Driving for Fitness

For the next 7 weeks before Christmas, I am aiming to lose 5 lbs or more...for the purpose of creating enough allowance to gain more weight during the holidays. (Haha. Just kidding) I want to lose weight because most of the clothes I own hardly fit me anymore. From an RTW size-Medium, I am now a Large...and I'm hating it.

Looking at me at first glance, one may not notice the weight gain. Everytime I complain out loud that I am too fat, or everytime I proclaim that I'm on a diet, the people around me give me this weird look as if to say "Are you crazy? If you think you're fat, what am I? An elephant?" A few years back (around 3rd year college), I gained some weight, too...but it was so obvious then: my arms were fat, my thighs were fat, my FACE was fat. That was why everybody seemed to notice it.

Now, all I do is sit around for 8 hours a day. I eat my lunch without leaving my workstation. I only get up to go to the comfort room, or to go get something from the common printer. That way, my face and my arms remain small and thin...my tummy and my hips have become super sized. Because of these recent...uhh..developments, I have drafted a to-do list to help me lose the flab:

1. Go jogging every Saturday and Sunday morning
2. Do crunches once a day (twice every weekend)
3. Play golf / go to the driving range
4. Play badminton every Friday
5. No carbs after 6 p.m.!!!
6. No junkfood

So far, I've already violated rule #1 (I wasn't able to wake up on time). I semi-fulfilled rule #2 (I do crunches everday, but I failed to do them twice a day this past weekend). I have SERIOUSLY violated rule #5 (I was hungry!)...as well as rule #6 (who can resist a bar of Twix?). Gaaaah! I'm hopeless.

However, I was able to go to the driving range this weekend. I decided to add golf to my list of sports because it's the most convenient sport to have if you belong to my family. Boring as it may sound, golf is the Espiritu family's passion. My dad took up golf back when I was in highschool. Soon after that, my mom (who got tired of getting left behind everytime my dad went on out-of-town golf trips), took up the sport. Heck, the whole Espiritu CLAN, organizes its own golf tournament every December. Even my relatives from the States come home just to join the darn thing.

Anyway, back in 3rd year HS, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I took golf lessons. All I remember from that time was that I got a pretty good workout just from standing for an hour trying to hit golf balls. That was what compelled me to try driving for fitness...the promise of sweating profusely (and losing some weight in the process).

Yesterday, I remembered all the things I hate about golf. I remember how I can't move my fingers after gripping the club for a few minutes, and how my dad always tells me not to hold the club too tightly. I remember how my golf club makes this clumsy swish-thunk sound upon hitting the ball (and the ground), instead of the swish-thwack sound that my dad always produces when he plays. I remember how my ball never quite reaches the 100-yard mark, and I remember the disappointment (and the utter embarrassment) of not hitting the ball at all.

And now, on the day after, I am reminded of all the pain that comes with attempting to play golf with the wrong form: I can't raise my arms, my hands are beginning to cramp, and my mid-section is sore.

But that's the price I have to pay for being vain.

Hopefully all of this fitness craziness will pay off. I will not buy any new clothes until I can fit into all of my old ones. :p