Hapa Fitness & Us

I'm sure some of you will have seen what Hapa Fitness (as mentioned in my previous post too) is all about on our instagram feeds. We are official now and very excited to reveal what we have to offer for all of you out there! We will be sharing about health tips, workout tips and tutorials, fashion receipes, beauty (girls will still be girls righttt?), yummy healthy food, and events in time to come! Stay tuned and follow us @hapa_fitness if you haven't done so! <3

This is our very first diet challenge for all of you! For everyone who is as excited as us that Christmas is coming and all the feasting and log cakes will be part of the holiday season, try this diet on your own and give it 30 days to let your body feel the change and transform!

It may seem difficult for some of you so we are going to share some of what we eat. Today, till now, this is how my meals look like.

Breakfast:

1/2 avocado (Fats)

1 tablespoon of Golden flaxseed meal (Fats)

150 ml of milk (Protein)

1 scoop of vanilla whey protein (Protein)

Everyday smoothie!

I headed to the gym to hit my shoulders and back after my smoothie, had 1 1/2 scoop of whey protein post workout and headed back for lunch.

Lunch:

Approx. 1/2 serving of pasta (Carbs)

Approx. 1/4 of red and yellow peppers each (Veggie, Carbs)

Approx. 100g of chicken breast (Protein)

Pinch of Olive oil (Fats)

Snacks:

1 cup coffee, unsweetened (Fats, Protein, Carbs - coffee addict, here I confess and am guilty)

Handful of nuts (Fats)

Feel free to post your meals on Instagram if you have and #hapa_fitness and #santarinadiet so we can learn and from one another! My meal plan may not be the best so do let us know if you have a more effective and efficient way of preparing your meals and creative way to spread your meals out during the Santarina Diet challenge! Good luck!

Last week had been an eventful week and here is a summary of last week in photos!

Tuesday: Trained with Jasmine at GYMM BOXX (XS) at Punggol CC and met the courtesy lion!

Wednesday: Those who know me well enough, THIS is one of my weaknesses. I just had to have this since it was one week off any diet! Teehee. I always order without butter though. 

Friday: Went for my haircut with @johnthamyuehan at Salon Vim, looking like sadako because it was a day after Halloweeen. HURHUR

Outfit of my haircut day, dress from Allyfashion and clutch from Epicurations.

It was Nic's actual birthday so we had dinner before adjourning for Nic's place, followed by Karaoke (phew that was a super long day!)

Say 'Hi' to Dazzle! Such a beauty!

Smiley Dazzle

Me looking tired, with super hyper Dazzle!

Saturday: Met Jasmine before our training to get some work done 

Super yummy bread HOMEMADE by Jasmine! So loved!

Ended our workout with a good stretch

Our FITFAM!

Sunday: outfit to church

Accessories from Tod's, BCBGMAXAZRIA, Forever21

I will be writing about some health tips next so stay tuned and have a great week ahead everyone! Be safe wherever you are! <3<3<3

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Health & Nutrition - The reality of food

I hate to break this news but since I started calorie-counting and looking up what I really eat and their nutritional value, I was appalled with the facts about the foods that I have been feeding myself and how ignorant we have all been regarding the foods we have been eating.

Here are some very good examples which I wanna share. I have always thought that eggs are good because of the protein content and that everyone else who are building muscles and eating clean are adding a lot of eggs in their diets. So as I was doing the math and finding out more about eggs, I found that eggs have very high fat content. While you can get a good 6g of protein from eggs and it tastes yummy (at least to me and my gym buddies), there is actually about 4-4.5g of fats in each egg you consume. It all comes from the yolk, of course but having said that, you will be getting only half the amount of protein if you were to remove the yolk. SAD TRUTH I know.

Credits to nutritiondata.self.com

Another fact that I will wanna share is about Avocados. Avocados are highly beneficial in boosting good cholesterol in your body, they provide all 18 essential amino acids necessary for the body to form a complete protein, help prevent or mitigate against both osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis, offer powerful anti-inflammatory benefits and lower risks of getting heart diseases. BUT, the matter of fact is that it is still high in fat and carb content. I was shocked after I made my morning avocado juice with a whole avocado because I exceeded my daily fat content in just one meal and it was the first meal of the day! Solution: eat 1/4 to 1/2 for breakfast ONLY - try to have foods that are high in fats and carbs as early in the day as possible.

