Me & Marie France (A Series): My Ideal Body
It has been said that a woman’s body was created for one ultimate purpose, and that is childbirth. It’s amazing enough that our body takes a new life within it, then as it grows to accommodate it, it also takes on a life of its own.Our belly grows by more than 10 inches, our weight increases by 30+ pounds, our skin changes pigmentation, even our hair, eyesight and feet can change in size, clarity or texture. With helpless but (usually) happy resignation, we surrender our bodies to nature and accept that it’s all part of assuming the role God deemed just for us, to be mothers.
Me and my beautiful preggy friends, Tin and Chessy!Then after birth, we have a few months of rest, then the reality of our post-maternal bodies look back at us in the mirror. With my three pregnancies, I would gain just plus or minus the ideal 30 pregnancy pounds. “Very good!, as my dear OBs would tell me.” I would also be blessed enough to go back into my regular jeans just a few weeks after delivery, and now 8 years after my third and last pregnancy, I’ve more or less maintained my weight since my single days.“Lucky!”, people say I am, and I know I am, but weight is not really the issue anymore, especially at this stage in my life. After pregnancy, the new obstacle to my ideal body is now AGE. Just like in pregnancy, I feel changes in my body as I age.If I don’t pose correctly, my arms look flabby. Once, with the wrong lighting, it even looked dimply! Thank God for the cropping function on Instagram (wink wink).
Me and my Creative Juice teammates. See the arms. I'll blaim it on bad lighting! Que horror!When I walk and run I can feel my thighs being all jiggly.
Yes, I’ve tried to watch my diet more, watching out for my food intolerances, knowing that wheat and cheese are two culprits to my bloated belly. But on specific weeks of the month (based on my cycle), I feel more water retention that adds to the fact that the little pocket under my belly button has become a mainstay after 3 deliveries.Pregnancies plus age. Then gravity wins the battle against the youthful glow and firmness our skin and bodies once had. Even metabolism changes and our body slows in processing and expelling food and other substances from our bodies.So now what is that “ideal body" for me? I realize that alone is a subjective thing. We all have different goals, dreams and er, illusions. As wise men say, keep your goals specific, reachable and measurable, you can add to that "realistic", so I don’t even aspire to have abs, knowing I would need to seriously sweat, work out and slave it out regularly for that. Honestly, I would be happiest to have a body that is lean, toned and slim (with as little flab, fat and jiggling as possible!). A body that would allow me to wear anything I want, show of some parts of my limbs without any qualms.
So how do I get to my goal?Diet? Exercise? Yes. But after my first experience at Marie France’s iLipo launch, I knew this was another route to the golden destination.Marie France was a like friend who would help me achieve and maintain the body I wanted, and that it would fit my current lifestyle. So when Marie France welcomed me into the family, I was ecstatic!
With NJ Torres, Marketing head of Marie France & Facial Care Centre, with her associates Bea Chua and Nica NayreSince October I've been going to Marie France and now I can finally share my experience with you!I was off my fitness regimen and decided to delay getting back into exercise first so that I could fully attribute whatever benefits or changes I feel exclusively to my Marie France program. On my first visit, I was welcomed by the warm receptionists at Marie France. They are always so warm and quite efficient. They manage my appointments, and make me feel relaxed and welcome all the time.Malu, the very statuesque and charming manager could very well pass for a beauty queen but in Marie France she is the queen of beauty :). Malu not only helps design your program based on your statistics and your goals, but also gives a lot of encouragement, support and is ready to answer questions and concerns at any time.
To start off I went for a Tanita check up. I wrote about Tanita before and again so amazed at how this machine can measure body components, even BMI, muscle mass, and balance, just by holding its metal levers.
Malu also took my body measurements. At first she said "ang payat mo!" as if she was wondering what I was doing there but assured her that I needed the treatments and to just wait and see. Didn't take much convincing, as soon as she took my measurements, she agreed I needed to be there.Afterwards, Malu introduced me to the resident doctor, Dr. Ariel Torres, for my a consultation session.
I learned a lot from Dr. Ariel! Here are some of his tips and reminders:1) On belly fat, a major concern to a lot of us, Dr. Ariel says that the key is to limit carbs at least 8 hours before intended sleep. This means we need to have dinner earlier based on our bedtime, or just eliminate or lessen carbs at night, or better yet during the second half the day. Unless you will be engaging in activities where you will be physically active at night, avoid energy-giving food (again, carbs) all together.Why? When we eat carbs and we become active, the processed carbs in our body turns to sugar and this is what gives our body energy. However if we take in carbs, and do not use it within 8 hours (ie we rest or sleep after eating) the processed carbs gets converted to fat. If we take the fat and go to bed, this gets stored and settles into our bodies,as fat.2) Eat breakfast within two hours of waking up. We sleep for at least 8 hours and during this time, we have zero intake thus, when we wake up, our body will look for fuel in the form of calories to burn.If we do not eat anything, our body goes on panic or so called "starvation mode" that it will start burning stored fat to use as fuel. If this happens regularly, our bodies will begin to break down muscle to use as energy which is not healthy. This also actually slows down metabolism, making it even harder to lose weight or worse, can make you gain more weight.3) Avoid binge eating. Those eat-all-you-can buffets for example will make you eat beyond "busog". If you eat more than what you are supposed to, your body will start releasing insulin and then store the food as fat. The secret is really to eat the right amount of food, or calories, more frequently.The session with Dr. Ariel was very interesting. With just these three pointers, I realized not only what I should be doing but also what I've been doing wrong.Next stop according to Malu is my consultation with Marie France's resident nutritionists. So far this has been an exciting and enlightening- and this is just the first step on my journey to my ideal body!Watch out for my next post in this Me and Marie France series:)