Monday, July 22, 2024

I LOVE YOGA: SOUTH WELLNESS HUB

 At 65, I conquered LUNETA TO TAGAYTAY 60km ULTRAMARATHON with the addition of YOGA in my training program. Initially, I was just there to bond with my only son, thinking that I was too old to practice yoga. But Coach Emy was patient enough to show mercy on me heheheh . . ,

In running, you get a different kind of high when you “fly” but after that, you endure the pains in your thighs, knees, legs and feet. The opposite is true with yoga. While doing the different poses, you endure the pains all over your body but after that, your whole body feels incredibly light and you sleep soundly through the night free from all cares in the world.

You wake up the following morning miraculously refreshed and rejuvenated. You notice you have become stronger and face the day’s activities with more ease. 

The day will come when I have to give up running races but I will definitely practice yoga for as long as I live. I have full trust and confidence in Coach Emy’s ability to devise a specialized FLOW SEQUENCE plan for pre-centenarians!

(Thanks for dropping by. You may chat with me via Messenger or reach me at ndelr62@gmail.com. Stay safe everyone!

Friday, May 24, 2024

Hold On To Hope

Bro Bo Sanchez described 2 extremely opposing ways of dealing with sadness. In the first scenario, a person quickly dismisses sadness as if it is a contagious disease and pretends that it never existed. Dedma lang. In the second scenario, people nurture sadness and become so comfortable with it that it now defines who they are. At times, in the attempt of evading sadness, we tend to overwork or overeat. At the other spectrum, we make sadness our home and through time, we get used to people’s sympathy over our pitiful state.

But how should sadness be confronted?

For the first time, I heard that sadness enters our lives for a certain purpose. If we just brush it off, we are not allowing it to serve its purpose. We have to feel sadness. And we have to feel it in the presence of God. Only when we feel sadness that we find the meaning behind this dreadful emotion. Thus, ignoring it will not lead us to making the right decisions in our lives. 

We seek God’s guidance to take us out from the dark. This is the time that we should hold on to hope. Hope that things will be better for us. When we don’t feel sadness in the presence of God, it is very easy to lose hope and succumb to despair and desolation. Personally, I believe that the greatest among these three— Faith, Hope and Love—is HOPE. Without hope we can lose our faith and hinder our ability to love.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

More Protein, Lass Carbs

While I highly admire those who advocate No-Carbs Diet, I am personally not cool to practice it.

Diets come and go but a healthy lifestyle will stay with you forever.

Based from my whirlwind sets of hits and miss on my perennial obsession to lose weight, I can scientifically deduce 2 things:

1. Eat more protein, less carbs AND

2. Do the # 1 principle 80% of the time.

Yup! Give yourself a little slack. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You don’t have to stick to healthy foods every second every single day of your waking life. 100% is impossible but 80% is definitely doable.

If you are like me who will go amok if I miss my dessert after meals, eating less carbs seem impossible. But it is actually NOT impossible. All it takes is sheer determination, unwavering perseverance and relentless commitment (hahahah . . .).

Seiously, here are some tips:

1. Instead of eating heaps of rice, settle for 1/2 cup. Do the downgrading very slowly so you won’t even notice the change. What I did was the opposite though. I completely abandoned rice but that gave me the “reason” to eat sweets. So now I am back to eating rice but limited to 1/4 - 1/2 cup and decreased sweets instead.

2. Try mixed nuts instead of sweets for dessert.

3. I used to eat 3 different types of chocolates after meals (which baffled my only son) but have reduced it to only 1 or none at all.

4. If you cannot live without junk food, try to remove them from your pantry and see for yourself if you will indeed die. If you survive, then don’t return them back anymore.

5. Always include protein in every meal. Filipinos (or is it only me?) have this nasty habit of putting pansit (noodles) inside a pandesal (bun) or turning it into a sandwich. Some people I know even eat pansit with rice! Normally, we eat more Carbs than Protein. So how do we shift to more protein and less carbs? Well, you can include 1 egg everyday for breakfast. For lunch, instead of 1 cup rice and 1/2 fish, eat 1/2 cup rice and 1 whole fish (as big as your hand). For snacks, have a peanut butter sandwich instead of donut. For dinner, have meat instead of pasta. Or tuna sandwich with lettuce.

6. Develop the habit of brushing your teeth immediately after eating. That will hopefully prevent you from eating dessert. If you regularly do this, then the only chance that you will eat sweets would be during snack time. Not bad at all.

7. Reschedule eating your dessert at snack time. That way, you reduce your sweets into just 1 instead of 4.

8. Instead of junk food, stock your pantry with cans of tuna, salmon, mackerel, sardines. They will serve you well during those days that you still lack protein in your food intake.

9. You know my first love: Coke. I struggled shifting from Coke Regular to Coke Zero but after one year, I finally got the hang of it. If a Certified True Coke Addict like me can do it, YOU CAN TOO!

10. San Miguel Pale Pilsen is my second love. It took me a while to divorce it but I won in the end. I now patronize San Mig Zero.

(Thanks for still dropping by my blog inspite of my consistent irregularity. Stay safe everyone!)

Saturday, March 9, 2024

GOODBYE DOESN’T MEAN FOREVER

Today, March 9, 2024 is the day that I officially start a new adventure in my life.

From hereon, I will be facing life’s challenges without Ate Ella by my side.

After 24 years, the day has finally come for Ate Ella to be reunited with her own family in the States.

She has been with our family ever since Eia was born. Accompanying me to Eia’s various therapies, medical consultations, laboratory tests, healing masses, special schools, DSAPI (Down Syndrome Assn of the Phils Inc) activities, etc. Eia wouldn’t be as “normal” as she is now if not for her.

She has been the Wind Beneath My Wings for the past 24 years. I couldn’t have escaped from my husband with 2 children in tow without her. 

Ate Ella has been with me through the ups and downs  of my colorful life. In every season, she’s always been there to accompany me in my journey. We laughed and cried together. Shared our joys and pains. Evaded traffic enforcers together. She supported my ambitious goals and dreams, crazy as they were. How am I supposed to live without her now?

Is this really goodbye or is our parting only temporary?

I wish and pray that we will still be together again someday and I will find her cheering for me in jubilation at the 100km Ultramarathon FinishLine heheheh . . .

(I apologize for my long absence. Had to cope with 3 tragedies that struck my family. You may get in touch with me via Messenger or thru ndelr62@gmail.com. Stay safe everyone!)