Treats

Earlier this year, I was awarded a performance bonus due to my promotion and I decided to treat my family.

Sweets

I was browsing in my favorite group buying deal and one of the deals I encountered was this deal from Cash Cash Pinoy for brownies. On the day we set my dinner treat for my family, I claimed this sweet pasalubong. I was expecting to just pass by SM Ayala and board the MRT to Trinoma but since I was the only one who wrote SM Ayala Cart in the options. The salesperson got confused and directed me to the branch where the gate to Glorietta was also located. So I went to the SM Ayala Cart to the Glorietta Gate branch and SM Ayala Cart while awaiting numerous clarification from managers.

Glimpse of brownies from brownies unlimited

I am a patient person so the waiting didn't turn me into the Incredible hulk. (LOL)

Lesson learned, though, to choose the more popular branches. They get this done faster.

Dinner

I wanted to use my freebies from California Pizza Kitchen but we already decided on the token chinese restaurant so we just had dinner there and took the free pizza home.

Our Chinese Dinner

I hope for more blessings to share for my family and friends.

My look at that day

I have a twitter friend, Michael who keep a style blog called Show Me Your Look Today. In that blog, he details his personal style and styles of his friends.

As a twitter user with a blog, he usually tweets his latest blogpost and I usually check it out and inspired by the spirit of his blog, I am writing a blogpost about my look on the day we went to Tagaytay.

If you are a fashionista and my look is so not cool, I am open to suggestions, as well as sponsorship so do leave a comment.

Look No. 1

Since Tagaytay weather is supposedly cooler that the temperature in Manila, I made it a point to wear jackets and long sleeves. The first attire for that vacation was a gray long sleeve shirt from Old Navy which I bought before out movie day at Pennsylvania when that storm stopped me from going to any tourists spot. I originally bought it since I forgot to bring any jacket and the cinema seems cold. I also wore token dark jeans and rubber shoes so my feet would be comfy when walking... I wore this ensemble from the time we got to our hotel, to the time we looked around the nearby shops until dinner.

Sporting my gray long sleeves shirt in cool Tagaytay

Look No. 2

I love earthy colors and basics so to compliment my Bieber jacket, which I got from H&M. I worn a white shirt with a twist. The white shirt had buttons like a poloshirt has but it has no collar. So it's a plain white shirt with a twist. I also wore the same dark jeans and rubber shoes. I wore this ensemble from the morning photo op, to lunch at Leslie's up to the time we arrived back to Manila.

 

 Plain white shirt with a twist under my Bieber jacket

Thus, concluding my attempt to do a style blog post. Did I do well?

PEX invited me to an exclusive bloggers event by Pizza Hut set to present the new Tuscani Pizza with Shamcey Supsup

The Invite
I was just waiting for my slow computer finish my code deployment and tweeting at the same time when I saw this tweet from PEX (@pinoyexchange)

I was instantly curious of this opportunity so I introduced myself as a blogger and I found that PEX is inviting bloggers to an exclusive Pizza Hut event featuring their latest endorser, Binibining Pilipinas - Universe Shamcey Supsup.

Excited with the information, I heckled my way into this event and I got an invite the day after.

Preparation

The event was scheduled on 6pm. Since I leave the office before 7pm, I had to find a way to be there earlier so I watched less TV that day and arrived at the office at 9am. This successful attempt lead me to be able to leave the office at 6pm. However, being in a hurry lead me to forget to send an email to my boss so I was worrying about that during my walk to the event venue.

 Token picture with Shamcey Supsup featuring the Tuscani Pizza

As I arrived, a lot of bloggers were already there swarming around Shamcey. Lucky enough, admin Nakura and my buddy Jean was there to help me get a token picture and get seated with the rest of the PEX bloggers. Aside from having to be acknowledge as an actual blogger by PEX, I got to meet people from my blogroll, Madmader who was also there with madfather; SweetKay (better known as TS to most of the PEX clubs) and jessica_wabbit (foodie whose blog introduced me to Hawker 101).

