“Efforts should be appreciated and not neglected.”

In the start of this year, I decided to continue my workout routine. This is as part of my selflove journey for 2022. Since I’d done it last year, it was easy for me to adjust my schedule and incorporate at least 30 minutes of workout. What I did is, I followed a certain routine wherein workout will be done alternately together with yoga and meditation. By doing that, my muscle won’t be strain and overwork. Since I already reach the ideal weight that I’d been wanting to achieve, I just need to maintain it and focus on developing my strength for this year. I’d been wanting also to have a well balance lifestyle where I need to prioritize myself as well. In my first blogs, I’d been mentioning that this year will be very busy because of my plans, because of this I wanted to take care of myself more so that I won’t neglect it again like what I’d done in the past.

Doing these things for myself really gave me a sense of pride and happiness. I feel the growing confidence inside me and it was really a good feeling for me. Even though my schedule is really jampack with a lot of activities that I planned for this year, I feel so productive and happy every end of the day. I feel like I’m always getting most of my day and I feel fulfilled every single moment. Although it will not always be perfect since I’m still in the process of getting rid of my unhealthy habits, I can still see my progress even if it’s little. Now, I believe what Health Coach always tell to their listeners,

“Once you love yourself, every thing around you will be in its right place.”

“The more you are happy inside, the more you’ll attract good things.”

“People who set goals and work for it are the happiest even they fail.”

Truly happiness can be achieved in simple way like just loving yourself more. Now I realized a lot of things just a few days of this year. My mindset became clearer towards the goals that I wanted to aim. This workout journey will just be one aspect of it, but this will give me a sense of confidence and inspiration to whatever I’m aiming for in this year. This will be the start of everything. As I shared my progress in this blog, I’m hoping that someone out there will be inspired to do the same.

Let’s make the impossible, possible!

In my blog January Goals, I shared the workout that I’ll be focusing for this month. It is all about booty and leg exercises which I really wanted to focus on since before. Now that I don’t have the equipment such as dumb-bell, bands etc. I just looked on YouTube a certain video which targets legs and booty. I decided to follow “Madfit” 15 minutes routine for each target exercise. You can check the video routines by clicking the link below:

Not only by consistently working out, I also need to incorporate healthy eating habits at the same time. That’s why I’m also following a strict low-calorie diet which is 1400 kcal every day. Within that daily calorie intake, I need to eat more fruits, vegetables and protein. I won’t also deprive myself to any food that I want to eat as long as it’s within the calorie count. The important thing only is I need to ensure that at least I’ll have any fruits or vegetables every single day.

Now to check my weekly progress for this month of January, I prepared my weekly status and pictures as well. This is for me to assess the result of my efforts and check the areas I need to work on. I’ll be doing this monthly so that I can motivate myself more and be consistent on what I’d started for this year. Just for reference, this is my current health status before I started my workout routine. Now let’s see my weekly assessment!

Week 1 (Jan 1-7)

First week was really hard for me. Of course, since this week is the initial period which I start my workout, I experienced body pains for almost three days. Despite of having that, I still continued to work-out and engaged in walking activities so that my body will get used to it. On the third day, I did the same routine and I felt that my muscle pain improved the next day. Since I’m working in the office, it wasn’t that physically tiring so I really need to release my energy by working out. I can say that the first week is a great start since I both successfully achieved to work out consistently and follow my daily low-calorie intake.

I also continued my 30-40 minutes walking every night as a way for me to destress. Like I said, it is not always a perfect day so it is important for me to have an outlet of my stress. Starting this workout, I can see how my self confidence develop. I was also able to lessen my time using my mobile. Although I still need to manage it well, I believe that these little things can help me to get rid of it soon.

Here are the pictures I took for the first week of January. I made this, so than I can see my progress and I can motivate myself more. I’m not a health expert but one thing that I observed in my body is that I have more lose fats in my cheeks, arms and thighs making it look like I’m fat. This is the reason I’ll be focusing more in these parts in the first quarter of this year. I also wanted to somehow improved my hip dips and develop more muscles. I choose to have a consistent workout progress rather than to push myself instantly. I know that one thing I badly need to focus on this year is consistency. As long as I can focus on this, it will be easier for me to do it for the rest of the week.

