Summer in the Philippines is fast approaching and although — let’s admit it — it is basically summer almost every day in this country, the “official summer season” is the most appropriate time to flaunt those tanned legs, sun-kissed skin, flowy dresses and uniquely cut bikinis. Plus, it’s vacation time for most kids which means families can easily get away from their usual routines. (Spoiler: We’ll talk about intermittent fasting and HIIT!)

As a mom, I understand it’s not so easy to squeeze exercising and meal preps especially if you’re like me who’s not very active and not a fan of eating less than what I’m used to! LOL! I know having a healthy diet and doing regular exercises is the healthy way to love your body (and self), but I guess I just don’t have the discipline and motivation 🙁 (BUT I promise to start a healthier lifestyle soon.)

Lately, though, I’ve gained some weight and the problem is, it’s all in my tummy! (Like, pwede umangat nalang ang fats papunta sa boobs? Hahaha!!!) Anyway, I wasn’t worried at first but then with the summer season just around the corner and our beach getaway getting closer, I knew I had to do something now.

Before anything else, though, I would like to make a disclaimer that I am no fitness or health guru. I don’t go to the gym, I don’t do any regular exercise, and most of all, my normal diet consists of a lot of rice and, well, basically anything I want. This diet and exercise routine is just really something that recently worked for me and my husband, and maybe this will work on you, too!

And oh, if you’re looking into getting rock hard abs, plump tooshies, etc., I’m afraid this is not the blog you’re looking for. This is just about losing weight and perhaps some toning, too.

Due to several factors like biological makeup, age, and activity level, each person loses and gains weight differently. Lots of experts can expound on this and maybe even give you tips — I am not that person. But, I will give you a little backstory about my husband’s experience and mine.

The usual diet we have at home since time immemorial is like this: at least 2.5 cups of uncooked rice (usually 3 cups for lunch and 2.5 for dinner), at least one viand each meal (we can finish 1 kilo of pork — may it be cooked as sinigang, adobo, whatever — in one sitting), and dessert. This is for every meal sans breakfast which means we can consume about 5-6 cups of UNCOOKED rice for lunch and dinner alone. Our breakfast spread depends on what we feel like having and on how lazy I feel that morning. LOL. Each time we eat (if we don’t have a visitor), we divide the rice from the rice cooker equally. Like, we literally draw a line in the middle using a spoon and we each get a side. Haha!!! Oh, in case you’re worried, Ezra’s diet is different from ours. His diet is as healthy as it can be.

When it comes to exercising, my husband works out on an irregular basis. Sometimes he goes to the gym; other times he exercises here at home using our exercising stuff and equipment; but most of the time he’s just like me: sedentary. As for me, I guess my only exercise is walking Ezra to school.

My husband doesn’t gain weight easily (trust me, with the amount of food he eats, he should be supersized right now!) But when he starts to put on weight, the buildup starts to rise quite hastily. I, on the other hand, don’t gain as much and if I do, I lose weight fairly quickly. What I don’t like about me gaining weight, though, is that the first thing that gets big is my tummy! I guess that’s expected with the kind of lifestyle that I have. 🙁

IF and Keto diet have been pretty much the talk of the town in recent years and is growing more popular until now, and for good reason. For sure, a lot of you are already familiar with it and probably even know more about it than I do but for those who are totally unaware, here it goes:

Intermittent fasting: Simply put, intermittent fasting is the conscious decision of consuming your calories during a short window of the day and not consuming anything (but water and other zero-calorie drinks) for a longer period of time during your 24-hour window. (Did I explain it clearly??😅😅😅)

Ketogenic diet: A low-carb, high-fat diet depriving the body of carbohydrates for fuel and forcing the body to burn fats instead of carbs.

Many people swear by keto diet and while it seems very promising, it is not for the faint of heart. The one thing that really put me off is no rice. With keto diet, you are to avoid food full of starch and sugar, and rice is a definite no-no. So yes, that kind of diet requires mad commitment and discipline and I’m not sure I can keep up with it. I mean, for the first few days probably but a long time without rice? Oh my gosh, sorry but I’m super Asian. So I’m going with IF. That way, I don’t have to deprive myself of food that I really enjoy. To me, it’s just like training yourself to not eat at certain times while maintaining a caloric deficit (not as hard as life without rice. #PinoyProblems)

No time to hit the gym but you need to do something quite intense? HIIT may be ideal for you. I went with this exercise mainly because it only takes around 15-20 minutes! LOL. My husband actually taught me this and then I realized I’ve been doing this in high school when I was in badminton and soccer varsities (Yes, I was very athletic back in the day. I also danced a lot.)

