Fitness Talk - Personal Training at Orchid (SGPT) Gym

As promised, I'm back with photos of the gym that I'm based at! The gym is cosy and exclusive to only personal training and our clients. Apart from the usual personal training sessions, clients are also invited to utilise the gym at your own time, outside of the scheduled personal training sessions. I love to train here myself, because I have the luxury of space and equipments. Enjoy as I bring you through to the different parts of the gym!

View from the entrance. There are more than 4 benches for you to choose from!

First smith machine, nearest to the entrance.

Plenty of mirrors for you to check your form out and well, selfies. :P

Boxing gloves for some action on fun training days.

2nd smith machine, which couples as a rack too.

Hanging knee/leg raises.

Multi-purpose machine which you can use for plenty of exercises (I will share bit by bit along the way).

Array of dumbbells for your use. 

Oh there is also a leg press machine and one of the benches can be used as a leg extension and leg curl for some isolated movements on your legs!

General locker area for your water bottles and miscellaneous.

Simple shower facilities, for clients who rush back to work after a lunchtime workout.

Changing room and exclusive shoe rack for our clients who leave their shoes there for convenience.

Selfietime!

I will slowly introduce some of the workouts I do with my clients and for myself along the way so stay tuned! Meanwhile, if you happen to work around the area and looking for a quick lunch workout, feel free to give me a buzz at 9688 6802 and I will provide a FREE trial session for you! Bring your colleagues and friends down!

Have a fantastic weekend ahead everyone!

Fitness Talk - Training ground

I have officially gotten myself stationed at the gym (level 2) of Orchid Hotel! Will be updating this space with more information on the gym and how it looks like. Most importantly, how this cosy space will be just enough for personal training, and even for my own training so stay tuned!

Inspiration & Motivation: Something GREAT is brewing..

Very recently, I met up with Jasmine (@jasminedanker if you are not following her on IG yet), it came across to me like a calling when I had to download kik messenger just for her to retrieve my contact details. In the very same week (last week), I met her for the first time. She shared her dreams and passion with me, she told me what she had been wanting to do and could not find the right person to do with, so she decided to contact me.

We met up as soon as we could last week and had a great workout together (though she's much stronger and fitter than I am), we share a lot of similarities. We have the exact same weight, height, BFP, played netball when we were younger, both Roman Catholics, both mixed blood. Well, the major difference is that she studied sports science and had been in the fitness industry for 5 years, coaching, studying and training (and besides the fact that I'm married she's not yet). We clicked right away and started planning our execution plan.

We have great plans and I believe God brought us together for a reason; a mission to help people who needs help, who needs an extra motivation to stay healthy and fit. Our ideas are all over the place now but we will be revealing very soon, once we get everything organized and ready to go public!

Here are some sneaks! Our logo: Why Hapa fitness (@Hapa_fitness)? Stay tuned! :)

Some of the happenings over last week, celebrated Nic's birthday in advance last Friday too! Great Karaoke with the gang, they sing so well! Been awhile since we had such epic sessions, oh yes and that cake at 11.30pm ZOMG.

Happy Birthday Nic!

Some of my meals.

Met Jasmine to gym on Saturday at Gymm Boxx, really helps when there is somebody to spot, correct my form and constantly goes "RELAX YOUR NECK LIMARAN!" (LOL, reason why I have stiff neck ALL the time). We wore pink to train that day, so we remembered to take photos and hashtag #operationpink to do our part for Singapore Breast Cancer Foundation!

Jasmine paid a boy for this photo HAHA

Cooked when we got home and spent a quiet Saturday with baby. Here's our very own chili beef with tortilla chips! YUMMMMSS!

I will be eating all I want (okay not exactly ALL I WANT BUT..) for 4 days (since yesterday) and starting a new diet (which I'll be sharing soon) on November 1st, together with Jasmine. BECAUSE I have completed 10 weeks (11 to be exact, not counting week 0) of Intermittent fasting! Halfway through the diet I thought this didn't suit me, but I wanted to hang in there and complete the 10 weeks so here is the final look (LOL pls don't judge me!).

I started with this OKAY?! HAHA.

Have a great week ahead everyone! Remember to catch us (Jasmine and I) live with regular updates on our IG (@limaranagustina and @jasminedanker) and our new IG account for Hapa Fitness @hapa_fitness! Till the next!

