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.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Dirty Looks for Dirty Food on my Juice Bar... Thursday, August 14

Am pretty sure I am in love with our new stability balls -- hello pikes and push-ups!!!  I still love hanging from our gymnastic rings and swinging on our ropes but the stability balls just totally up the intensity of every and any exercise you do with them.  Note here I must admit I got kicks off demonstrating yesterday's crossfit ab class with the balls and then watched as Hulkies tried and experienced first hand the difficulty.  The balls are such an amazing addition to training, wow.  Why the heck didn't I get these sooner?! Exaclty, I don't know either.

Another thing I don't know, and perhaps is why off topic here, is why someone would bring five boxes of honey glazed donuts into any kind of fitness facility.  People love their food, I get that, but many people have serious issues with food too.  I work in the health and fitness industry and through in the fact that I live in Korea, a country that by far is way more image-conscious and skinny-focused than Western countries, well I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of food issues.  From the common to the strange and down right deranged, people all have their own opinion of food.  There are those who view it as something to purely enjoy, some see it as fuel for the body, and many view it as "the enemy" to getting healthy.  Food is fuel and it is meant to be enjoyed but it's first priority is to build and protect the mind, body and soul -- this is my view.  Many others don't share my view and I respect that but many of these others have come to me to help them with changing their view on food and on training and health in general.  Food is not the evil culprit or something to be labelled negative, it's people's misconceptions of it.  Negative connections made with it over the years as well as other factors at play here, like work, social life, peers, and whatnot, are hard to break down and disconnect from.

Tonight I just about freaked out on one member when she came in for training super late and plopped five boxes of honey glazed donuts on my juice bar.  My eyes just about popped out of my head as did the eyes of my main sponsor and the Hulkies talking to me then and there. 

"Ummm.... No.  No, no and no!" I blurted out.
"Only 1 box is for you", she said with a smile.
"I don't want any box.  Food either builds the body up or breaks it down" I told her.
"Oh a donut or two won't hurt you!" she giggled.
"But it most definitely won't help me."

I am all for everything in moderation and enjoying a treat every once in awhile but when you come to me and I sit down with you for over 40 minutes and map out a meal eating plan for you and then you totally just disregard my words and bring in five boxes of donuts... Wow, just wow.  One bad meal won't make you over weight and out of shape just like one good meal won't make you healthy and fit, but to bring in such a snack, and such a quantity, into a place that so obviously focuses on helping people become healthier and fitter,... again I say wow here.  There are reasons why our juice bar is stocked with many healthy snack options, because we're trying to encourage members to eat healthier and part of encouraging them to do so involves not tempting them with foods that perhaps they struggle resisting, say like five boxes of donuts sitting on the juice bar counter.   

Just last week this very same member was all up my shirt, literally.  She pulled up my shirt to see my midsection and said she wanted to pay me to make her sport the same.  I had stressed to her that eating would be her key -- clean eating.  "It took years to put on that weight and it is going to take years to take it off so if you want to do it then you can but you have to want it", is what I told her.  She was quite eager in agreeing to my words and now she comes in everyday to train, sometimes she even comes in twice a day. 

I held back from asking her who the four other boxes of donuts were for but gasped as she took a donut from the box after her training.  She looked at us all and commented, "I trained hard, I deserve one". "You're not a dog", I told her, "don't reward yourself with food. Buy new runners, they'll help you get to where you want your body to go faster than any donut will."

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