For HIIT, you will need a stopwatch or a phone with a stopwatch. You have to move continuously and only take breaks as plotted. Correct me if I’m wrong but I learned that breaks should only be 1 minute or less. You can easily find HIIT exercises on Youtube or in other fitness blogs but if you want to know what we did, here it is:

I started doing each exercise for 20 seconds only. The plank I did for only 10 seconds on my first try. The next day I added 5 secs to each exercise then on the third day, I already followed the routine. For push-ups, I only did the kneeling push-ups because I can’t do the “normal one”. Rael did the normal one.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I didn’t religiously follow the diet plan because on the third day, I felt lighter already and satisfied with the results. So I went on eating whatever I want but still trying to eat less than normal and still doing IF for a week. My husband, on the other hand, followed the diet plan and even did it for 2 weeks!

Fasting hours : No food intake within this time. You can drink water or other zero-calorie all-natural beverage.

Feasting hours : You can eat within this timeframe but you have to be on maintenance caloric intake or on a calorie deficit. Maintenance is an estimate baseline point where you will maintain your current weight. This means that taking in a certain amount of calories, in theory, won’t make you lose or gain weight. According to acaloriecounter.com, you multiply your current body weight in pounds by 14 and 17. Your calorie maintenance level is somewhere between those 2 amounts. This maintenance level is also loosely equivalent to the number of calories you burn each day. Calorie deficit, on the other hand, is any amount of calories less than your maintenance level. In our case, we opted to maintain a calorie deficit. I had no specific calorie deficit but I just made sure I ate less than I’m used to and I don’t give in to all of my cravings.

I did an 18-6 IF. 18 hours fasting, 6 hours feasting. Rael also did the same on the first week and made it 20-4 on the second week.

My feasting hours were 12nn to 6pm. Anytime after that, I had to muster all strength to NOT eat anything.

◉ SUNDAY

• 12nn: 2 bananas, 1 hardboiled egg, fresh milk
• 2pm: 1 bowl of cereal, 1 fruit
• 5pm: 2 cups of rice, 1 cup monggo

◉ MONDAY

• 12nn: 1 peanut butter sandwich, milk
• 2pm: 2 slices of wheat bread + tuna and tomatoes
• 5pm: 2 cups of rice, 1 mug ground pork with chayote, 1 mango

◉ TUESDAY

• 12nn: 1 small canned tuna (I like Mega) and 2 packets of skyflakes — eat them together or crush the skyflakes and mix it with the tuna
• 2pm: 1 bowl of cereal, 1 fruit
• 5pm: 2 cup rice, grilled fish, 1 chocolate chip oatmeal cookie

◉ WEDNESDAY

• 12nn: 2 bananas, 1 hardboiled egg, fresh milk
• 2pm: 2 slices of wheat bread + tuna and tomatoes
• 5pm: 2 cups of rice, 1 mug chicken tinola (we use chicken breast)

◉ THURSDAY

• 12nn: scrambled eggs, 1 medium-size boiled sweet potato
• 2pm:  1 bowl of cereal, 1 fruit
• 5pm: 2 cups of rice, chicken cordon bleu (I just make 1 big piece then divide it by 2. One for me, one for Rael) You can also use any other chicken breast recipe. We just made cordon bleu because we had ham and cheese in the fridge at that time.

◉ FRIDAY

• 12nn: 2 bananas, 1 hardboiled egg, fresh milk
• 2pm: 2 slices of wheat bread + tuna and tomatoes
• 5pm: 2 cups of rice, 1 cup monggo

◉ SATURDAY

• 12nn: 1 peanut butter sandwich, milk
• 2pm: 1 bowl of cereal, 1 fruit
• 5pm: 2 cups of rice, 1 mug shrimp sinigang

Of course, food will vary depending on what you have at home and your healthy preferences. Remember, this is just the “menu” we used. Also, it’s always better to incorporate complex carbs in your diet rather than simple carbs. Complex carbs include potatoes, quinoa, oatmeal and brown rice.

Seriously, he went from 208 lbs. to 186 lbs.!

So that’s it. For 7 days, do Intermittent Fasting and follow the diet plan. You can also search for other IF meals if you want but what’s good about the diet plan that we have is that it is a BUDGET DIET PLAN and it is very Filipino-friendly. Do HIIT exercises during those 7 days as well — no training needed, no equipment required, and you only need about 20 minutes to do it!

If you want some toning, too, you can search for Youtube exercise or dance videos. I did some myself in the second week and I liked the result. I also did home exercises using Rael’s lightest weights and some exercise bands. I did this for another 7 days. I don’t know how much I gained or lost because I didn’t monitor my weight anymore. Hehe! Next time, hopefully, I’m going to try to work on reaching my #bodygoals instead of just dreaming about it and drooling over fitspiration ladies on Instagram! Hahaha!

I hope this experience can help you. Good luck! 🙂

PS: Sorry I have no photos to share. I wasn’t able to take photos of me during my “7-day healthy me” journey as I wasn’t planning to blog about this. My feature photo is from last summer. Lol. Will update the photo once I have a summer photo 😋 Also, next time when I decide to take the healthy route again, I’ll try to document it. Ciao! 🖤