[COVID 19 Diary] Be Healthy

One of the things I’ve been asking these days just being at home, “What would the new normal be?”

It’s hard to say. It’s very uncertain. No one really knows right now.

But I’d like to prepare for what that new normal might be. One of the most practical preparations is to BE HEALTHY. What does this mean? Not just the physical body but overall.

This time has really helped me to do a detox not just with the food I eat but in all aspects of my life. Before this COVID pandemic happened, I went through burnt out, stress, anxiety – whatever you want to call it. It was a battle I had to fight and deal with for several months. And the moment I decided to quit my job was when this COVID started to become an outbreak.

I neglected to make time to process thoughts in my mind, take care of my body, cook & eat healthy food, exercise and rest my mind.  When I work, I really work hard that I become hard on myself also. I’m grateful that I can do this right now. Not everyone has the luxury to do this. So, I will use the time I have right now to be better so that I can also be a better influence and be usable for the community of what’s ahead.

What have I been doing for the past days?

  1. I’ve been a gym member for years now but I never get to maximize my membership. So now, I’m catching up with exercise at home. I found this really good YouTube channel called – Faithful Workouts. I like the workouts because encouragements & devotions are part of it. It’s body & soul workout.
  2. I enjoy cooking especially for people but when you are cooking for 1, sometimes, it’s better to just buy cooked food. But, because I neglected healthy eating last year and really ruined my diet, I now have to cook and try to eat healthy. It was difficult in the first 2 weeks because I overate. And with so much “quarantine” food, you can’t help but just keep eating. Now, I have adjusted and I’ve cut down on my meals already. I do a one full meal for brunch then a light meal late afternoon.

Some easy ways to make sure you have nutrients in your meals:

    • Oven Roasted Veggies are healthy and so easy to prepare (bell pepper, carrots, onions, broccoli, squash, yams, etc.)
    • Turmeric Tea – it helps boost immune system. I always make a batch and I try to drink a cup a day.

3. Do one chore at a time. As I don’t work, I have a lot of time to clean up. So, I don’t  rush into finishing everything all in one day. I take my time in cleaning. I’m so used to multi tasking that I’m really learning now to do things one at a time. It’s really hard to unlearn and it takes a lot of discipline.

Some examples:

    • I organized our bathroom cabinets on a day. I organized our kitchen cabinet that stores all our food containers on a different day. I cleaned my bedroom cabinets on another day.
    • I wash dishes once a day, I just pile up all I’ve used for the day then do one washing.
    • I take my time doing laundry – coz this is not really my favorite thing to do. So I take my time! LOL

4. Detox the mind. During the start of the outbreak, I was watching news like crazy. I would be on the news for almost the whole day. I would be on social media reading all related posts to COVID. I decided I had to put a stop on it. It wasn’t doing me any good anymore especially that I feel so limited not being able to really do something, it became frustrating for me.

Here are the things I’ve been doing:

    • I watch the news only every night – I watch the recap of Global News for Canada and government updates for Philippines.
    • I deactivated back my Facebook account.
    • I read my devotion book daily.
    • I read Book of Psalms for my quiet time.
    • I’m doing the Daniel prophecy series from Bible Youversion app and do some deep dive.
    • I listen to a lot of Christian songs when I do chores.
    • I watch video messages & listen to podcasts of Tim Keller & Ravi Zacharias.
    • I read book & articles with Biblical principles.
    • I rest my mind – looking out to my window, looking at nature.
    • I pray – talk, whisper, pour out my heart to God.

5.Get connected. Always talk to someone – family, friends. Pray for or with people. Encourage people. Be a listener. Just stay connected. Be part of a support group like for us, we have our discipleship group.

Hopefully, I will start doing online classes & training so that I will also grow and learn more in my line of work. This is something I need to work on as I’m not really a fan of online classes.

How about you? What practical ways have you done to be a healthier you?

If you’ve read this and you need prayers or just need someone to talk to, feel free to comment and I can definitely pray for you or talk to you.

Let’s use this time to become a better version of us! And always remember, God loves you so much!!

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“Plogging” – First Attempt

Last Saturday,  some of my friends and I went to Central Park in Burnaby for a “plogging” experience. We all love to jog or run or walk for exercise. And so this time, we added some twist to it by making it more purposeful.

I learned about plogging from a post in FB.  And according to Mr. Wikipedia,

Plogging” is a combination of jogging with picking up litter (Swedish: plocka upp). It started as an organised activity in Sweden around 2016 and spread to other countries in 2018, following increased concern about plastic pollution. As a workout, it provides variation in body movements by adding bending, squatting and stretching to the main action of running.

When I found out about this, I was like, why not do it? I’m glad I got some friends who were also supportive 🙂 We had fun! And, we were happy that Central Park was clean. We did not get a lot of garbage. Good job to the park users! Keep it up!

 

We just didn’t do plogging, we did some “serious” work out! 😀 Central Park has work out stations and there was also a group doing Tai Chi, so we tried everything!

If you are interested to join us for plogging, let me know. We will go to other cities and hopefully we can encourage all the joggers to be ploggers!

 

 

Old and New

To live in another country, you can either embrace it or regret it.

As for me, I’m totally embracing it! Hehe…

It’s been almost 2 weeks and I must say I’m so grateful with the old and new friends I’m meeting.

This weekend has been a blast – people, food, laughter. It’s a time to take my mind off from my job hunting thoughts.

Last Friday, I jogged with friends at Central Park just here in Burnaby. Finally, we were able to do it after postponing it for many times. Well of course, after we jogged, we ate. Haha!photo 1 (2)

Saturday was fun day and fooood day! Hehe… My former colleague here in Accenture who has been my coach and mentor at work treat me for a fully loaded lunch in a Chinese restaurant. The food was really great. Too bad I wasn’t able to take pictures. But, really good lunch!

After that, I attended a birthday picnic party still at Central Park. Best part of the day. So many kids!

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the birthday celebrant (left cute kid) with his family

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some of the party goers

Sunday was church day and movie time after. My jogging buddies and I watched a Tagalog movie, not that we are fans of the actors but we just really wanted a good laugh. We got what we paid for. Haha!  And of course, bubble tea to close the day. 🙂

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It was a full weekend.  Though I had to hit the gym when I got home yesterday. I had to burn calories. Haha!

I’m really an extrovert. I get so energized with people around. Hehe!

I thank God for relationships. 🙂

Morning Exercise

 

My dear sister in Christ, Ann wanted to start doing regular exercise. It was really a good thing that she asked me because it’s been a while since I haven’t been doing such.

Since Monday this week, we started doing walking and some jogging every Morning. There is this place called Capitol Commons in Pasig wherein you can jog around. It’s really a nice place to jog as there are not much people and it is very close to our houses.

It’s our third day this week and we are hoping to consistently do it MWF every week. I’m looking forward for more routines and improvements in our body endurance.

Yay to morning exercise! 🙂

Happy Friday!

Exercise

Rhodes and I have a free 10 sessions at Fitness First gym. And it’s only after a month it was activated that we were really able to find time.

So today, we attended a body balance class. And surprisingly, we both enjoyed it! 🙂 If was both our first time. It is very relaxing and a very good way to release stress.

I can’t wait to go back for another session.

Thank you to Rhodes’ friend for the free card! 🙂

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