nia's health diaries

my whole abdomen ultrasound came back with scary results. i have severe fatty liver, and this is the final nail in the coffin about how i need to do a lifestyle change and has furthered my resolve to lose weight (which, all my different doctors (e.g. ob-gyne, orthopedics) have been telling me to do for different reasons (to manage my pcos and get back to hip hop dancing, respectively)).

thus, to make things a bit easier, i came up with 1-1-2 guideline for myself re: movement and food, to help me bring the weight down :) 1-1-2 movement guidelines:

1x swimming per week

1x dance class per week

2x strength training per week

not part of the 1-1-2 rule, but another baseline i set for myself is that i have 40-60 minutes of walking each day

1-1-2 food guidelines

1 treat a day

1 veggie side each day

2x eating out/takeout per week (3 max or on special occasions)

also, i'll be documenting my fitness journey here on this blog on a weekly basis - posting my weekly food journal and workouts logs, posting about any progress wins, etc :)

wow, it's been a while since i've updated. life has been quite busy, and i haven't been as on top of my food journal + exercise game + tracking my health stats since work has been quite busy.

but overall, it's quite good news! i weighed myself this morning, and i'm officially at 66.0 kg, which means that since the start of this blog, i've lost 3.5kg total :) yay!

eating habits haven't been the best. i've still been eating sweets & chips more often than i'd like especially the past few weeks, but the metformin has helped reduce my appetite so i do think i've been eating less in general. i've noticed that when eating meals, i do eat a lot less rice or ulam or just eat a lot less than i used to.

i wasn't able to log my food intake this week because of how stressful the week was:

my condo aircon stopped working, so i've been spending the past few days and nights with no AC. which, in a tropical country like the philippines, is quite difficult.

so i've been stressing about the repairs and timelines for creating work permits and having the repairs scheduled since the condominium still does things by paper and has rules about not having work done on weekends.

work has been stressful too with having someone start the very next day + coordinating their onboarding.

i had a very sharp pain in my stomach on friday early morning, to the point where it was difficult to breathe since it would make the pain worse.

and just a lot of minor inconveniences that added up and resulted in me being very stressed this entire week

so, because of that, my workouts weren't as intense/good either, but at least i got to walk a lot for most days + do 2 workouts (1 strength training, 1 dance class).

despite it not being the best exercise wise and food wise (i did eat more processed food/sweets this week), my weight has been on a good trend which, i think, is thanks to the metformin since it really has helped decrease my appetite/helped me feel fuller easier.

this sunday morning, i clocked in at 67.1 kg (around 147 lbs) which is great and the lowest it's been in a while! i guess this goes to show that what's really important is what you eat and how much you're eating and not the exercise.

i think i'm on a bit more of a momentum, and making healthier food choices is getting a bit easier each day, especially since i'm seeing a bit more progress now in terms of my weight & how my body feels/

this is what my meals looked like this week! it's....okay, just 3 days (again) of staying within the 80/20 rule unfortunately, but the overall percentage for the week is 25% which is less than last week's, so at least! i think i could've done better on other days had i brought more fruit with me since i didn't have as much fruits with me this week, which did lead me to seek out sweet sources elsewhere.

as for my workouts this week, it was just okay. i wanted to swim on friday but i woke up late that day (since i slept late the night before), and i worked till 7:30/8 that day, so i didn't get to work out anymore. if not for that, it would've been a good week of working out. i think 3-4x a week of workouts (2 strength sessions, 1 dance, and 1 swimming) is what's sustainable for me now especially since i do walk around 30 mins each day on the other days, sometimes a bit more.

as for my weight, it's been going down though it might also just be water weight. last week, i weighed around 68.5 kg, and this week, at my lowest, i was hitting 67.7-68.0 kg!

the first week of my health journey! it was a good week for working out, a so-so week for eating but i'm generally off to a good start i think. overall, it's a good start and good momentum for the next few weeks....and the rest of my life? haha

this is what my meals looked like this week! i'm aiming for an 80/20 split each day and overall/by the end of the week. my overall is far from that percentage but there were good days re: food intake (see the rows with green highlights). i'm surprised that it wasn't as bad as i expected, not having a dessert/sweet pastry that wasn't fruit. i think it helped that i was busy this week and that i brought fruits with me to work to satisfy my need for something sweet after lunch. gives me hope that the rest of my life won't be so bad re: reducing my sweet treats intake hehe but of course, not completely cutting things out since i want this to be sustainable. this gives me hope for the next few weeks.

this is what my workouts looked like for the week (sunday-saturday). it was a good week since i walked around 30 mins each day, did strength training 2x a week, and danced & swam 1x a week each, though i think i could've pushed myself more with swimming but to be fair, i hadn't swum in a while + i wasn't feeling my best. would've been nice to squeeze in an arm workout too or replace one lower body workout with an upper body one, but i generally am happy with my workout frequency since i think this is quite sustainable for me in the long run hehe.

i could see the results right away though it might just be water weight. started this blog around a week ago weighing around 69.5 kg and now i weigh around 68.5 kg, but that's also because i've been weighing myself in the morning after my workouts lol.