Kuliling

The cross feeding into multiply isn't working!  Although I know it's a moot point posting this here...I'm going to anyway...

http://coleen687.multiply.com/photos/album/54/Spring_2009_Bike_Trail

     There are several reasons to be excited over this weekend.  First of all, it's officially spring here in Vermont.  Our weather transition towards becoming warmer is a little delayed compared to other parts of the world.  Would you believe that it was snowing last Easter?  In the Philippines, Holy Week is typically scorching hot, but here...yes we still have flurries.  April showers only started this week, but this weekend...a high of 82 degrees baby!!  That said, we are so looking forward to go biking in a real bike path this time.

     We decided to make our work-out routines a little more family and fun-oriented and not self-indulgently running in place going nowhere on a treadmill.  So we bought a couple of bikes at the start of spring.  We didn't realize what we got into though.  I sought my sister's advice on this decision, and being the bike freak that she is, we got a lot more advice than what we hoped to get (luv 'ya sis!!).  It was all good advise though since we absolutely have no clue when we contemplated on getting $100 disposable bikes from Walmart.  Hubby and I got a his and hers Trek 820.  I wanted the aluminum framed version of this bike, the Trek 3700 which is $50 more, but seeing the other miscellaneous costs that comes with owning a bike (hitch for the car, a bike rack, helmets, child seat, extra tire, pump, racks...when will this ever end????), scrimping on little stuff may go a long way.  If we aren't hard core trail bikers, we don't need that much sophistication anyway.

    

While we are looking at bikes, we saw Coleen's face looking longingly at the kid's bikes and asking us if she could have one of those.  She didn't know that we already bought her bike but have yet to be assembled since this was meant to be a birthday gift (her birthday is on June).  We couldn't take seeing her that way so we had to prematurely show her her birthday present-- a 16in Disney princess bike with matching Disney princess helmet and Disney princess elbow and knee pads (yes,  we're tired of pink princesses too...we're just hoping she gets off this stage finally).  Of course she just had to hop on it right away...so we had the pleasure of watching her learn how to pedal alone even as she seeks a little push once she is stopped...or cringe even if she had to make that first fall.

     Will post pretty Vermont spring pictures in multiply once I get the chance.

I started going to the gym some 5 or 4 months ago.  I haven't been member of any kind of gym in the past and haven't been into any kind of fitness regimen whatsoever.  But then again, during the days when I had quicker metabolism (good times...good times...) I didn't really care because all I had to do was eat less than what I'm used to eating for a week or so and I start to lose pounds.

Then the baby came, and it just gets harder and harder that diet alone cannot solve my problem.  I resorted to all kinds of un-natural stuff -- crash diets, diet pills, etc. and end up still continuing to be the sweet-craving, binge-eater that I am.

I then found myself even more in the pit as I transferred to the US where high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden food are just an arms length away, and serving sizes are more than double what is even allowable to be consumed by any human being. For the first  year I felt really horrible as my old winter clothes got tighter and muffin tops are becoming more and more evident.  Suddenly I hate summer because I have to show more skin ergo more fat.  I became a size 6 which is probably a size bigger than my usual post pregnancy size.

Then as I said I started gym which I blindly did over a month.  I pretty much did only cardio and was inconsistent.  Then I consulted a trainer who eventually bulked me up with muscles...but not a lot of fat removal.  Nothing was happening still to me because I realized I wasn't watching what I eat.  See I have to cover all my bases for something to happen.  It didn't used to be like this...ugh the perils of getting old.  So there I was, counting calories and logging in to online calorie counters to make things happen.  Eventually I've become a changed person and saw real results.  I'm losing inches and I felt like I'm getting skinnier than my skinnier post pregnancy self (as evidenced by my now-lose-but-previously-hip-clinging slacks).

Today was my test to check my progress...as of today I'm officially a size2.  And I haven't felt healthier in my life.  I didn't realize that this is all it takes for me to get to look this way.  I'm still a work in progress but I know that I have made a lifestyle change and a different motivation to make things happen...permanently.