It’s Day 26 of quarantine in my country. As a student, our school suspended the class a week earlier so I’m staying at home for around 32 days already! I couldn’t focus with anything during the first weeks so just a week ago when I decided that I’m ready to commit to this process.

I have been gaining weight over the past years due to stress eating AND med school.  But lately, obesity is giving me a lot of discomfort and it has limited my ability to do the things I want to do. This quarantine opened doors for me to better myself first by dropping the excess fat. I’m doing this for myself, and the people who rely on me. Seeing how my siblings rely on me after my mom passed away, motivated me to be healthy. I’m also doing this to serve as a role model to others who are experiencing the same. Obesity is physically, emotionally and mentally debilitating. It’s a risk factor to many conditions. Thus, I want my journey to be an inspiration to others for them to start saving themselves from this condition. 

The Tracker

I went back to using Lose It app in monitoring my intake and calorie burn. It’s the app I was using back in 2012 (i think? lol) when I lost almost 30 kilos. I am using it to track my progress. I have a long way to go. Based on the app, the predicted date for me to achieve my weight goal for this year is around September. Of course, only if I keep on doing my workout and maintaining my calorie intake. 

The Diet

I am not picky with food now that we’re experiencing pandemic but I reduced the calories I’m consuming to 1200 calories a day. I’m just at home so this is more than enough for now. It doesn’t make me feel hungry at all. Doing this calorie restriction is easy now that I’m just staying at home with minimal activities. And during this quarantine, we have limited supply of food so can’t be really picky this time. So my diet isn’t that totally healthy for now but reducing the amount is a big advantage already.

The Workout

My daily workout is Les Mills’ Body combat workout videos. They work for me amazingly! I love its combination of kickboxing and martial arts. It’s the workout I was using before too so it’s not that hard for me. But at first, even I wanted to keep on completing the entire hour, I could only complete around 15 minutes because of my heavy weight. I wasn’t being hard on myself too so if I notice my body couldn't do more, I’ll move forward to doing some stretching and cool down exercises. I do treadmill and elliptical trainer too for at least 10 minutes.

The Motivation