FINANCIAL FITNESS: Seven Nuggets of Wisdom

It was 2005 when I had the realization that I should take charge of my finances.
I was already working for quite some time, but didn't have any savings.

A friend of mine shared his favorite book, "The Richest Man in Babylon" and at the same time, my brother was trying to influence me into taking a look into my financial status.

Since then, I was able to get a grip on things, slowly paying off my personal credit card debts and invested in some Retail Treasury Bonds (RTB), Time Deposits (TD) and the some Blue Chips in the Stock Market.

Back then, I was challenged as a single mom, trying to get back on track.
Years after the realization, I was able to make the change and had my own share of learnings along the way. These are things one would read in books, but for sure, these had helped me out a lot.

Sharing the Seven Nuggets of Wisdom that had helped me out during those times.

1. It's all in the mind. 

Wealth is a mind game.

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Unless your parents are already millionaires and tycoons, almost everyone starts from scratch, zero, nada.  A more specific case is that if one is deeply in debt, relying on credit cards to live and funds coming in is not enough, having allocation for savings is the least of your priorities.
If you could relate to this scenario, don't despair ~ I was in that exact situation 10 years ago.
Know that, as long as you have working income, you can convert that into passive income, IF YOU DECIDE. Be with positive, like-minded individuals. Develop a goal, device a plan and track your progress. What the mind can conceive, it can definitely achieve.

2. Develop the habit of saving. 

 Give yourself  10% no matter how small or big. It's the habit, not the cost.

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 Be it Php 100 a month, Php 1,000 or even Php 10,000, it doesn't really matter as long as you start on in. Remember, Rome was not built in a day.

3. Learn to find beauty in simplicity.
Simplify your life. Turn of the television, do picnics with the kids, run in the park and have mini picnics. Your kids will thank you more for it. Time spent with family is what makes childhood memories more special and memorable.
Do bike commutes,get on you bike and reduce your carbon footprint. Enjoy every moment of movement and the zen feeling of just breezing through traffic with just you and your bike.

4. Manage your wealth. 
Being stewards of wealth, we are gauged by how we manage what we have.
If we know how to manage the small stuff, we can then be trusted with the bigger stuff.

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Know how to minimize your extra expenses and determine the thin line between wants and needs. If you must, buy more assets that liabilities. Being a good money manager is the sure fire way to financial freedom

5. Make your money grow. 
It is not how much you earn but what you do with the money coming in.
Learn about your options with different investment vehicles: business, stocks, real estate, time deposits, etc. Expand your knowledge base and take calculated risks.

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Be open to opportunities for your money to grow - broaden your network and meet new people.
Who knows, your next business deal would probably come from that person you met in the gym!

6. Know there is joy in giving.
You might not feel that there is anything to give, but, looking at nugget #1, If you keep on telling yourself you have nothing, then your physical reality would prove your right.
As stewards, it is our duty also to share what we have.

Let us all learn from the majestic tress. They give that they may live.
When you prune a branch or pick a fruit, nature makes sure that it grows back after a time. The law of nature shows that the more you give, the more you grow.

7. Have fun in our way to financial freedom.

These simple things surprisingly makes a big difference to help you reach your financial fitness goals. Try it out and share what your nuggets of wisdom are!

15 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Fitness - Part 1

MOTIVATION

 a ten letter word that is so hard to keep up. If this specific word has a gender, it probably is a lady that is super high maintenance.

We all can relate to writing resolutions at the start of the year and planing to work out – actively tackling it on the next few days, only to stop after a week or so, then trash it all and go back to the same old rut. It is the second month of the New Year, so how are we with our goals and plans?

But, how does a regular pinay with lots of things in her plate, find motivation to exercise when you feel that just thinking about it makes you tired already? I ask myself this million peso question every now and then, and I know that I’m not the only one.

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Yes I have days when I struggle with putting in a workout in my schedule. I know that I should start making it a habit until it is part of my PinayFitness Routine, but the "M" word  is needed until the habit sticks and that, is where the challenge begins.

