Food and Exercise: The balance

I love eating (a lot)! I am not a skinny girl. I embrace my fat body. But I also want to live healthy. So I've been trying to find a way not to really reduce on my food intake but stay fit and healthy. Let me start with food intake. In school, we were taught to have a balance of go, grow, and glow foods. I’m not sure how it’s taught these days but that’s how I learned it. Therefore, I don’t believe that you have to be a vegetarian. Yes, green, leafy vegetables are good but you can’t live and you won’t have all the nutrients your body needs with vegetables alone. What I do is to eat what I like!


Pork and other meat – hell yes but perhaps for a day and in moderation. Rice – definitely. Our bodies need carbs. Again, it should be in moderation. My aunt is diabetic and her doctor advised her to minimize her rice intake. Other options include eating brown or red rice. I tried it and I’m continually eating regular and brown rice interchangeably. We need green, leafy vegetables hence, we need to eat vegetables during the week.
It’s also in the cooking method. We need to do away with fatty foods hence, less of fried foods with do us good. I am blessed to be a Filipino since we have lots of dishes and viands that are not cooked through frying. We also need to stray away from processed foods. A lot of studies already proved that eating processed foods bring us closer to chances of having cancer later on in our lives.

We also need dairy products. I love milk when I was young but I stopped drinking after that fateful childhood experience. I just drank milk again when I was diagnosed with scoliosis. I know a lot of people who are lactose intolerant but guys, we need milk products. I suggest you eat cheese if you’re lactose intolerant. There’s also yogurt. A lot of stores offer yogurt products with a twist making them enjoyable. I personally like Red Mango, and Tutti Frutti. You can try it. I don’t dig yogurts before but I enjoyed what these stores offer.

Ultimately, we all need to exercise to keep fats away and stay healthy. I know a good yoga place in Bonifacio Global City – it’s called Yoga+ located at 11/F Fort Legend Tower. I also recommend Muay Thai, the Thai martial arts with kickboxing. I did this before although I stopped. I want to do it again. Trust me I am not even close to being athletic but I did Muay Thai. I sweat like a pig even just doing the warm up exercises – yes, way before the jab and the kicking haha. You can try it. I know of a place in Pasong Tamo Makati offering Muay Thai for Php 200/session. The gym is quite old but hey, you’re there to sweat anyway! haha.

If you want free, then you can drop by Bonifacio Global City. A number of people jog around the area. I even see youngsters do skateboarding in the area.  CCP is also still good for people who love to jog, bike and even aerobics! You can even do exercises at home. You can simply buy a punching bag, or a treadmill or even cheaper alternatives like hula hoops and jumping ropes. It’s all about the passion to stay fit and healthy. Even going up and down your stairs can do you good. Just remember you have to have a balance - your food needs to provide you with all the nutrients your body needs and your physical activities should be enough to burn the food and turn them into useful nutrients, and make your bodies fully functioning and healthy.