EASTANDARD : MONEY TALKS - How to get into shape on a budget

Daily post kenya  "my journey to fitness finally paid off"  Eastandard

 I failed gym. It was a year and a half ago. My daughter, Muna, was a year and three months old. I didn’t know it at the time but I’d be a bride a year later, in February 2018. Maybe I’d have put in more effort to getting back into shape if I’d known I’d be a bride? I don’t know. Maybe.

Ligue 1

 

Anyway, it was January 2017 and I made a resolution to shed off my excess baby weight. On my insistence, my husband and I trooped to our neighbourhood gym and signed up as a couple. He wanted to prepay for three months but I told him that was child’s play, “What will happen after three months when we’ve gotten rhythm but have to stop because we can’t renew our membership for another three months?” I added hastily before he could speak, “Plus you get an even better discount when you prepay for six months than for three.”you prepay for six months than for three.”

So on my lousy advice, he prepaid the couple’s package for six months.

GYM WAS DIFFICULT

Gyming was difficult. I loved doing cardio – treadmill, bike and cross trainer – but absolutely hated doing weights. I once asked my personal trainer if I could only do cardio only and he looked at me as if I’d asked him to dance the gwaragwara. “You need weights to tone your muscles,” he said, “if you do only cardio you’ll become flabby.”

It was downhill from here.

I went in inconsistently for three months. I cooked up every idiotic excuse not to go: it’s taking away time to spend with Muna; I hate how it smells; their towels are not fresh; they don’t have a funky selection of music to work out to; my tights make my thighs itchy; I’m fat and shapeless, why bother?

I left one Friday and never returned.

DOWN THE DRAIN

The remaining three months of my prepaid membership went down the drain.

I was ashamed of my failure and disgusted with my slack and non-commitment. Worse, I was overweight on my wedding day.

It’s October 2018 now. I’ve lost more weight in the last six months than I ever have in my life before. And guess what? It’s on a budget-friendly, easy and fun regimen. Here’s how I did it:

1. Run and jog in the great outdoors:I run two, sometimes three times a week around my neighbourhood. I run alone, for 45 minutes, in the mornings. I don’t know how many calories I burn or how many kilometres I cover. What I know is that I’m covering more distance in less and less time. Most important, I’m having so much fun at it.

2. Buy second-hand running gear:I invested in quality running shoes (not second-hand but new, because you’ll hurt your feet running in already-worn shoes) and in quality sports bras (I got these for second hand but the ones they call ‘camera one’, meaning they were gently used, fairly new and a tad pricier than others were).

Everything else I bought second-hand for a steal from inside Toi market: running tights, t-shirts, some vests, jackets, gym socks and a headband. I bought a plastic kiddie’s watch for about Sh1,200 from Yaya Centre. It’s a silly watch, really, but I love everything about it.

One day I’ll graduate to a proper running watch, one of those that show the duration of your work out, distance covered, calories burned, heart rate and whatnot. I’m looking at some on Amazon right now – Timex, Fitbit, Polar and TomTom are popular brands.

3. Drink homemade smoothies daily:I got a Nutribullet blender and it completely changed my relationship with food. I have the appetite of an adolescent boy. I used to eat a lot. Here’s what’s fascinating: I wasn’t eating a lot because I was hungry – I was hungry because my body was craving nutrients. All the junk I was eating out was bad food because it added to my weight and didn’t give me the nutrients my body needed.

Then in came our homemade smoothies with the 900W Nutribullet. We make a blend of spinach, sukuma, mint leaves, cucumber, carrots, mangoes, bananas, watermelon slices, beet root, and tea spoons of apple cider vinegar, spirulina and chia seeds. (The fruits make it yummy.)

Because of the smoothies, I stopped eating out and I stopped craving junk. I carry food from home for my lunch and when I eat, I eat only small portions.

4. Watch what you eat and when:I stopped eating dinner. I stopped first because I was eating too close to bedtime and I wouldn’t sleep well at night. I’d get hot and sweaty, my tummy would be bloated and I’d sometimes wake up with a headache. This was worse on the days I ate red meat. One day I decided not to eat and realised I slept better on an empty stomach. Couple this with the running and smoothies, I shed off more and more weight. I also became wary of what I was putting into my body – expensive snacks like burgers, pizzas, fries and fried chicken, I no longer crave for; I instead crave for fruits and water. Healthier, cheaper alternatives, basically.

5. Do home workouts that don’t require any equipment:One thing I learned from the gym is that you need weights to tone. What I learned later is that you can use your own body weight to tone. Several pages on Pinterest and YouTube illustrate how to do this. Alternatively, you can install free apps on your phone that’ll create a personalised programme for you. Some that come to mind are Abs workout, Buttocks workouts, 30-Day fitness challenge

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check out this video for more tips
check out this fitness video for more tips