Credits to nutritiondata.self.com

These are just 2 of the examples that I have found and I'll be updating if I find out more. Also, I'm doing this because I'm doing a caloric deficit to my diet right now so I need to know exactly what I put into my body. I'm not trying to encourage anybody to avoid taking eggs and/or avocados because they are very beneficial to your body. What I'm trying to emphases here is that, you will have to take every food in moderation, no matter how beneficial the food is to our body. This could be the reason why I don't see results having altered my diet so much previously, I was eating too much of the "good" food. Bottomline is, don't just take advises from people and take them for real, if you are really serious and passionate about something, go research and find out more yourself. Personally I do give a lot of advises, telling people I know to eat clean and healthy, etc. But PLEASE do not take my word for it. I'm still learning and exploring, though I love to share. (:

So, here's what I have been up to, in pictures. 

Rowed 45 mins, completed 6.234km on Friday

Having watermelon juice on my way home after training

Jason says this is the greatest fruit God created, I agreed!

Blueberries & banana smoothie for breakfast

Of course, not forgetting milk, plain yogurt and 1 scoop of protein

My current state - Week 0

What I do on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, honing my skills for the love of Netball

Today - having lunch after mass in the freaking weather

Mandatory ootd shot while waiting for the car engine to warm up

Well, my dinner has become more exotic - these are fruits that I never liked, besides the apple

What I took home after today's homily by Fr Derrick - very powerful, hitting me right at the spot. Love the part he talks about likening our lives to silver-refining.  There is a reason why God throws us in the fire and there are obstacles in our lives, it is like putting the silver in and out of the furnace countlessly, to get rid of the impurities. God will know when he takes the silver (us) out of the furnace and sees His own reflection in us, only then we will be perfect and flawless, rid of impurities. Such a beautiful homily!

Have a blessed week ahead everyone! Good night!

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Life & Love - My fruitful weekend

I hope you guys have had a great weekend because mine could not have been any better! The weekend officially started on Friday, which was dinner with the happy ladies, so we called ourselves, in an attempt to cheer everyone up during a rather difficult period 2 years ago (or 3?). We had dinner at Shirokane Tori-Tama and I thought they serve very good yakitori, though prices are a little steep (Sorry I did not take photos because we were too preoccupied chatting away and gobbling food down our throats, we are such hungry monsters). Celebrated Yannie's and my birthday together, like every year and Aimin bought this super yummy cake from Flor (Yes, I do eat cakes!).

My saturday started early with a quick 30-minutes on the step machine before going ahead to meet my loves of 11 years. We had brunch at Cafe Melba, our favourite hangout for now. We had a VIP that day, who is turning ONE next week! Houston is the first baby in our group and he's growing up tooooo fast! So much love for this cheeky little boy!

After a fulfilling brunch with the ladies, we had plans to do something out of the ordinary and so the 4 of us decided to take a quadcycle at ECP, without much expectations, only to find out that our quads were all burning after an hour of cycling (considering the total amount of body weight inclusive of the weight of the quadcycle that we had to carry). We stopped by at a fitness corner and did a quick wod (for those who do not know, wod = Workout Of the Day), which was when I got bruised trying to perform some stunts. Jason and I were inspired by a photo we saw on IG and decided to attempt some acrobatic moves (HURHUR). It was a fun-filled, though tiring day.

In case you are wondering how a quadcycle looks like. HAHA we definitely had fun!

 

Sunday was much simpler, church at noon followed by our metcon session after a short nap. Nic and Ashley joined us today and I think we killed the workout (LOL). I'm sure we had fun! We did 2 sets of 3 rounds each:

First set (for the ladies):

20 box jumps

20 bodyweight shoulder presses

10 hanging knee raises

20 single-arm db snatches

20 Inclined flex arm hang

First set (for the guys):

20 box jumps

20 bodyweight shoulder presses

10 toe-to-bar

20 single-arm db snatches

20 pushups

10 pullups

20 handstand pushups

Second set (improvised Naughty Nancy for both ladies & guys):

Sprint (not sure about the distance)

10 thrusters

25 vertical crunches

Us, after "killing the workout"!

We try to keep our rest days as fulfilling with workouts that are out of the ordinary, out of the gym so the body gets different variations of training. You can try to infuse this into your workout routine too, for more excitement and fun!

This coming week will be my birthday week and I'm expecting a lot of feasting and cakes, which I AM SO GOING TO STAY  STRONG! I will be working out doubly hard and will be gradually attempting a new diet recommended by Edric, who has been on the diet for 4 weeks. I will be writing about his diet and how it works, as well as sharing his current progress so stay tuned!

Time to crash so good night y'all! Have a productive week ahead!

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