Offsetting My Sedentary Lifestyle

I’ve been wanting to offset my sedentary lifestyle by starting with bare minimum changes. (I will explain later why I only want the bare minimum). When the pandemic hit in 2020, our company transitioned to a remote setup, taking away the few steps I used to get during my commute and lunch breaks.

My sedentary lifestyle became even more sedentary than ever.

To make matters worse, I got diagnosed with PCOS and gained so much weight during this same period. I had so many acnes. My face was very round, I couldn’t even recognize myself then. My doctor gave me birth control pills to counter the hormonal imbalance and make my period regular again. I didn’t mind it back then because everyone was anxious and getting fat anyway. I thought “oh it’s not me, it’s the pandemic”. Then I started noticing that even after the pandemic, I wasn’t going back to my old self. I decided to do a routine checkup like blood work and other typical tests. Lo and behold,

I was classified as pre-diabetic!

It was becoming a bit concerning, and I needed to make some changes so I decided to buy a walking pad. Tadaaaa!

As a self-diagnosed hypochondriac, I found myself contemplating the worst-case scenarios, which motivated me to make other lifestyle changes:

1. I do 16/8 fasting. This means that I only eat within 8 hours per day and abstain from any food for 16 hours. This is a bit tricky because I need my coffee in the morning so I have a personal exception for coffee. My typical schedule is to eat lunch after 12PM and dinner before 8PM. I try not to overeat, except when there are celebrations but I still eat rice. As an Asian, I did not remove it from my diet.
2. I brisk walk daily. I started doing 30 minutes of walking every day. I did not care about the number of steps or distance, I just did 30 minutes. Eventually, I transitioned to 5-6km daily. I walk indoor using my walking pad. I love that it’s space-saving. I store it in the corner of the room so it’s easy to just open. I avoid excuses if I store it in a place where I would need a lot of effort to set up.
3. I stopped drinking Starbucks daily. I still consume Starbucks every once in a while but my daily caffeine needs. I bought my own coffee machine. First it was a Delonghi (BCO421.S) combi pump espresso or filter coffee. I ordered my fresh Arabica beans from Baguio and grind just before brewing everyday (Yes, coffee is better when freshly ground!). After realizing that my coffee-making rituals are taking so much of my time in the morning before my meetings, I switched over to Nespresso Essenza Mini with Aeroccino. I use Starbucks Smooth Caramel pods, low fat milk and Equal, and never looked back since.
4. I incorporated vegetables in my diet. Before my “switch”, I purposely avoided any form of vegetables in my diet because I just didn’t like them.

I made these small significant changes to my lifestyle, and since then, I have maintained a normal BMI. For context, I was slightly overweight during the pandemic.

Going back to what I mentioned earlier, I wanted to start with minimal effort to build the habit first. I set small, achievable goals to experience “small victories”. Once I established this habit, I gradually increased my time and added some healthy eating habits. Although I occasionally fall into a slump, I always return to the approach I used to start building the habit.

P.S. If you had told me 10 years ago that I was going to write about “health” or “fitness”, I would’ve laughed so hard.