Two months ago I watched a Korean drama, entitled Oh My Venus! It is about a lady who gained weight due to the stress of becoming a lawyer. She then lost love and found it once again when she was trained by a super yummy Doctor/fitness coach.
This is however not about the drama, but how I was inspired by the show to respect and love myself. Like the lead character, I have seen myself drastically gaining weight with the stress of nursing school and my wrong coping mechanisms in life- such as binge eating, sweet cravings, sleepless night and prolonged sitting on my desk chair.
Upon watching the drama, here are the few things I am currently doing to live healthily:
- I try to eat vegetables as much as I can.
For some, this might be easy but this is another leap for me, who prefers to eat meat products over vegetable salad. I am now eating veggies, ordering it when eating out and making one for myself when I’m starving.
I also discovered a Japanese mayonnaise that I put on my vegetable. Japanese mayonnaise is typically made with apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar and a small amount of MSG, which gives it a different flavor from mayonnaise made from distilled vinegar (Wikipedia).
Upon my research, Japanese mayo can be used in every food most especially vegetable salad. Since I started living healthy, this mayo has become one of my salad’s dressing
2. I exercise 30 minutes/day, 4 times a week.
This is not the first time I tried to lose weight, as there will always be a fallback in any change. Two years ago, I succeed losing weight then it gained again after quitting my routine. Also, I had my Jawbone UP 24 with me who tracks every move, meal and sleep I make.
Now upon realizing that I need to lose weight again, I wanted to use my UP 24 but, unfortunately, it is not working well as it was before. I then got myself a Fitbit Flex to track my movements with My Fitness Pal to track my food. So far, so good… what I like about Fitbit is that it notifies me how many calories I’m over and under. The rest of its feature is the same like UP 24.
I am also planning to buy the Fitbit Alta, then I will just sell my Flex. I just need to get a tracker like Flex for the mean time while waiting for Alta.
3. Sleep as early as possible, if not get 6-8 hrs sleep everytime
Sleeping is my best friend, but only when I had to sleep after 3 am.
Some also say that sleeping late could affect body’s metabolism while others say that time in sleep does not matter as long as you get enough hours.
Honestly, there are too many myths about sleep out there in the web. For a night owl like me, I function best at night (I even like taking a night shift in my work), but these days I realized that the more I do tasks at night, the less I am productive during the days which leads to my inability exercise and binge eating. The biggest challenge for me is to sleep early for a better quality of life.
With proper habits come healthier weight, with that in mind I could give my brain and body more oxygen and nutrients it needs to lessen my stress loads as a student.
Do you have any tips for me? Comment below.
To Whom It May Concern 
