working Out?
So what made me start working out? Short answer is I wanted to fit in.
Moving here to Spain I got exposed to a-lot of stuff that was so new to me, and one of the things that really shocked me is how healthy majority of the people looked around me are. Going out and walking around I would always see the silhouette of fit people, shredded biceps, forearms, calves, and specially on the beach, abs… abs everywhere! Taking a peak at the grocery carts of other people when I buy my supplies, everything looked so healthy and almost zero amount of snacks to be seen. It made me both self conscious and question the life I have been living back in the Philippines, where eating a lot was being praised by a-lot of people specially the elders directed to the young people, which in part increased the obesity rate in the country.
Back home I always thought I had the average body type and that having a belly was the norm because almost everywhere you look all men had bellies. So it was a real shock when we had our Annual Physical Examination and half of the team mates in work got the result of obese even though in my eyes we all looked normal, so we just thought of it as the system was probably flawed, so I guess we can say we were in denial.
Now in Spain, even-though I was surrounded by fit and healthy people at the places I usually go, I just ignored it and thought that all of it were just purely coincidence *coughs denial* and it was about a year after I moved when I went on a hike with two of my colleagues somewhere in the County of Garrotxa which lead up to an event that changed my mindset entirely.
We found a small waterfall along our hike path and we decided to take rest and eat our lunch beside it. It was the end of July and was super hot so we were sweating a-lot, and thats when one of my colleague took his shirt off revealing his amazing abs casually and something click in me and made me think:
DAMN! Wouldn’t it be nice to have those 😒
The next day I looked online for some dumbbells I could buy to be able to do workout at home but found the ones with adjustable weight to be very expensive so I found an alternative: Resistance Bands
I found some resistance bands routines online which I sticked to doing with a weekly schedule to this day:
- https://www.exercise.co.uk/learn/resistance-band-workout-to-sculpt-your-upper-body/
- https://www.exercise.co.uk/learn/ab-exercises-with-a-resistance-band/
- https://www.exercise.co.uk/learn/the-ultimate-resistance-band-leg-workout/
After some months I saw my strength improving and was able to increase the weights of my resistance bands, but with little progress on reducing my belly fat, but luckily something happened that lead to the improvement of my weekly workout routine.
One day I decided to see Park Güell because a year had already past since I moved and I still haven’t checked whats inside. As I was about to buy the 10 euro entrance ticket, the ticket vendor asked me if I lived in Barcelona and if so I can enter the park for free if I had the Municipal Libraries Network Library Card. So I slowing retract my hand holding the 10 euro bill and said my thanks to the vendor and went home to register for the library card.
And thanks to the library card I was able to enter the park and see that it was a great place to run. One lap around the park is about 1.8 km and it had uphill, downhill, and a flat part on the route which is a great way to get HIIT and loose more calories. And so, I was able to add the routine of running for cardio thanks to being able to access the park for free. And of-course the first time was super difficult for me, I was already out of breath with just half a lap, but for some reason I was able to push myself to continue and slowly increase my endurance and I was able to do 10+ km, which was around 6 laps around the whole park.
I even bought a Samsung Active Watch 2 to track my runs and motivate myself more.
As for my diet, since I started following the routine I created for myself, I started eating less than what I used to. From 3 rice meals a day to just 1 or even none (substituted by pasta or something else with carbs) per day, and I also added some healthy greens here and there. The reason is that I felt that the hard work I have been putting on following my routine is just gonna get wasted if I didn’t eat properly and that the way I have been thought to eat was wrong, which was to always eat a-lot because in our culture the way to not be rude and tell the person who provided the food that the food was good was to eat a-lot and get seconds. Now, I hate that mindset and I am happy that thats how I feel because I think it’s healthier to think that way.
And as I am writing this story, my routine is more or less the same with some tweaks and improvements here and there for what I think best works for me. Pushing myself to be consistent has made me fit or if not fit, at-least fitter that how I used to be. I am happy with my progress and that I am able to enjoy the things I never thought I would be doing now like climbing, skateboarding, other physical activities, and specially being comfortable being shirtless on the beach:
For reaching the end, here is a photo of my “old normal”:
I don’t plan on going back.