Health & Fitness - Arms Training

I usually do not train my arms on its own, I couple my arms training with deadlifts and sometimes I skip doing arms and ended up doing abs, or I'd go very easy on the arms training. Truth is, you are actually working on your arms during other body part trainings, particularly your biceps as they are needed in most workouts. Having said that, I know many ladies out there are very concerned about getting rid of their "bye-bye" arms and had requests to advise on the arms training that we do so here goes, some of the arms workouts that we do.

We need to work on both biceps and triceps so there will be no imbalance of strength on either muscle group. It doesn't really matter which you start with, as long you try your best to cover both muscles during your arms training, it should suffice.

I will usually start with triceps as my triceps are weaker. What Jason is doing in the video: Triceps rope pushdown.

Dumbbell overhead Triceps extensions (P.S: Apologies, I do not have a video or photo of us doing the other triceps workouts).

You can also try dips as well as bench dips.

Dips

Bench dips

Next to biceps, bicep curls and hammer curls, that simple!

Dumbbell bicep curls

Dumbbell Hammer curls

Hammer curls using Tricep bar/Hammer curl bar

Take your pick, and enjoy the videos! So sorry but I could not upsize the videos. We had the honour to attend Julien Fournie for Love, Bonito show last Saturday at FIDE Fashion Week. Thank you so much Love, Bonito for the invitation! It was such an amazing experience as we had never attended any fashion event, let alone fashion show. The Julien Fournie for Love, Bonito show marks the end of FIDE Fashion Week and was a perfect finale!

My outfit for the night

Have a great week ahead everyone!!

Health & Fitness - My progress so far

It's been a long journey from week 0 since I started IF (Intermittent Fasting). Here's a quick recap, basically IF (also commonly known as Intermittent feeding) is a pattern of eating that alternates fasting and non-fasting. So basically, you eat for 6-8 hours (8-9 hours in my case), and then you fast for the remaining 15-16 hours, which includes sleeping time. Some of the IF practitioners will do a complete fasting, drinking just water; some just water, black coffee and black tea. As for me, I take in anything liquid; in other words, I fast from solid foods during my fasting hours, simply because I want to avoid putting my body into catabolic state (muscle breakdown state) and I HATE the feeling of starvation. I will tremble and feel faint when starvation kicks in, which is so frustrating and unhealthy.

During the first few weeks, I made my body go through stricter fasting. By the 8th hour sharply, I stopped all solid food. I only drink juices and water, avoided coffee and tea. Honestly, by about 9pm every night I would start to tremble and feel faint. I endured for about 5-6 weeks, I worked out harder, increased my training frequency and rested very little as I was training 7 days a week, some days twice a day. I was literally pushing my body to its limits. VERY BAD!

On week 6, I finally took a day off from training and on one particular day, I took an 11 hours sleep which made me feel so good after. I see gains in my trainings during that week and I never felt so refreshed since I started IF. Unfortunately, ever sine week 6, because I was more lenient with myself, I went a little overboard and let myself have more than what I should.

Enough talking (writing), I'll let the photos prove whether I made any progress.

Week 0

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5 

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Unfortunately, I did not see much progress (LOL)! But you cannot just judge from my abs right? Generally I feel younger (my ability to resist and handle stress improves), I snack less and I feel stronger during training (managed a few new PRs during this 9 weeks). I have evidence to show that I not only feel younger but am really younger now (my body age I meant), and I've gotten people who meet me for the first time saying I look like a 21-22 years old (HURHUR). The most exaggerated comment was from this lady in SK gym, who asked if I'm a JC kid (Jason said it should feel more like an insult. HAHA). I took my body analysis from a scale that Nic bought and my body age is actually 20! WOOOOTS I get to celebrate SWEET 21 again next year!!

Okay, so I have 1.5 weeks more to go on IF and then I'll be practicing IF on alternate days and maybe try some other forms of diet (fret not, I'll definitely share!)

Here's what I've been up to:

We have been gym-hopping the past few weeks! 

Gymm Boxx XL with the Js

Edric is back! Stronger than ever!

Us at The Gym Nation!

OOTD with love bonito's Atherley top and a casual maxi skirt from allyfashion, with my long-forgotten toms!

Another old top from love bonito, really love the back!

I have been preparing for something exciting this weekend so stay tuned and follow me on Instagram, @limaranagustina if you haven't, because I will be updating real-time! Thank you for the support everybody and have a great Thursday ahead! :)