Week 2 (Jan 8-14)

The second week of working out went easy compare to the first week. Since my body already adjusted well, I was able to complete the workout without having any muscle pain. I can also feel that I am more motivated to work out since I find myself looking forward to do it. One thing that just put everything on halt is when I got sick for three days. Because of that I wasn’t able to exercise continuously. Despite of that, I think that this blog really helps me to focus on this goal since I can check my progress every now and then. I find it hard very easy to know the changes that I’d been through just by assessing this progress report.

Since I’m doing my workout in our living area, I can feel that some of my room mates are inspired to the same. Although there’s always a negative response which I felt even without telling it, I didn’t let it ruin my plans. In fact, it triggered me more to be motivated to continue what I started. I won’t let the external factors affect me like before. I need to focus what is essential for me and disregard on other factors that will just stop me to grow.

These are the pictures I took after two weeks of making the same workout despite of being sick. As you can see, there still no changes compare to the first week. This is because, results can only be seen if you are consistent on it for a LONG RUN. Since It’s my only two weeks doing this, I’m aware that I won’t able to see any results from doing it. Nevertheless, I will still click a picture every week for me to remind myself on things that I need to work with. In this second week, my other room mates came back from vacation so it was really a challenge for me to do the workout without any disturbance. The growing COVID cases also had let my anxiety grows fearing the same lockdown that we experienced last year.

This week is indeed a big challenge for us, but it is good that I have something to keep myself busy yet productive.

Week 3 (Jan 15-21)

The third week pass by and I can freely do the workout routine easily. After the week that I got sick, I was able to do the workout continuously this week. I’m officially done with the adjustment period and I can say that I feel more fit just by doing it consistently. It sounds funny but I think its more of a mental side that convince me that I’m doing well. I think it’s good for me because in that way, I can tell myself that I’m doing something good for it. One thing that I do to set my mind in doing workout is once I reached home, I will go straight and change my clothes and workout right away. This is for me to avoid myself caught up in my bed and browse my phone. It was really a challenge in the first week since I can’t get rid of that habit right away, but after changing it gradually, I can now focus more on things that I should do for the day.

The yoga and meditation that I do help me also to improve my sleep. The minimum hours I sleep now is 8 hours which is an hour additional than I used to before. I think that It’s a great improvement since it just three weeks when I set my weekly routine and I found it very effective.

These are another set of pictures that I took in the third week of doing the same workout routine. As you can see, I’m using the same clothes so that I can easily see the changes, so, this is not because I don’t have another set of workout clothes! As I start this, I can see how eager I am to reach my targets and at the same time, update it in my blog. Although it can only be considered as a small change, I still feel great because at least there’s something great happening to myself.

Week 4 (Jan 22-26)

Here’s the last update of my measurement in this month. Although there’s no big change that happened, I don’t let myself feel down because I’m aware that the results can’t be seen instantly. It requires effort, hard work and consistency. Now this blog, will remind me to double my effort in the next month that I’ll be doing the workout. I should not stop but continue to engage in healthy activities consistently. It’s the first month of the year 2022, so I know that I still have a lot of chance to work on it and live healthily at the same time.

I will continue to make a monthly update of my workout and progress so that I can effectively push myself to do it. Not push in bad way but to be eager to choose what’s good for me. I know that there’s a lot of health challenges that we are experiencing right now, so it is very important to be physically healthy.

As I finally complete the update of this blog, I can now look forward to what’s next for the month of February. I feel more inspired to continue my journey to self-love. Despite of the challenges that are present in this month, I successfully completed my workout goals. Gladly I didn’t let bad things consume me and choose focus on myself more.  I feel like I came to know more of the things that I need to work on for myself and apply it on the next chapter of this year.

Finally, I completed the first month of my self-love journey for this year 2022. It was quite hard at first and I even experience extreme muscle pain for the first week, but here I am concluding this month’s progress. Now I feel so proud and grateful that He gave me a chance to do work on this goal of mine. Despite of the external challenges going on in the world right now like the rising cases of COVID, I didn’t let my anxiety grow and just focus on my workout.