As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

"Spaghettied" Myself Back to Health... Tuesday, September 2

While on the other side of the globe, kids in Canada were anticipating today to be the first day of school, it was the first day back to work for me after what felt like too long. It was only three days, I was last there on Friday, but this has been the longest I have been away from Hulk's since we started it. 
It was a good day, a fabulous day, to come back.  We hit a new record high with the daily amount of members training, three new people join our Hulk family and one of my favourites returning to train with us again. 

It started with a trip to the doctor's after a very uneasy night's sleep.  The doctor noted I have inflammation in my intestines so he prescribed meds and gave me this large paper listing the foods I can not eat until I am better.


"Can I eat spaghetti?" I asked him.
"According to this chart, it will make you sick" he responded.
"I guess I'll be double dosing those meds then" I whispered to Snickers. 
"I don't know double dosing" he responded, "but I think it means you eating spaghetti".


And that's exactly what I did, I ate spaghetti.  Thanks to La Cubo restaurant for treating me to a meal on the house -- a large dish of extra chunky tomato spaghetti with extra veggies and extra sauce.  And, as for the doctor's warning, I felt great after it.  It was just what my mind, body and soul needed!!!

Weighed myself today -- down 3.4kgs in 3 days and so many people noted they could see the difference, especially in my face. 

Despite the 3.4kg drop, 3 days of nonstop sleeping and pooping, I totally got called out on the pull-up challenge I had posed for some of my members.  I asked for a couple of extra days due to my illness but they said I was already two days late. Talk about tough cookies!!! So with a crowd of six members and Snickers watching me, I placed my hands on the hand grips, pulled myself up and hoped for the best.  I definitely maxed my efforts out but I successfully did it.... I DID IT!!! I successfully did my 18 pull-ups and when I turned to hug Snickers, they all cheered and I felt like I had just won a gold medal at the Olympics -- I was so happy!

It was great to see my Hulk family again.   Snickers had told me that many had asked about me when I was away so it was great to be greeted with extra big smiles, some hugs and even some goodies!  "I was so worried for you" said one member "but I liked that coach played Korean music when you were away"... hahaha, nothing like a little humble pie to go with the spaghetti ate earlier.  Note here that I never play Korean music at our club; I always play English music.  

The day's work ended on a strange note when a drunk man smoking visited the club. Snickers had left early to Suwon to check out a new club van so it was just me and one of our older members.  He drilled me on the names of various Korean pro boxers and then started to ask me the dissection of our member's population -- how many Koreans attend our club, how many women, then how many foreign woman. As soon as he asked me how many foreign woman I knew where this was heading. He obviously had mistaken the "club" in our "boxing club" title as being a dance club where bookings (girl/guy hook-ups) occur.  When he kept on asking about the foreign women -- their age, their jobs, etc -- I replied by telling him "my foreign women don't date men they can knock out in the ring!" He didn't know what to say, that is until my one member training blurted out "show him foreign woman -- punch him"...hahaha.  I didn't punch him, didn't need to. He got the hint and left.  Props to my "Old Boy" member though; new found likeness for him for that feisty remark.  Apparently he's not just a pretty boy with an overpriced pretty car (and about a dozen other pretty cars).

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