Recently however, I felt so happy because after lots of failed tries,  I was able to actually work on my goal – I was able to find motivation that was needed to make the habit stick. 

In this post, I am sharing what I did differently and what had helped get back on track.

The happiest loss of all. Loss of excess body fat.

Feel free to see if you can make some of these ideas “your own” so you can start working on your fitness goals..

Reward Yourself

So you're slowly inching in towards your goals.. Then what?
Oh yeah, the reward  - It’s important to reward yourself for your accomplishments during your fitness journey.
Reward yourself for the behavioral changes as well as physical.


After all the key to maintain  the habit  depends on the lifestyle changes you’ve made along the way.

Your rewards need to be non-food rewards.
The purpose of rewarding yourself is to strengthen your resolve to have that fitness lifestyle and maintain it.
Rewarding yourself increases your awareness of all that you have accomplished.


These are some of the list that I happen to stumble upon in my readings:

1. Begin a “Success Savings” Put PHP 100 (or any amount  you think is doable) in it for every week you've achieved your goal.  Put  PHP10 or PHP50 in it for every pound you've lost .
You decide the amount of money you’ll give for the desired action. Such as for sticking to your  plan. Not pigging out when you were depressed. For each pound lost. For each day or week you stick to your meal plan.

My Mom

I'm super proud of her. She is such a strong woman and if you click on this video, you could see her playing dodgeball with her grand kids. 

For someone who's turning 70 years old this 2012, this is amazing (considering that she does not lift weights and do gym stuff)

She always makes sure to eat healthy though, drink her water and put it 30mins of movement every day (jog around, do body weight squats and play wall ping-pong for agility)

I pray that she makes is as sustainable as possible so that she can continue to inspire the lives that she touches.

Now That the Holidays are OVER: Damage Control

It has been a few weeks since we have taken down our Christmas decors. 

Christmas carols are not playing on the radio and the last of the fireworks of Chinese New Year is no more.

I was hoping that since the tell-tale signs of the Holidays are now all gone, the remnants of the holiday bingeing, the proof of all these festivities would all be gone too. But sadly, unlike the Christmas decors, lights and Christmas carols, with FAT , that is not the case.  It is common fact that taking control of your weight can be hard during the holidays due to series of food-related celebrations during all those reunions and get together parties.  So how can you undo the damage done by a holiday meal so that it doesn’t have such a negative impact on your body weight?

I will be sharing with you how to go about with controlling whatever damage was done during the happiest season of the year.

1. Assessment : What is your number?

First of all, ask yourself: "How much weight did I gain during the past three months?"

Excessive eating and drinking might be the name of the game during the holidays and without you noticing it, the pounds have added up. A great wake up call would be to know that number and use that to motivate you into planning that GREAT COMEBACK!

2. ACT : Just Do It! 

The next thing that you can do to practice damage control is to get into the gym and do a weight lifting session the next day.  The common practice is to gravitate towards cardio training after a high calorie meal, but this isn’t really the most ideal way to go.  Weight lifting is what will use up excess carbohydrates in your system far better than cardio training, so will help to remove the excess calories that you consumed.
Also, weight training will help to elevate your metabolic rate for the hours after the session is completed, therefore will continue to help remove any excess fat that you may have burned off. Think of it as a way to scare off the bad spirits for the New Year.

3. Minimize Carbs Intake For a Week

Third, also make sure that you cut back on your carb intake around a week.   Protein consumption is one thing that YOU CANNOT REDUCE. This is definitely important as this is one of the building blocks to to maintain your lean body mass.

Fat can be reduced slightly, but sudden reduction would make you feel hungry all the time. 
Fat is a nutrient that will help provide some hunger control while reducing your calories, making reduced calorie intake much easier.  Just consider good fat sources like Omega 3 and Flaxseed Oil.

5. Never Ever Starve Yourself!

Finally, the last quick tip to help you recover from the holiday indulgence is to make sure that you aren’t starving yourself.  If you all of a sudden drop your calorie intake way down and keep it there, this would signal the body to start using up muscle mass as a fuel source which would waste all the hard work of the past training sessions that you have had. 
As always, a gradual approach is the best way to go. 
Bring your calorie intake much lower for two to three days and then adopt a more moderate calorie intake after that.

