To be honest with you, I have been wanting to do this for the longest time...
I believe that a lot of people out there are not too happy with the way they look and their fitness level today and especially with recently it has been announced that Malaysia is now the fattest country in South East Asia, its a little wonder that a lot now are really trying to do something about it to improve themselves health wise.
My story was however slightly different.
I hated the way that I looked in the past. I was severely underweight, I had no strength at all and had close to zero confidence to people, especially with the fairer sex. I was sick all the time and people used to think that I wasn't eating enough in my diet. The thing is I ate A LOT but i still looked as how I did.
So I knew I had to do something about it and I was sick and tired of being taunted around because of the way I look. In the same time, I knew I could be better, health and appearance wise and I needed to know how to do it.
But we all have one problem when it comes to this...
[click on title to read more]
[Fitness magazines. Do they really help?]
We always try to get as much information by either going online and reading up fitness magazines but despite them giving excellent advice on workout tips and diets, they don't really cater for us. The average Malaysian. We might be able to catch what they are trying to say but most of the time, we would not be able to relate to what they are referring to just because that the average American might not suit the body and diet of an average Malaysian.
As I scour around for more information, two of my really good friends also had the same problem, and they too wanted to make a change on how they actually look.
First up, we have Ash aka the Gym Monkey
Ash had a completely different problem than mine, at about 152cm tall, he was, at this point, weighing at a staggering 96kg at average and was too comfortable with the way he looked. At one point, he decided enough was enough and it was a time of change. The last thing he wanted to be was a part of a statistic that he was not going to be proud of.
and then we have Virgil, our female counterpart.
For Virgil it was a classic case of "What if"s. Being an athletic person she kinda let herself go in the last couple of years and unfortunately she paid the price for it. Flabby, constantly tired and really did not like how she has turned out to be, it came to the point that she needed to get things to change quickly. Worse still, she is due to get married this year and she now has one year to do it.
So there we go, three people who are determined as hell to make a change but unfortunately we needed direction on how to do it.
So we took action. Serious action.
Joined a gym and for the last one year, we researched, experimented and worked like a mad horse to get results. To which we look something like this...
[What we look like today!]
So far, we have accumulated a lot of information and workout routines over the years and pretty much experimented them on ourselves routinely. Result wise, I would say that it is still a work in progress but we're quite happy with the progression so far.
in that note, I would like to announce a new segment in this blog which is...
Teh Tarik Fitness segment! :D
Teh Tarik Fitness segment! :D
In here, I would be writing and sharing everything that has got to do with what we have found for fitness, fitting for both male and female and all body sizes. What I plan to include in this segment from now on is things like:
WORKOUT ROUTINES: where I would love to share and hear out workouts that I believe would work for us, especially here in Malaysia.
PROGRESSION UPDATES: taking the opportunity to check out progressions of myself and others in the blogosphere.
DIET DISCUSSIONS: I believe that this is one of the most difficult thing for us in Malaysia to pin down so I would want to compile information here that people can use to refer to when it comes to diet.
MOTIVATION TALK: Share what drives you to work out. Its for all of us.
RESEARCH: Most of the times, I am online doing research on things to better our routines everyday and sometimes, I discuss with the people in the gym to get more information. I would love to take it a step further by including the online community into my research as well!
CONTESTS!: Yup, I will be including my very own contests in here as well! Keep your eyes peeled.
[With our coach/trainer Arvind!]
For the three of us, we have our own targets by the end of the year.
By the end of this year, we would want to reach our desirable body weight and body fat percentage (which is something I will discuss later on) and I believe it would be great to share with the rest of you guys there as well!
Each of us have our own specialty when it comes to workouts.
[Ash - From 96kgs to 74kgs within one year!]
Ash has taken a lot of pride in his ability in managing his weight drop to a level that is astounding for many so he would be sharing a lot on how he did it the right way. On top of that, he also takes pride in his lower body strength which is where most of the contributions will come from!
On top of that, he has his own fitness blog at The Gym Monkey which he will put in his inputs as well!
[Ash hitting his proud moment - Leg Press at 550kg. Yup. 550kg]
As for mine is of course the complete opposite.
[Managed to bulk up from 49kg to 82kg so far]
I know there are so many out there that faced the same problem as I did, being extremely thin and not knowing how to bulk. So far the progress has been great in the last couple of years but it still takes a lot more to reach my goal.
I take a lot of pride on upper body workouts and High Intensity Trainings (HITs) which is something that I will be sharing more here.
and of course we would also include tips for the ladies!
Coming up to her wedding, Virgil has taken A LOT of steps to get her to the bodyshape she wanted to prepare for her big day so there has been a lot that we have compiled with her that I think would be great to share with the female readers!
On top of that, I will include other tips from other fitness bloggers that I usually read (particularly like Fay's and Linora's blog) in this compilation just to get a better view on things when it comes to our workouts.
So there you have it folks, I'll be looking forward to posting more write up under this segment and I would love to get more support on this so that we would be able to exchange ideas in the future. For times that I forgot why I do this, I always remember one thing:
Hell yeah.