Tuscani Pizza

To tell you honestly, I didn't really remember a lot about the Tuscani pizza as I was enjoying the company of PEX bloggers and the rest of the PEX team. I was also baffled by how respectable Jean, my friend who I know to do crazy dancing and apparently host for the night (at least when he's sober), was.

 Jean behaving as a respectable member of society
 

But I do remember how flavorful the All Meat Tuscani Pizza was. I do recommend this for a pizza treat to your friends and family.

New All Meat Tuscani Pizza

But since Pizza Hut gave bloggers gifts for attending, I owe them a review of the Tuscani Pizza, which I will be talking about as soon as I find time to go on a Tuscani Pizza food trip.

Acknowledgements

Capping off this entry, I would like to extend my gratitude to Pinoyexchange, the PEX Bloggers club and Pizza Hut for giving us a wonderful night.

 PEX Bloggers Club with Nakura from SweetKay

You might like to check out the facebook page of Pizza Hut as they are having a promo.

Why should you join a gym?

A gym is a place where people of all sizes, all ages and all kinds of lifestyle go to attend a physical fitness classes and practice fitness activities like weightlifting and cardiovascular exercises.

 Gold's Gym Logo

Years before, going to a gym has been a dream of mine. And after a lot of decisions, I joined Gold's Gym in 2010. Early this year, I transferred to a boxing gym but in the middle of the year, I opted to workout at home since I developed a routine for fitness already.

But for a certain type of people, going to a gym is advice-able.

For a couch potato, you should join a gym 'coz:
1. You will be forced to change your lifestyle. You are paying monthly fees so better make use of the gym.
2. You will be inspired with the people who are working out in the gym. You'll be saying to yourself if they could do it so can I.
3. You have "experts" for your consultation but for an additional fee. "Trainers" costs a lot but sometimes the expense is an investment to a better you.

 Before I start my workout in Gold's Gym Intercon

For a fitness enthusiast, you should join a more specialized gym (like 360 Fitness, Crossfit MNL or a MMA gym) coz:
1. You will not be bored with your workouts as these gym has no same exercise like chain gyms where you do the same thing over and over again.
2. You will be forced to keep a routine or a gym buddy will beat you in an exhibition competition or a tally board.
3. You are guided by professionals who actually know what you need. That is worth the investment.

Now, this blog post is making me want to enroll in a gym with an actual program. But due to budget concerns, I shall be using groupon deals in the mean time to satisfy my "need" to work out in a gym.

If you share the same concern, check this deal out. P950 for 5 sessions of gym classes and 3 personal training sessions from Cash Cash Pinoy

Member na ako ng Blogs ng Pinoy!!!

Look me up at (,") BLOGS NG PINOY (",), ang directory ng mga blogs na gawa ng Pinoy! Dito, pwede kayong magpalista ng iyong blog (o blogs), at makipaghalubilo sa iba pang mga Pinoy bloggers worlwide!

My 360 Fitness Club Experience

I first read about 360 Fitness Club in an article in Men's Health. According to my vague memory of the article, 360 Fitness Club is a gym that specializes in circuit training.

What interested me the most in that article is the utilization of your time to finish a whole workout within half an hour or 30 minutes. So upon finding out, I searched for the gym's website and scheduled a trial but the venue was in Ortigas and for someone who lives in Makati. It is impractical to join a gym that is out of my way.

In January this year, the company planned to have a branch in Makati but they only opened sometime in October. By that time, I didn't really spend much on gyms as I am now working out at home. So I didn't deemed it necessary to check it out but my friend, Mr. Adobo King urged me to accompany him to do a trial but he was too busy to go with me so last Monday, I did a trial workout with 360 Fitness Club Makati.

It's been a while since I had to go to an actual gym so I used my Men's Health Gym Bag and loaded it with gym clothes and office stuff. I scheduled it at 7:30pm but I was able to get to the gym by 7:00pm and they accomodated me.