If you follow these quick tips, then you should have no problem reducing the damaging effects that the holiday indulgence that you had.


Related posts:

All About FAT 
Women and Weightlifting 

Need Motivation? Try Skechers GO Run!

It was a crazy Friday evening, with workload that makes you want to wish that you'd be nearing finish line but still a bit way far off.  
My friend Vima's invitation for the Skecher's event was a breath of fresh air for me.


I have been reassessing my schedule lately and I have been noticing that I need to put in more hours for exercise, wondering if it is lack of motivation or just plain laziness.


What really caught my interest for the launch was its name. GO RUN.


It reminds me of those moments when you decide that you'd wake up in the morning for a run, yet, stay a little while in bed.. read your friend's Facebook updates via mobile.. and without you noticing it, the sun is way high up. 
The name, is a fancy way to counteract that bad habit of procastination and replace it with a mantra for motivation: GO RUN. I likey.

Jenny Arce and me

It was a fun event where I was able to meet new friends and reconnect with old friends. We were requested to wear our running outfit and it kinda felt weird since we were in a mall but, as I say, what better way to support the sport?

Michelle doing her presentation

The lady who did the presentation was Michelle Estuar. She started it with telling us how heel-striking, a gait that is common among runners, is ineffecient and dangerous since this has a jarring impact on the body.


She also informed us that mid-foot is the best way to run and how Skechers GO Run's mid-foot strike technology enhances the natural running performance of runners by positioning the body for an efficient mid-foot strike, reducing the impact of heel striking.


Skechers GO Run is launched as a new minimalistic lightweight running shoe line that integrates this technology. 





Since almost everyone is into barefoot running nowadays, I noticed that GO Run closely mimics barefoot running while wearing shoes due to its weight: about 6.9oz for male and 4.9oz for women. It also lets the foot function, letting it flex and twist allowing your foot to move as naturally as possible .


After dinner was served the bloggers were getting to know each other a little better, nine bloggers were called up for a challenge. We were caught off guard! I was thinking to myself "Oh! That explained why there were three treadmills set-up outside the store!". We were divided in three batches and was tasked to run 500 meters wearing Skechers GO Run, the first one to reach it the goal would bring home his or her own pair of GO Run!


It was an all out run for all of us and I was lucky enough to be 2secs ahead of my batch and am now a proud owner of a Skechers Women's GO RUN in Gray!

A while ago, when I woke up, two words came to mind : GO RUN. And I did.


"The race does not always go to the swift, but to the ones who keep running."
                                                -Anonymous

WOW! How Did She Lose 10lbs of FAT in Four Weeks?

Hi Girls! We're back!

Remember that one time last year when our PinayFitness Facebook Account  sent out an invite for a FREE MAKEOVER for our readers and friends?

We are proud to announce that IT WAS A DEFINITE SUCCESS!

We have documented our program's progress for you to see that it is indeed doable, as long as you have the determination to do so and plan accordingly

FIRST WEEK

·         Orientation on how will the program be detailed and documented

·         Amor was easy to talk to regarding her lifestyle evaluation and very much excited to undergo the program.

·         As in a start of any commitment, she was bit hesitant on the exercise expectation if she could finish it.

·         She admittedly stated that she does not like running.

·         She thought drinking coffee is enough to hydrate her body. Does not drink water (very minimal if she does).

·         Shocked with her weight assessment being under obese category despite of her actively involved in bowling

·         Diet mind setting. A "Before" Shot was made and measurement to show progress. 

NAME OF CLIENT		Amor M/F/46yo
INITIAL STATS	Total Body Weight	150lbs/68.2kg
	Height	60.5inches/152.4cm
	Body Fat %	40%
	Lean Wt.	90lbs/44.53kg
	Fat Wt.	60lbs/23.6kg
	H2OWt.	44.5lbs
	TBM	179.5inches
	Waist to Hip Ratio	0.79
	BMI	29.3