The gym is located in the 7th floor, Dolmar Building, Carlos Palanca Street, Legazpi Village, Makati City.

The workout

The work out starts at the stairs leading to the 7th floor.

Then at the front desk, they will had you a key so you could change into your workout clothes. Since, the gym is still new. The locker/shower room is clean and all the bathroom stuff is very new.

After that, they tasked me to fill up a form used to access my fitness level. For unfit people, don't be afraid to answer this form. This is just used to evaluate which level they will put you in.

After filling up the form, they guy in the front desk introduced me to a trainer, Coac FG. He asked me standard questions about where I found out about the gym and their programs and the activities I do. Then, he briefed me about out trial workout.

The workout is a non-stop series of exercises with 20 stations. Each even-numbered station is a station where you need to do strength training exercises. They have different equipments from dumbells, TRX, pushup wheel and kettle bells and even your own body. Also, the even-numbered station has 5 levels, concentration in various aspects of muscle building. While each odd-numbered station are active rest stations where you have to jog in place, jump rope and other low impact cardio movements.

The strengthening stations concentrated on exercises that generally targets a muscle group but works the entire body. I had to do squats, deadlifts, pullups, inverted pushups, pushups, One legged squats, planks and other exercises. I continually worked at each station for 30 seconds, completing a round at 10 minutes. I had to do 3 rounds. Thus, completing a workout at 30 minutes.

After the workout, the coach catered to another customer and I was done. Then, I asked for the rates and asked to come back when I decide to join.

The monthly fees are from P1,700 to 2,700 depending on the length of your membership. It seems costly for a gym that offers a workout that could be done at home. I am interested to join but I'll reconsider this when I get a bigger discount. This gym is a good variant to the usual gym like Gold's and Fitness First that is just a gym where you do your own program.

Run to Build, my first 5k

This may be overdue but like what they say, "Better late than never".

So in this overdue blog post, I shall be telling you about my first 5k experience.

Hotel Kimberly Photo

For quite sometime, I made a goal to join a fun run. I tried to join a friend in a fun run where he ran 5k but I was way too late to join since the registration venue was moved to a farther place.

So later on, another friend told me that he could join me when I wanted to be part of a 5k race. Then, I looked up a race and informed that friend to join this race. My other friend also decided to joined us and we were set to run this 5k race.

Start/Finish Photo

To get ready, I ran every other morning for two weeks. I miss a few days, though.

Race Day

I got up early since my friend and I agreed to meet before 5am. Then, we got there a lot earlier before gun start. It was a good decision since the race attendant apparently gave me a bib for 10k so I got that change.

My first 5k was great. I ran as continually as possible. I only walked for less than 7 minutes.

 My first official personal record

I was thrilled to get a good time finish, get the loot bag, take Facebook pictures and get more freebies. The usual fun run event things.

From then, I was hooked to running and joining fun run events.

Ramblings of a Couch Potato

Today is Saturday and it's raining outside. It's also really windy and (I guess) a typhoon (named Quiel)  is here.

I am a couch potato today.

 

Talking Ben from Google Images

Although, I woke up early to run for 50 minutes at CCP Complex. A new weekly routine that I decided to do as part of my training for the Adidas KOTR Race on October 23, 2011. Then, I ate my breakfast and slept until noon. I woke up to clean the dishes and decided to be a couch potato today.

I had seen my new TV shows namely Whitney, Charlie's Angels, the Secret Circle and the Vampire Diaries. 

 Gilmore Girls from Google Images

Since I seen them, I ran out of things to watch so I am now watching Gilmore Girls.

I planned a few other things, though. But I am too lazy to get them done. I wanted to go to a blood drive in  Mall of Asia. I even posted it in my Facebook Wall and confirmed at the FB activity. But it ends in 5pm and it's now 3:30pm so I am missing it now. I wanted to go boxing too but I wasn't able to schedule a training since the coach I was texting is now in a foreign country. I'll try again next week.

I'll be posting more thing with a lot more sense later.